10,000 Maniacs have come home. The time away was well spent no doubt -- touring in Europe, signing with Elektra, and finally recording their eagerly anticipated album, The Wishing Chair, with folk revivalist Joe Boyd. This album is 10,000 Maniacs consummate--encompassing nine new tracks as well as a virtual regeneration of songs from their previous releases. All in all uniquely crafted by the band and accented by the accomplished Robert Buck on guitar device and Natalie Merchant's poignant, cerebral vocals and lyrics.

After spending the past few years touring almost exclusively on the Eastern seaboard, the sextet from Jamestown, NY, with the enthusiastic support of Elektra, has embarked on their debut national tour, which will include several dates with R.E.M.. Prior to the Maniacs recent performance at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, GA., I was fortunate enough to meet and speak with Natalie Merchant about the band.

Q: The thing that really interests is your lyrics and how they contrast with the music.

A: In the new album, I think there is more of a harmony. The subjects I was choosing were pretty grueling sometimes compared to the light quality of the music. I haven't changed my attitude about writing serious lyrics, but I just tend to use words that are less severe.

Q: I think they are tremendous - personally.

A: (laughs) Thank you.

Q: Unfortunately, I haven't had time to assimilate The Wishing Chair. One thing I did notice was that you wrote two of the songs.

A: The music.

Q: Yes, both the music and the lyrics. Is that something you've wanted to do for a while?

A: Well, I've done a few songs, but I never thought they were good enough.

Q: So it was your own..you were just waiting.

A: Pretty much I would say, "NO NO NO, NOT RECORDING." (both laugh). We used to play some of them live. One was about - I don't know if they do it here, but the war veterans up in New York sell poppies - these paper flowers to raise money for the veterans, for veterans of war. And I met this one man who was really huge, Marine with big tattoos. He was about 65 years old. And I asked him about-no, actually he wasn't a marine, he was in the army-and I asked him about the seizure of Berlin. He said that the Russians had bombed Berlin for two weeks straight. So much that the blood was running out of their ears. And I just asked him if he saw anyone killed and he said "Yea, saw lots." And there was this man who I ordinarily would not think was a killer (both laugh) standing in front of the supermarket selling these little paper flowers. I thought it was so strange. But, the lyrics were geared toward that. The music was kind of basic, so we never recorded it.

Q: Have you been playing Just As the Tide Was a Flowing for a long time?

A: Yes, I'm pretty much obsessed with folk music of the British Isles. That's a Scottish song.

Q: Another song you wrote the music to...

A: Oh, Arbor Day.

Q: Yes, Arbor Day. Everyone I've talked to says it sounds like the old pub drinking song.

A: Yea, when we were in Germany, the kids (Natalie mimics swaying with mug in hand-- we both laugh). It was great.

Q: You went to Germany, I didn't know that.

A: Put us pretty deeply in debt, but we decided we had to go there because we had sold so many records. And we recorded our record in London, so once you are on that side of the world it doesn't cost that much more just to take a ferry boat. We took a ferry to Amsterdam and played through Holland to Germany.

Q: What do you think of the reception the band gets over there as opposed to America?

A: It was really warm.

Q: It was warmer? In Europe?

A: No, it wasn't warmer. We always thought that the German people would be really reserved. In Bochum they were. They would sit and they would just clap when the songs were over. And they'd all stop at the same time (laughs). It was really bizarre and no one was dancing. And when we were done with, they all started kicking their seats together-in unison- instead of cheering. It's a different culture (laughs). But some of the cities, the smaller cities - especially Hamburg, it's a real sort of rough town. It's a port city, a lot of prostitution and drug abuse. I didn't like it that much there.

Q: The choice for the songs that you remixed from earlier releases, Tension

A: Oh, we re-recorded them.

Q: That's entirely different.

A: I even changed the words. I completely changed the lyrics to Planned Obsolescence, but we never released it.

Q: I love that song.

A: I like the new lyrics better. I wish we could record it again. So, you've seen the EP?

Q: I think I have everything you've released, but I haven't listened to your new album much yet.

A: What did you think of the photographs inside? Does that mean we've sold out? (both laugh) We compromised. They could have been on the outside, but we said no.

Q: I think it's a very handsome cover.

A: The only way we could get the lyric sheet was to put our photographs on it. That was the deal because we thought the record would be really naked without people being able to know what the lyrics were.

Q: I like the photographs and the fact you feel it's important to include the lyrics with the music. After the first two albums, I'm interested to know what you're singing about these days.

A: I think that the lyrics are much nobler.

Q: You were talking about the war veteran and I've read interviews where you said you got a lot of pieces or lyrics from diaries that you keep.

A: Well, that's pretty much I just write down what I see and I don't come along three months and say, "I remember that day..." I write it down right then. I write down dialogue or any kind of scene I have right before me. Or, I'll do it at night usually after the day's over. You have to just keep gathering otherwise...I would panic if they decided we had to make our next record and I had to write the lyrics to ten new songs and I had nothing to start from.

Q: I remember talking to Steven (Gustafson, bass player) some time before and he said that you write about four songs a year. (This gets a big laugh from Natalie). Does it take a long time to get stuff together?

A: Well, we've worked at it. We rented a cottage this winter on Lake Chatuaqua near where we live, where Steve lives, and we had a little recording studio there. We practiced more than ever. That's when I wrote Maddox Table and Arbor Day and John wrote Cotton Alley. And then all of the other songs we just refined. I wrote the lyrics to about three of them that I'd been huddling.

Q: I remember seeing you and you'd stop at the end of a songs and you'd sit on the stage and write in this little book (Natalie laughs). I think that's real interesting. I like that.

A: Well, one night we played Chapel Hill and the Violent Femmes came to see us. I don't remember the drummer's name, but I met him about a year later. He said, "You blew me away! You'd sit on the edge of the stage and write the words!" (both laugh) We don't rehearse very much.

Q: I've found that your music - as a whole, the vocals, music and the lyrics - tends to create this feeling, a very sort of displaced feeling. Sort of a dream state.

A: See, when you actually are writing the music, you get so obsessed with the format and the technology and there are just all of these other things that you get. When you actually perform there's the emotion but not as much probably for someone who's hearing it. We're excited about the new material. We play that more than anything.

Q: Does everyone still live at home? Go back to the old house?

A: Except Steve. We still don't make more than seven dollars a day.

Q: Well, I suppose you're pretty close to the rest of us (both laugh).

A: Everyone says, "Wow, you went to Europe, you must really be making money now!" Well, we're in debt several thousand dollars, plus we can't make any salary. But we don't complain because we know that we will exist, that we exist now.

Q: What I gather you're saying is that it'd be nice to make a living, but it's even nicer to be able to make music and enjoy what you're doing and have other people enjoy it as well.

A: You feel kind of like a spoiled child when... if you want to call us artists, I guess we're performers more than artists, but people just take care of you because they like to watch you and listen to you. People take care of us by paying three dollars to come into the club and our parents take care of us. Even the record company feels that now we've got all this family. We go up to the offices in Rockefeller Plaza - it's real intimidating, but I go up to there by myself in my thrift store clothes and my ripped shoes and everyone goes, "Natalie!" and I get hugs and kisses from all the real maternal directors in the art department. The lady in charge of our publicity takes me out to lunch. They just treat me like I'm this precious little darling (laughter). It's just good that we have that rapport with them, that they want to take care of us.

Q: So they're really behind you.