Chicago Tribune - June 19, 1986

10,000 Maniacs Aren't Mad, Just Hoping Someone Listens

by: Stephen W Bell (Associated Press)

There are 10,000 Maniacs in this city of 35,000.

And they're broke but hopeful.

10,000 Maniacs is a rock band. The sextet put out its first major album on Elektra-Asylum Records last May, finished its first video in February and is working on a second Elektra LP. But success has not meant wealth.

"We think Elektra sees us as a long-term project and they're allowing us to build a following," said keyboardist Dennis Drew of the Maniacs' seven- record deal. With their new album, The Wishing Chair, selling between 500 and 1,200 copies a week, the band's members still feel a financial pinch.

"We've been traveling at every opportunity because no one has a job," said guitarist John Lombardo, at 32 the oldest member. "It's almost like the longer we've been in the band the more we've had to divorce ourselves from our worldly possessions. One by one we've all had to sell our cars, move out of our apartments."

They talked about their frustrations in remaining tied to Jamestown -- their hometown -- and as Lombardo put it, "sponging off our families," as they practiced one day on the vaudeville-era stage of Jamestown's Palace Civic Center.

"In so many ways it has been good for us because we've been isolated," said vocalist and lyricist Natalie Merchant, the group's youngest member at 22. "We haven't tried to stay up with the trends or stay ahead of the trends."

"In a way it has helped us explore a lot of ideas," Drew said.

"The music brought us together. We would have had to leave town. So the band has kept us here by binding us to poverty," said Lombardo.

The group, which also includes drummer Jerry Augustyniak, bass player Steve Gustafson and lead guitarist Robert Buck, was formed in 1981 around Halloween. They named themselves after a low-grade, blood-and-gore movie.

While the name may suggest destructiveness, the music is more folkish than freakish.

The group started by playing a circuit of clubs and bars in upstate New York. After a year, they recorded a five-song extended play record, Human Conflict Number Five, on their own label, Christian Burial. They toured the East Coast and Ontario, Canada, working their way through 87 performances in six months and selling their record themselves.

In 1983, the Maniacs recorded Secrets of the I Ching, a 10-song LP, for an unheard-of cost of $500. Their 1985 13-song Elektra album, recorded in London with producer Joe Boyd, was budgeted at more than $100,000, Drew said.

Their efforts paid off, and college radio stations began to notice them. Then John Peel, host of "Music From America" on the British Broadcasting Corp., played I Ching, gaining it a loyal following in England.

The Wishing Chair was recorded last spring with Boyd, whose credits include early work with Pink Floyd and Fairport Convention and the Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange soundtracks. Then it was off on a tour of the Netherlands and Germany before a series of dates last year in the United States, ranging from New York's Irving Plaza Club to the Club Lingerie in Los Angeles.

They were pleased to perform in a New York club. "We were really insecure about it because we thought people were going to take us for hicks," Merchant said.

But Charlie Moore, booking manager at the club, said the night was a success: "I thought their act was a killer. They are only going to get bigger."

The group recently performed at the Bottom Line in New York, and won some good notices from critics.

Merchant grimaces at comparisons to other singers or groups. The band is credited with breaking new ground, with her lyrics nipping at small-town frustrations as well as broader injustices.

"What I saw in the band originally was a unique artistry that affected me and those in the audience in a very positive way," said Elektra vice president Howard Thompson. "They've always come across as a very compelling group to listen to and watch.