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UR004: Natalie Merchant (10,000 Maniacs)
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Natalie Merchant joins the show to discuss both of her appearances on MTV Unplugged back when she was the lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs. Tune in to hear her stories about the band’s very early Unplugged in 1990, their massively popular second episode in 1993 (with special guest David Byrne), and how the process of instrumentally reimagining their songs for the show helped influence creative elements of her solo career. Plus, she tells the amazing story of getting to sing “Because the Night” with Patti Smith at an Ann Arbor bar in 1997 following a memorial service for poet Allen Ginsberg.
If you dig the show, want to share your own Unplugged memories, ask a question, request a show topic, or connect with the pod for any reason, there are a couple ways you can get in touch:
- You can email me at unpluggedrevisited@gmail.com,
- You can reach out on twitter at @unplugged_pod,
- You can leave a voicemail (that’ll maybe get played on the show) by dialing 234-REVISIT (234-738-4748)
Recommended![UR014: Mark Bryan (Hootie and the Blowfish) [1996 MTV Unplugged] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/66ea0b235fcf51d2c9a0b7cd/43cbefc3-777c-4d93-9915-92abd82876d2.jpg)
Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
welcome to unppllu
00:00:10
Speaker
Unplugged. Unplugged. Unplugged. Revisited. Greetings and salutations. Welcome back to Unplugged Revisited, the podcast that celebrates, critiques, and dives deep into the last three and a half decades of MTV Unplugged. I'm your host, music journalist, pop culture anthropologist, and unplugged obsessive, Will Hodge. And man, do I have a stunningly fantastic guest on the show today.
00:00:33
Speaker
Over the years, she's been called both the thinking man's Madonna and the Emily Dickinson of pop. But in my opinion, as a long time and still going strong fan, no fanciful descriptors are necessary. My guest today is the one and only Natalie Merchant.
00:00:54
Speaker
Now, there are any number of places you could know Merchant's wonderful and immediately identifiable voice from. Her 1980s early 90s run as lead singer of College Rock Favorites 10,000 Maniacs.
00:01:12
Speaker
Her mid to late 90s solo alt-pop ubiquity.
00:01:21
Speaker
or the last 20 years of her folk-inspired pop-infused genre-blending records.
00:01:38
Speaker
Or maybe you know her best from her various collaborations with acts like REM, Cowboy Junkies, David Byrne, Wynton Marsalis, Susan McCune, Kronos Quartet, Ladysmith Black Mombazo, or Billy Bragg and Wilco.
Natalie Merchant's MTV Unplugged History
00:01:59
Speaker
But of course, for our purposes today, I'll be focusing on Merchant's connection to MTV Unplugged, which she actually played twice, first in 1990 and again in 93, when she was leading 10,000 Maniacs. Their second appearance is still considered one of the most celebrated entries in the show's entire run, and it generated not only the best-selling record in the Maniac's entire catalog, but also one of the most iconic cover songs of the 1990s.
00:02:32
Speaker
Rhino Records actually just re-released 10,000 Maniac's triple platinum MTV Unplugged album from 93, and even if you were one of the 3 million plus who picked it up the first time around, this expanded reissue is definitely worth checking out, as A, they added in the three cover songs featuring special guest David Byrne as bonus tracks, and B, it finally got pressed to vinyl for the very first time. And not for nothing, the translucent blue pressing is absolutely gorgeous.
00:02:59
Speaker
But before we get into my chat with Merchant, I'd like to take care of a couple quick show notes. First, my sincerest thanks to everyone who tuned in to the first three Unplugged Revisited episodes, my trio of Unplugged 101 explainers covering the show's 35-year history. I'm not a big analytics guy at all, but being able to see not just how many folks have listened, but where everyone is listening from has been so incredibly rewarding.
00:03:22
Speaker
There's naturally been big chunks from the US, the UK, and Canada, but it's insanely cool to see folks checking out the show in places like Australia, Dubai, Sweden, France, Belgium, Finland, Uruguay. Just wow, thank you to everyone who checked those episodes out. I think it's so cool you're connecting with the show.
00:03:40
Speaker
Second, to everyone that has reached out with kind words and their own unplugged stories and memories, I really appreciate the encouragement, feedback, and engagement. If you'd like to share your own unplugged memories, request a show topic, whatever, you can email me at unpluggedrevisited at gmail dot.com or you can call and leave a voicemail at 234-REVISIT. You can also follow the show on Twitter and Instagram, though I am admittedly pretty boring and basic on the socials, so set your expectations to underwhelmed. But really, thanks again for tuning in, especially if this is your first episode. I'm really glad to have you along. Okay, enough of me getting sentimental. Let's get into today's show.
Interview Structure and 10,000 Maniacs Background
00:04:20
Speaker
As far as how I'm going to handle these unplugged revisited episodes that have an artist's interview component, which just as a heads up, today's episode with Natalie is kicking off a really incredible little run of them. So please stay plugged in with the show. I'll be contextualizing each of these interview episodes with something I'm calling the intersection.
00:04:38
Speaker
which will highlight both story threads, where the artist was at in their career and where Unplugged was at in its run when the two cross paths. As I explained in my Unplugged 101 shows, I think most cultural conversations around Unplugged try to cram everything under this very tiny Clapton Carrie Nirvana umbrella, and so many truly great Unplugged moments get lost in that gross reductionism.
00:05:01
Speaker
Platinum albums and Grammy wins are important story points in outlining Unplugged's overall cultural impact, but they're not helpful points of comparison when highlighting all the countless multivariate magical moments that have transpired on the Unplugged stage over the decades.
00:05:16
Speaker
Plus, I think it's really fun to get into the minutia of what made each episode unique by really examining what was happening with a band and positioning what Unplugged was working with at the exact moment of their convergence. It's like, when I was a middle schooler in the early 90s, our version of Beatles vs. Stones was of course Pearl Jam vs. Nirvana, and countless lunchroom battles were litigated over which of the two had the quote-unquote better Unplugged episode.
00:05:40
Speaker
While so many of my friends were drawing hard lines on each side, I was the Swiss middle ground vying for that special apples to oranges individualities that made each performance uniquely important and equally brilliant. So that's the genesis and purpose of the intersection. That being said, anytime an artist played the show twice, there's going to be two intersections to discuss. So let's jump in and get everyone up to speed on Natalie Merchant, 10,000 Maniacs, and their two appearances on MTB Unplugged.
00:06:08
Speaker
The band we know and love is Ten Thousand Maniacs first emerged from Jamestown, New York in 1981 out of a different group called Still Life. And while Ten Thousand Maniacs is still active to this very day and has had a plethora of band members and touring musicians cycle through its ranks over the last five decades, I think it's incredibly cool to note that three of its founding members, keyboardist Dennis Drew, bassist Steve Gustafson, and on and off again guitarist John Lombardo, are still playing with the current iteration.
00:06:36
Speaker
drummer Jerry Agostiniak joined shortly after in 1983 and he's still in the band as well. I should also note that founding guitarist Rob Buck was still in the band at the time of his untimely death in late 2000 as well. Also in this proto-maniac's version of Still Life was a 17-year-old community college student named Natalie Merchant. She was originally just on background vocals but all that changed in the summer of 81 when Still Life's lead vocalist and drummer left the band Natalie was promoted to lead vocals, and the group changed their name to 10,000 Maniacs, playing their first show under that soon-to-be household name in early September. Alright, some lightning round year by year highlights of their rise to college rock radiance. In early 1982, they independently released their first self-funded EP, Human Conflict No. 5, and briefly relocated from New York to Atlanta.
00:07:32
Speaker
The move only lasted about six months, though, and they'd be back in Jamestown by November. In 83, they independently released their first full-length album, titled Secrets of the I Ching, started impacting college radio, and even garnered a pretty high-profile fan and legendary BBC DJ John Peel, who introduced UK audiences to the band's first single, My Mother the War, and sparked enough interest for them to get invited over for an early run of UK shows.
00:08:09
Speaker
By the end of 1984, they'd scored their first major label deal and signed with Elektra Records. At the time, that made them roster mates with bands like Motley Crue and Metallica. But they ended up being on the front end of Elektra signing some of the most unique college rock and alternative acts of the 80s and 90s, like The Cure, Tracy Chapman, Sugar Cubes, Pixies, Brand Nubian, and they might be Giants, just to name a few.
00:08:31
Speaker
1985 saw the release of their major label debut, The Wishing Chair, which was produced by Joe Boyd. Throughout the 60s and 70s, Boyd had worked with acts like Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Nico, and Richard and Linda Thompson. And just a few months prior to working with 10,000 Maniacs, he had produced another College Rock classic, REM's gloriously Southern Gothic flavored LP, Fables of the Reconstruction.
00:09:00
Speaker
87 proved to be a huge breakthrough year for 10,000 Maniacs due to the success of their In My Tribe record. It was their first album to land on the Billboard 200 and featured their first two charting singles. Their breakthrough hit like The Weather and the alt-rock radio Top 10 What's The Matter here.
00:09:23
Speaker
During this period, the band also toured with REM and started popping up all over television, not only on MTV, but also The Tonight Show, Letterman, and Saturday Night Live. Ladies and gentlemen, 10,000 maniacs. In 1989, they continued to build on their pop cultural momentum with the release of Blind Man's Zoo, which became a top 20 album in both the US and the UK thanks to their back-to-back hits, Trouble Me and Eat for Two.
00:09:56
Speaker
The band was also doing an incredibly admirable job of bridging their college rock cred with their growing mainstream exposure. You are as equally likely to see them playing the Animal Rights Music Festival or the Cambridge Folk Festival as you were catching
10,000 Maniacs' Social Themes and MTV Unplugged Performances
00:10:10
Speaker
them on Arsenio or Letterman. Here's how NBC anchor Maria Shriver described them for her Sunday Today audiences in October 89.
00:10:17
Speaker
a beguiling rock folk band from upstate New York. Their repertoire is a virtual litany of social issues put to music. Poverty, child abuse, teenage pregnancy, Nicaragua. In some ways, the Maniacs are an unlikely success story, but successful they are. 1989 was also the year of 10,000 Maniacs' first intersection with MTV Unplugged, which was literally in its infancy when it and the band first crossed paths.
00:10:43
Speaker
As you may recall from my trio of Unplugged 101 explainer episodes, or just, you know, from real life, MTV Unplugged aired its pilot episode with Squeeze and Sid Straw on November 26, 1989. 10,000 Maniacs filmed their episode just a couple of weeks later during a two-day marathon filming session that captured eight bands being paired together for the show's first four official episodes.
00:11:07
Speaker
Since Unplugged was originally conceived as a two-act, share-one-episode kind of thing, the first day of filming, December 14th, featured the Smitherines and Graham Parker doing an episode, followed by 10,000 Maniacs being paired off with singer-songwriter Michael Penn, best known for his Beatles-esque top 20 hit, No Myth.
00:11:33
Speaker
Penn performed two songs, No Myth and Brave New World, both accompanied by Patrick Warren on xylophone and piano. 10,000 Maniacs ended up filming four songs, What's the Matter Here, Gun Shy and City of Angels, all from their 87 album In My Tribe, as well as Dust Bowl from their recently released follow-up Blind Man Zoo. Here's a little snippet of that from the show.
00:12:11
Speaker
Ever the innovators, 10,000 Maniacs were also the first band to bring guest musicians into their Unplugged set as they invited the Emmaus House Choir to sing with them on City of Angels. The 10,000 Maniacs Michael Penn Unplugged episode was broadcast on February 5th, 1990 as only the second official episode of the show. And so far, it has never been officially released in any capacity.
00:12:34
Speaker
But just to assure you that you've landed on the right island of Misfit toys, here's another clip from that episode. Natalie and the Maniacs doing What's the Matter here.
00:12:51
Speaker
The second and more well-known intersection between 10,000 Maniacs and MTV Unplugged occurred during the show's fourth season in 1993. At the time, Unplugged was experiencing one of its highest peaks of cultural popularity, as a few of the prior year's episodes, namely Eric Clapton and Mariah Carey, had escaped the bounds of television to generate bonafide radio hits, platinum selling albums, and even a few Grammy Awards. Expectations were high going into Unplugged's 1993 season, and 10,000 Maniacs ended up being one of the bands largely responsible for impressively continuing to build on the platforms of the moment's successes and also further cementing its creative legacy. Leading up to their second unplugged appearance, the Maniacs were riding an even higher wave of mainstream renown than the first time around. The September 92 release of their Our Time and Eden record was incredibly well received and delivered back-to-back top 10 alternative radio hits, including their very first number one with These Are Dales.
00:13:56
Speaker
During this 92-93 period, it was getting even easier to catch the band on TV as well. Alongside their heavy rotation video for These Are Days on MTV, you could also have seen them once again making the late night talk show rounds. over the years our next guests have made some wonderful appearances on this program and we couldn't be luckier for it ladies and gentlemen please
00:14:18
Speaker
Ian graduating to the morning show circuit with shows like The Today Show and Regis and Kathie Lee. She and the rest of her band have a new album now called Our Time in Eden, which already has gone gold. And here she is, the lead singer from 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant.
00:14:34
Speaker
They also made an amazing return trip to SNL. <unk> won't you join me this halloween when i host saturday night live with musical guest ten thousand yan will be that too i bet you can't guess who we are MTV was very much on a maniac's kick as well, inviting the band to play both their MTV drops the ball New Year's Eve show with Arrested Development, Boyz II Men, Spin Doctors, and Alice in Chains.
00:14:56
Speaker
and also their rock and roll inaugural ball celebrating Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration and MTV's high-profile partnership with the Rock the Vote voter registration campaign. Please welcome Chelsea's favorite band, Ten Thousand Maniacs. That's the show where the band invited REM frontman Michael Stipe to sing with them on a cover of Lulu's To Serve With Love and a joyous horn-fueled romp through their own candy everybody wants.
00:15:28
Speaker
Hearing Natalie and Michael sing together on so many different songs over the years is genuinely one of my hands down favorite vocal combinations of all time. Can you imagine what a full duet style album would sound like from those two magical beings? Forgive the digression, but here's another track from that era featuring them both, this time Natalie singing with REM on a song called Photograph from the amazing born to choose reproductive rights benefit compilation.
00:16:00
Speaker
So within all of that whirlwind, in April of 1993, 10,000 Maniacs showed up to Sony Music Studios to film their second Unplugged episode, slash, unleash one of the greatest performances of their entire career. Unplugged was still capturing multiple episodes within the same sessions, and in this case, they filmed Midnight Oil and the First Spoken Word episode on April 20th, and the 10,000 Maniacs and Soul Asylum episodes on April 21st.
00:16:28
Speaker
With both the band and the show having experienced some significant growth since the last time they crossed paths, 10,000 Maniacs really pulled out all the stops for their return to the unplugged stage. Many of the quintessential unplugged hallmarks, an inspired setlist of reimagined originals and inventive covers, an expanded instrumental palette, an unannounced special guest would all be present and in my opinion perfected during their standout set. Let me hit a few highlights on each of those characteristics real quick.
00:16:56
Speaker
The Set List. One of the things I really love about the Unplugged platform is that it provides artists the opportunity to craft a really unique one-off set list from a variety of different angles. You can recontextualize your catalog, show off cool corners of your musicality, do multi-decade career retrospectives, deep dive the blues, whatever you can dream up.
00:17:17
Speaker
10,000 Maniacs approached building their Unplugged setlist by taking the string of well-known hits and deeper fan favorites from their three most recent records and refashioning them into new sonic spaces. For example, here's a snippet of the propulsive album version of their top 20 single Eat for Two from Blind Man Zoo.
00:17:43
Speaker
versus how they slinked out the groove for their unplugged version by completely reorienting the song around a serpentine cello riff.
00:18:00
Speaker
Or the way Merchant's voice is given a new set of unencumbered wings on Jezebel by removing the full band guitar bass drums underpinning from the Our Time in Eden album version
00:18:19
Speaker
to spotlight the nowhere to hide melodic clarity of only a piano, cello, violin, and viola.
00:18:31
Speaker
And then, of course, there's the matter of how they chose to spice up their setlist with the prerequisite unplugged cover song. Now, in my opinion, Ten Thousand Maniacs has always been a band that knows precisely how to select a killer cover song.
00:18:46
Speaker
Over the years, they've absolutely nailed covers of Morrissey's Every Days Like Sunday, Tom Waits' is I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You, REM's Don't Go Back to Rockville, John Prines' Hello in There, and Jackson Brown's These Days, just to name a few. But for Unplugged, well, they somehow managed to top their already impressive precedent.
00:19:20
Speaker
Even 30 years later, what's left to be said about 10,000 Maniac's unplugged cover of the Bruce Springsteen-pinned Patti Smith popularized Because of the Night, that A, hasn't already been said by smarter music journalists, or B, could somehow improve upon the experience of just ingesting the song itself into your innermost being. I mean, come on, every single second of the song's 3 minute and 44 second runtime somehow feels imbued with divine musical intoxicants. The way the cello and viola apparate like ghosts around that opening piano riff, the way its signature four-hit motif that runs throughout the chorus is somehow delivered in lockstep precision without ever sounding bloodless.
00:20:01
Speaker
The way almost a dozen instrumentalists somehow restrain the urge to overplay and instead leave incredible room for each other. The way every single snare crack somehow drives the band with, I don't know, is delicate aggression too much of an oxymoron to even make sense? And then there's Natalie delivering each line, each word, like rent was due yesterday. It's a flawless example of a singer really getting inside of a song's universe and seemingly having a blast while doing so.
00:20:28
Speaker
Next time you come across a video of this performance, and I'm sure it's on YouTube, you should definitely go check it out again sometime soon. Watch for the little mic stand elbow cock she does going into the second chorus, totally unabashed rockstar 101 move, and I'm here for it every time she does it. They did a few other covers that night, more on those in just a minute, but because the night was unquestionably the standout moment, both visually and musically, from their second unplugged.
00:21:01
Speaker
The song got its own stand-alone music video on MTV. It was released as a radio single and charted across three different formats, mainstream pop, alternative rock, and adult contemporary, and it unquestionably fueled the lion's share of helping their MTV Unplugged album go triple platinum, which is still the best-selling offering of their entire catalog.
00:21:21
Speaker
Thanks to having a couple multi-instrumentalists within its ranks, the band was already known for its eclectic sonic palette, but they decided to really expand their instrumental options for Unplugged by inviting along almost a dozen guest musicians to contribute piano, cello, mandolin, pump organ, violin, viola, banjo, bassoon, percussion, and more. But instead of it being an off-skate, they cleverly seasoned each song with just the right mixture of players and parts.
00:21:49
Speaker
Not only did this really help each song pop with its own instrumental alchemy, but it also provided a really cool visual component as the show unfolded. For example, the show kicked off with the song Noah's Dove, even though if you're more familiar with the album, that's the last song of the track listing there.
00:22:05
Speaker
and it begins with just Natalie on piano and the other four maniacs strewn across the stage with multiple empty chairs and stools between them. It's a very cool visual of what's special when it's just the band themselves and also a nice little tease to let you know there's a lot more on the way. As the show rolls on, mandolin, percussion, piano, and a background vocalist join in on These Are Days A cello and not one but two bassoons ominously underscore the sinister injustice of I'm Not the Man, Jezebel is reinterpreted through just a quartet of piano and strings, and Stocktown Gallaudet's absolutely takes flight with extra guitar, banjo, and a soaring violin.
00:22:53
Speaker
By the time they get to because of the night, there are actually more guest musicians than maniacs on stage, but the one night only collective are so locked in that it seems like they had been playing together for years. The Special Guest At this point in Unplugged's creative arc, the surprise special guest component was still in its early stages.
00:23:12
Speaker
Rod Stewart's episode where he brought out Ronnie Wood had just been recorded that February, but it wouldn't air until a couple weeks after 10,000 Maniacs recorded their show. Soul Asylum brought out 60s pop icon Lulu to join them onto Sir With Love, but that show was being recorded the exact same day as the Maniacs. Nirvana wouldn't be recorded until later in the year. Tony Bennett was the following year. We were still a couple years away from Melissa Etheridge bringing out Springsteen or Kiss bringing out Ace and Peter. You get the point.
00:23:41
Speaker
So when 10,000 Maniacs invited David Byrne on stage to join them for a few songs, it was genuinely a really fun surprise. The former Talking Heads frontman had just left his iconic band about a year and a half prior, and his most recent solo album, 1992's Uh-Oh, was a really innovative Brazilian-Cuban-inspired dance-pop album, which did generate the alt-rock top 5 hit She's Mad, but didn't really impact the mainstream pop music scene that substantially.
00:24:09
Speaker
He ended up singing and playing guitar on three cover songs with the Maniacs. Iris DeMintz Let the Mystery Be, Dolly Parton's Jolene, and Jimmy Dale Gilmore's Dallas.
Natalie Merchant's Career Transition
00:24:34
Speaker
Curiously enough, the three songs didn't completely make the TV broadcast, were kept off the album entirely, and only appeared in full on the VHS release. Thankfully, that's been remedied with this year's expanded reissue of the album, as Burns' trio of covers with the band now appear in full on the reissued CD and debut vinyl versions. And now for the O. Henry twist.
00:24:55
Speaker
In music news, singer Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs College Rock's most collegiate band is leaving that group after 12 years. MTV News spoke to Merchant about the split on Thursday at a recording studio in Laidback Woodstock, New York, where she's mixing the band's album version of their recent MTV Unplugged performance.
00:25:12
Speaker
That's right, between the summer 93 broadcast of the 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged episode and the October 93 release of the Because the Night hit single and soon to be triple platinum album, Natalie Merchant announced her departure from the band to embark on a solo career.
00:25:28
Speaker
Now, I should clarify that's when she publicly announced it. She had actually notified her band back before they even started recording Our Time in Eden in the summer of 91. So it had to be somewhat of a bittersweet moment for both Natalie and the band to see the increasingly great reception to Our Time in Eden and the monster performance they delivered on Unplugged, all under the shadow of it being not a celebrated leveling up, but instead the final hurrah of this iconic iteration of the band.
00:25:56
Speaker
However, both camps seemed to have endured that seismic shift and stride. For their part, the band continued on with new vocalist Mary Ramsey, who actually recorded violin and viola on Our Time in Eden and can be seen and heard playing viola and singing on their Unplugged. Ramsey's first album as lead singer with the band was 1997's Love Among the Ruins, which generated a Top 30 radio hit with their cover of Roxy Music's More Than This.
00:26:32
Speaker
Since that time, they've continued to release a handful of studio and live albums. They actually just reissued their 2016 live album, Playing Favorites, for Record Store Day earlier this year. And they're still touring. They even have a few more West Coast shows you can catch them on before the end of the year.
00:26:48
Speaker
Merchant, of course, went on to be one of the most popular alt-pop solo artists of the late 90s. Her 95s solo debut Tiger Lily went five times platinum on the strength of a trio of monster hit singles, Carnival, Wonder, and Jealousy.
00:27:12
Speaker
In 1998, her platinum-selling follow-up Ophelia actually charted slightly better than Tiger Lily and spawned another big radio hit with Kind and Generous.
00:27:29
Speaker
She remained a huge presence on MTV and VH1, all over television actually, and was a huge presence on the Lilith Fair scene. In the 2000s, Merchant made a significant swerve from the pop music arena to focus more on her love of traditional folk music. The move began with her involvement on the 1998 Mermaid Avenue record, the Billy Bragg Wilco collaborative album of unfinished Woody Guthrie
00:28:03
Speaker
And when she took Wilco out as the opener on her 2000 solo tour. Since then, she's released a handful of celebrated folk-inspired albums, Motherland, The House Carpenter's Daughter, Leave Your Sleep, and even masterfully reworked the songs from her Tiger Lily album on her 2015 record Paradise Is There.
00:28:31
Speaker
Her most recent release is 2023's Keep Your Courage, a gorgeous quasi-concept album dealing with themes of love, loneliness, feminism, sisterhood, mythology, connection, and the lack thereof, using a variety of cultural figures and references as entry points. Mythological characters like Aphrodite and Narcissus can be found in the song titles, references to Buffy St. Marie, Walt Whitman, and even Led Zeppelin can be found in the lyrics, and a picture of Joan of Arc emblazoned the cover art.
00:29:09
Speaker
The songs on Keep Your Courage
Interview with Natalie Merchant Begins
00:29:11
Speaker
were written in the aftermath of Merchant experiencing a harrowing health scare in 2019 involving a degenerative spine condition whose surgery kept her from being able to sing for almost a year. Then the pandemic happened, which impacted the album's songwriting and recording as well. However, since the release of Keep Your Courage, Merchant has been able to fully return to the stage, touring significantly throughout 2023 and 2024.
00:29:35
Speaker
Even during our chat, she was prepping to perform at an upcoming Get Out the Vote rally in Ithaca. And as you'll hear, she's got a few other projects in the works as well. So without further ado, here's my chat with Natalie Merchant about both times she played MTV Unplugged and a few other things. Today, I am beyond stoked to be chatting with Natalie Merchant about both of her appearances on MTV Unplugged with her former band Ten Thousand Maniacs. So thank you so much for being here today, Natalie. I appreciate it. Thank you, Will. Pleasure to be here with you.
00:30:05
Speaker
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. um Before we get into your hugely popular 93 episode, I'd like to actually start with the band's first unplugged appearance all the way back at the very beginning of the first season. So do you remember at all how that early unplugged invite first came to the band in 1989 and how the show's format was kind of pitched to you? No, miss I don't. The thing I remember most distinctly was that we had a song called City of Angels that I wrote about Los Angeles and the homeless crisis there. And I at that time was working in a homeless shelter in, was actually a preschool within a shelter, which was for families. And um through that, I had met someone who, I can't remember who it was, who was the liaison for me, but he had a choir made up of currently and former homeless people called the Emmaus House Choir.
00:31:04
Speaker
And I actually invited them to sing with me on the song. That's the thing that I remember about the first MTV Unplugged. And then it also was in a minor studio in the MTV building, like off in a corner somewhere that it was just something that wasn't that important. It was like, oh, we're trying this new thing, but ah probably no one will care about it. It was kind of the the feeling that I remember being in the room.
00:31:31
Speaker
to that point to kind of set the timing. When you guys did show up to record in mid-December of 89, only one episode of Unplugged had even been broadcast at that point, just a pilot episode with um Squeeze and Sid Straw. Was not having any precedent or expectations, was that more freeing to you all or was that stressful in any sort of way?
00:31:52
Speaker
I don't remember feeling at all. It actually felt very relaxed. I do remember that. And I also remember I didn't dress up for it. I wore a pair of trousers.
00:32:04
Speaker
And ah glass i just I remember that too. Most of the television performances we were able to do around that time were big variety shows or talk shows. So it would be um and ah an audience of 30 million and you had to cut your song down to under three minutes and um you would sandwiched in between movie stars and comedians and I don't know, animal acts. It would be going on the Jay Leno show after a chimpanzee once.
00:32:33
Speaker
wow between the chimpanzee and Pamela Anderson. So it was it was refreshing to actually have the time and space to to play our songs in full and have a little bit of creative control, a little bit of creative control.
00:32:48
Speaker
Oh, that that's so interesting to hear you use the word relaxed. Because one of the things I was curious about is when y'all were recording your session, they were actually trying to capture eight bands for four episodes in just a two day window of filming. So that's cool to hear that the vibe was relaxed, that it wasn't just everybody looking at their watches and being like, all right, come on, we got seven more bands, we got to get in. But ah we're talking.
00:33:12
Speaker
How long ago is that? 35 years ago. yeah oh um My memories aren't that specific. That makes sense. I remember what I wore. yeah and i remember I remember going to rehearse with the choir at the Emmaus house.
00:33:26
Speaker
That's amazing, yeah. I remember seeing y'all's episode when it aired in February of 90. I probably saw a rerun at some point because MTV was awesome about rerunning those. Selfishly, I did want to ask, do you think there's ever a chance that we would see a physical release of that first unplugged, maybe like a limited edition 10 inch for record store day or something like that? I have no
Vinyl Releases and Future Prospects
00:33:48
Speaker
idea. I don't know if they even saved it.
00:33:51
Speaker
Right. Yeah. ah Every episode of Unplugged, I'm always like, hey, can we try to get this put out on vinyl especially? But with those, they'd be having to to pull from the old tapes. They weren't even multi-track recording. So it'd be interesting to hear how it sounded. It's interesting right now. I'm in this kind of. a vortex of 10,000 maniacs. um We just released MTV Unplugged a few months ago on vinyl. Someone let me know that that happened. I didn't even know it was going to happen. and the Just last week, Rhino
00:34:22
Speaker
ah records asked if I'd be interested in helping to put together a package of rarities and all the albums except MTV Unplugged in an LP release, a box set. Oh, amazing. I've been scanning old photographs and reading old liner notes and and then I got the call that you wanted to do this. I feel i feel like I'm being ambushed by my past right You're like, hold on, where's all this coming from? oh this This feels like ancient history to me, but sure sure you know from this perspective point to look back, and it's interesting.
00:34:57
Speaker
I'm already incredibly excited about that box set that you're just at the beginning stages of even putting together. So very cool. Okay. Well, awesome. Well, let's move ahead a few years and get into your wildly enjoyable, massively popular 93 unplug. So there are a couple of interesting storylines that were crashing together at the time of your second unplugged.
00:35:17
Speaker
First, both your band and Unplugged had both really leveled up since the last time you crossed paths. Our Time and Eden had back-to-back hit singles and y'all were all over TV with Letterman and SNL and ah MTV's inaugural ball for Clinton. Unplugged was riding high on the Eric Clapton and Mariah Carey albums and radio hits. But the other storyline is that you and your band knew that you'd soon be leaving to start your solo career, even though that hadn't been publicly announced yet.
00:35:46
Speaker
Can you describe that mixture of emotions swirling around during the late 92, early 93 period for you in the band? It was actually a really beautiful moment for 10,000 Maniacs. We'd worked hard for 11 years and we were reaping the benefits. My leaving the band was very orderly and compassionate, actually. and I was living in New York City and commuting six and a half hours to to be with the band.
00:36:15
Speaker
for all the pre-production rehearsals and everything and I just told them my life has changed and I ah want to go live where I live and i want to I want to write my own songs and this was a really wonderful way to learn how to do all this stuff but I don't feel like I can do it in this framework anymore and They accepted it and I promised to finish the album and finish the tour. And then we happened to get the 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged record on top of the success of our time in Eden. So we had known that there was an expiration date for my involvement in the band for almost two years, but we stepped on stage for Unplugged. So there was no high drama going on, but I remember cutting my hair a couple of weeks before.
00:37:07
Speaker
And when I look back at it, my main response to it was, oh, look how thin I was. And I and i had short hair. I just looked like a completely different person. Yeah, I remember that was one of the things me and my middle school friends talked about was the haircut. It was like, oh, this is this is like a ah new look and everything. and And at that point, we didn't know about the the leaving piece. So it didn't necessarily feel like it was a coming out party as much as, you know, that sort of got framed as later. But yeah, that's so interesting that you cut your hair right before that. I was looking for change. I was really looking for a change.
00:37:39
Speaker
Yeah. A lot of the Hallmark characteristics that Unplugged would become known for, playing with this expanded instrumental palette, surprise special guests, special one-off cover songs. Your episode was very much on the front end of a lot of those innovations. What was sort of inspiring and driving those creative ideas as y'all first started discussing what you wanted to accomplish with your second Unplugged? I look back at this as the moment when I started to innovate.
00:38:08
Speaker
and as far as arrangements were concerned. And I mean, by the by virtue of being acoustic, it was already changing the arrangements. But I remember we did um we did have, ah was it but a bassoon duo or a trio? You had two bassoons, yeah. And we had strings and we had woodwinds. And it was, we'd done a little experimentation with those instruments on albums, but never live, other than via viola. We really didn't do a live performance like that. And and when we did, i I'm Not the Man,
00:38:40
Speaker
I think was, yeah, I'm not the man. Did we do Eat For Two with the... Yes, yeah. Eat For Two, that's where y'all took the riff and kind of spotlighted the cello. It really feels like y'all even repositioned the rhythmic center of that song and kind of put a light on the cello. Knowing that that was my first time performing like that and everything that I've done since, I mean, I've done about 80 full orchestral performances now in the last 10 years and leave your sleep. I made a record that was with 135 different musicians and every song was in a different style of music. We had um Paul Fox producing this for us and helping to find musicians and going over arrangements with us. And this was my first foray into that sort of
00:39:31
Speaker
instrumentation and it's just really interesting to look back on it now with all the experience I've had since because I produced most of my records since I left 10,000 Maniacs and learned to do all the things that Paul was doing yeah for us at that moment.
00:39:46
Speaker
I love hearing you talk about we we see the 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged album as this sort of like final chapter of your time with the band. But I love hearing you talk about it as also setting the seeds and and stepping into your solo career. It's so cool that there's not like, you know, some sort of hard cut between the two. I love that there's that blending. That's beautiful. I just remember how thrilled I was to be playing with so many different musicians.
00:40:10
Speaker
all the the new energy and the proficiency, the musicality that was brought by all the different players. That was something that I found really exciting. yeah and we When we did our time in Eden, we had the J.B. Horns. right the James Brown Horns came and played with us with Maciel Parker and Pee Wee.
00:40:30
Speaker
that and playing with different string players over the years on records. I don't know, it was just a, for me it was sort of a vision of the future. What might be possible for me when I became a solo artist because I would have, I couldn't do it all by myself. yeah I wasn't going to put out albums of my bad piano playing and singing. I would have to collaborate with other musicians and it was just so exciting to meet all these new musicians.
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, I will say even with how you're talking, there may be some connections there. When you put out Paradise is there that that sort of rerecording of the Tiger Lily songs, it felt like there was such that unique creative vision to be able to be like, here's songs that I've presented one way, you know, that were super big hits on multi platinum albums that people really know, and there's still a way to recontextualize them to create almost like this equally meaningful, equally impressive alternate version you know of those same songs. And I think sometimes as audience members, we may take that for granted that just any musician has the ability to do that, but it's really not. there you know like Some people try and don't do very well at it, and then but some people really seem to, like yourself, have have the ability to get in and reimagine a different framing for for what these songs can do.
00:41:46
Speaker
When I redid Tiger Lily for Paradise is there, it was because other people badgered me to do it. I did' i really didn't see any reason to make that record. But what happened was I'd done these orchestral arrangements and quartet arrangements of the songs and been performing them for years.
00:42:03
Speaker
And there was no record of that. And that was the main reason I wanted to do that revisitation. But when you listen to MTV Unplugged, the oldest song that we were doing of our own, Reimagining, it was seven years. When I did Paradise Is There, I was looking at songs that I'd been living with for 20 years. Yeah, 20 years. That's true. Yeah. I think also we were a really young band when we recorded in my tribe.
00:42:29
Speaker
And I think we always felt like they were songs that we had written in a hurry. and recorded in a hurry and that then we lived with them for years. And it was great to be able to go back and play them with all that experience. That's true. Yeah. That's such a good point. And it's also the songs that people had heard on the radio for years. so So being able to kind of reintroduce them and and refashion them in ways as such. That has to be fun for an artist who's like, hey, you know, we've heard these songs, we played these songs, so so let's do something new with it. I really do think that one of the things that makes the second Unplugged You All did so, so impressive is that you brought in all these extra musicians, but it wasn't just ornamental. It felt like everybody was doing what they were supposed to in every song, and if they weren't going to be added to a song, then then they didn't play on it. you know like You only had people come in, and some of them only played on one or two songs. and so Was that something that you that you all worked out in those pre-production rehearsals as well? like did Did you try like, hey, let's have a bassoon on every single song and see what it sounds like? Or was it just like, oh no, this only sounds good here. well to all bazoon That was the alternate version. my vision for un blood
00:43:42
Speaker
That's your next album, Wall to Wall Bassoons. Are we the only unplugged with a bassoon? or do We have two bassoons. I bet we're the only unplugged with two bassoons. Yeah, I was about to say, even if somebody had one, I'm pretty sure you're the only one with two, for sure. I think that it seemed pretty obvious which songs needed bassoon. And I'm sure the bassoons were my idea. Oh, nice. Yeah. Okay. It was an instrument that I love and decided that would be really the perfect um arrangement for that song.
00:44:10
Speaker
I think it's so cool even just because one of the things that I always try to underscore sometimes when people think about MTV Unplugged, they think about all the albums that came out of it. And you almost sometimes have to remind people like no, like this was a television show. The visual component was an important piece as well. And that's one of the things I love about the VHS that that you all put out back in the day.
00:44:31
Speaker
When the show starts with Noah's Dove and it's like you sitting at the piano and the other maniacs are on stage with you, but there's all these empty chairs, like everybody's kind of spread out. So it's almost like you have this visual fun little clue of like, oh no, at some points in the show, this stage is going to be filled up. Yeah. But right now, like it's just the five of us. I thought that was such a cool thing as well. Was I playing piano? Yeah. On Noah's Dove, you played piano. Yeah. My goodness. That must have been harrowing.
00:44:59
Speaker
I am not, I don't play piano in public very much. I i totally forgot that I did that. Yeah. Yeah. That was abe of a little Natalie to do that. Exactly. Pat yourself on the back. Yeah. That was a brave move. Yeah. And it, and it turned out incredible. I mean, that's a, that's a beautiful version and it's funny cause it kicks off the VHS, but I think it's the last song on the original album, at least. the new reissue you all did, you know, has the three bonus songs. Yeah, it was moved to the end of the track list on the album, but it kicks off the visual component. And yeah, I think it's just an incredible move because then you kind of start seeing then people come in and out and it's really great. There's a reason that Y'all's Unplugged is always included on all of the best of lists every time when people trot them out. And not just for Because of the Night, it was literally the whole set. You really struck it with this one. That's good to know because it was the last thing that we did together. Yeah. yeah it's ah there's ah as As we were kind of saying before, there's no better way to gracefully exit a band than then give them two multi-platinum albums back to back in very quick succession with each other just like you know a year apart. so When I was looking back at the um musicians who were involved in it, I saw Jane Scarpentone, who I ended up, did my TED Talk with.
00:46:10
Speaker
years later. And even Richie Stearns, who ended up playing on House Carpenter's Daughter, which was my acoustic folk record. And then he played with me on um Leave Your Sleep. And actually he's playing with me Friday night when I was doing a fundraiser and a rally for a congressional candidate in Ithaca. And that's where Richie lives. And we also just did a show at the Library of Congress. So um some of the people that I met through doing this, like like Jane, but also the relationship with Richie has been ongoing ever since.
00:46:46
Speaker
His banjo on Stocktown Galladay's is just, it's amazing. It really lifts that song. I actually weirdly enough played cello in middle school, which at the time that I started playing cello, it certainly wasn't, you know, for any sort of street cred or any cool points, but cello really did start having a moment in alt rock that I think not only definitely y'alls unplugged, helped to initiate that. But Jane especially, I mean, she was on World Leader Pretend on REM's green album. And then of course, yeah, Hips and Makers with Kristen Hirsch. Jane is just, she was all over the place. And her playing with Ray Lamontagne. That's right. Yeah, she played. Yeah, multiple albums. Yeah. So the musicians that you all picked to augment your sound for Unplugged, everywhere you looked around, you had Bill Dylan on acoustic as well. You know, it was real big, Joni Mitchell, Sarah McLaughlin, all that. And Joey Marotta.
00:47:38
Speaker
That's right, on percussion, I forgot. did peter gabriel for years I should devote a companion episode to just everybody else that was on stage, the the honorary maniacs for that show. Well, that was part of it too, not just the instruments that were added, but the players. And it was sort of started expanding my world as a musician. It's been pretty insular as a band.
00:48:04
Speaker
It's so funny because when you listen to that second Unplugged, it almost feels like that how sort of tight and locked in the band is that you have been playing with all these players for years because it's it's so impressive. I think that the sort of clever and judicious use of all those instrumentalists is really impressive as well. It wasn't just an everybody in the pool on every song sort of thing because another arrangement I wanted to ask you about that I think is just a standout that doesn't get talked enough about is that strings and piano quartet version of Jezebel. Do you remember how that sort of stripped down like no band version came to be? Because the album version, of course, you know, has drums and everything on it. But who who sort of sparked that smaller piano and strings quartet version? That might have been me.
00:48:53
Speaker
We'll give you credit for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a very beautiful arrangement. I remember my friend Jason in London wrote the arrangement. So yeah, I must have had something to do with it because I picked the arrangement.
00:49:08
Speaker
Okay, cool, cool. And then as a bookish little library nerd of a middle schooler, I also love the readings you did in front of Hey Jack Kerouac and Gold Rush Brides. Is that something you had done in concert before or was that original to your Unplugged as well? I think that um I'd never done that before. I was just trying to give both of those songs some context. I don't remember the book that I read from for Gold Rush Brides, but it was an anthology of memoirs and and diaries and writings and letters from women who had made the trek across the United States in the late 19th century. Yeah, that's for anybody that wants to check it out. That's ah Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey. And the reason I know that is because I literally asked my middle school librarian if we had that. Oddly enough, we didn't have that in the Atlanta public school system. But she did get it from the county library and put it on hold for me there. That's great. I love when that happens.
00:50:08
Speaker
I remember that happened to me when I heard Biko by Peter Gabriel. I went to the library to look up Biko and that's how I found out about apartheid. Oh, wow. Yes. When I was 14, 15 years old. Oh, that's amazing. Librarians are i mean just some of our national treasures, absolutely.
00:50:27
Speaker
So, so when did having David Byrne as your special guest, when, when did that start coming into the picture and and how did y'all decide on the three cover songs y'all did? Well, I'd known Yael Evelov who started L'Auqaba records, which was the world music record that label that David Byrne started. They started it together. I'd known him since 1987, 88. They shared an office together and I would often go to see Yael and then David would be there and So we'd met, and I think we'd been to dinner once, and and I don't know, it just, I can't remember how it came to be, but I just asked him, would you would you go on on? And I think I was surprised when he said yes. But um that's where that connection came from. At that moment, he was into a lot of Americana. He had the longer hair and was playing the guitar a lot. So it kind of fit in that we did the Irish Dement and the
00:51:22
Speaker
Jimmy Dell Gilmore songs. Oh, and we also did Dolly Parton's song, didn't we? Yeah. Yeah. Y'all did, Jolene. Yeah. Yeah. I think especially um Let the Mystery Be, Iris's song is just an absolutely beautiful song that I think you all absolutely nailed. I love it when he says, a bunch of carrots are a little sweet, please.
00:51:42
Speaker
right Yeah, if you were if you were ever unsure who who it was singing, if you didn't know it was David Byrne, he he definitely- It's funny when he comes on stage, there's a delay. but I don't know if people were in shock or didn't recognize him or what, but there's a pause. And then when he starts singing, everyone starts applauding. Exactly. yeah because I think it was also cool because that was ah that was still pretty around the time. I think he'd only had like maybe his second solo album or something like that. He had just left Talking Heads fairly recently. so yeah I think that was still an interesting time where it was like, wait, hold on a second. What's about to happen here? and I point to David Byrne as one of the more successful post-band career. He and Paul Simon, Peter Gabriel, people who left their bands and then
00:52:28
Speaker
went on to have, I think, even more interesting careers. That is such a good point. Yeah. And I mean, I unquestionably include you in that list as well, but that's very cool. I never made that connection seeing you guys sing together like that. That's amazing. It's really funny. I think hearing you singing with him, like what your voice does on Dallas, I feel like you being able to sing with him even kind of allowed us to hear your voice in a little bit of a different context as well. When you're doing some of those higher harmonies and stuff is just, yeah, it was, it was such a cool moment in the show to kind of, uh,
00:53:00
Speaker
CC I'll share those songs. Okay. Well, I naturally have to devote just a few questions ah to because of the night where did the idea of first come from to to cover that song front plug because I think I read you all may have first covered that as early as like 1990 is that accurate had y'all covered that before 10,000 Maniacs started as a cover band, and it wasn't unusual for us to do other people's songs, whether it was Tom Waits or REM or Carter Family. We did so many covers. We did ah we started as a reggae cover band, if you can imagine.
00:53:37
Speaker
and so um And even Peace Train was a song that we did. I remember we did it on New Year's Eve. Peter Asher just happened to be at that show. So when we were in the studio, he said, oh, you did a lovely version of Peach Train. What did you do for the album? We're like, well, OK. And that was kind of because the night, which ended up being such a massive hit for us, was kind of it was in the same spirit of we'll do Let the Mystery Be and Jolene and Dallas. And oh, yeah, we could do Because the Night. I don't even know why we did it. That's amazing amazing. There was no calculation about we'll do Because of the Night because that'll be a huge hit.
00:54:16
Speaker
Right? Yeah. how Wow. How serendipitous. That's that's wild to to know that that was off the cuff as probably being too too general with it. But to know that, yeah, like you said, that wasn't calculated to to be such an explosion. that that That's one of the things I think when you listen to that performance, we were talking earlier about all the guest musicians you had. If you do a quick count of the heads on on stage at that song, there are actually more guest musicians than maniacs during that one.
00:54:45
Speaker
You know, an interesting story about that version. A friend of mine in England read an article in which Adele said that when she was a teenager, she would sit in her bedroom and listen to because the night by 10,000 maniacs unplugged over and over and over. And I just think that's so just ah you never know where things will end up or who they'll embrace. Right. Wow. You know, it's a crazy story, but I ended up making friends with Allen Ginsberg.
00:55:15
Speaker
and um was asked to sing at all three of his memorials. And Patti Smith was there in Ann Arbor, we performed at the university there, because that's where Alan's guru was. like grin yeah And after the the memorial performance, we ended up at a bar in Ann Arbor and we, she said, oh, come on up, we'll do it. And we actually did because of the night together. Whoa. Oh my goodness. It's just funny. Yeah. Sequence of events in your life when you look back. What a moment. Oh my goodness. Had we not covered that song. Yeah. That one would have not. Well there would have been no connection.
00:55:59
Speaker
Right, right. Wow. That's amazing. ah and And in air before cell phones would have captured it all. That was just special for y'all and the people in the room that day. that's ah That's beautiful to know that happened. Well, how did the actual performance of that song feel um during the actual show? Like as it was happening, did you immediately know that this song was really something special or did it feel like the rest of the songs that night? I don't remember when that was a hit. Was that a hit in the mid 70s?
00:56:28
Speaker
Yeah, i think I think that was on Easter. So that was like 77, 78, I think when it came out. Yeah. So it wasn't that long, what what how many years? Yeah, 15, something like that. That's a pretty short cycle for a cover. no So um we just thought it was a piece of nostalgia and people would and say, oh, I like that song. and And then we'd go on. I don't know. we didn't Like I said, we didn't put a lot of thought into it. Right? Yeah, yeah.
00:56:58
Speaker
Well, we we talked a little bit about it, but did having the Unplugged album on the whole, but especially that song really blew up with having its own music video. And of course the single went to radio and and I know where I lived in Atlanta, 99X. I mean, they loved that song. they and And I think we actually had it on not just our alternative radio station, but it was on top 40 radio station um and maybe even adult contemporary. Like you could go up and down the aisle and and hear this song for a period. But was that, um to see that song blow up so well, knowing that you were going to embark on a solo career, were there any complicated
Songwriting vs. Cover Song Success
00:57:36
Speaker
feelings there or were you able to like fully enjoy it, you know, for what it was doing?
00:57:41
Speaker
I think any artist would be more gratified to know that a song that they wrote was popular than a cover that they did that they hadn't put that much thought into, even why am I doing this cover? I'll just be honest. I would like it to be a song that you wrote. Oh, that's a good point. But then I went on to have songs that I wrote become popular. so Absolutely. Yeah. And so a lot of people think I wrote that song. Really? Oh, that's interesting. Okay. you don't have Um, any other context for it than the MTV unplugged? They just thought it was just another song that 10,000 maniacs wrote. Yeah, which happens all the time. Sure. that Yeah, that, that could probably in in some ways that could be such a great compliment for a cover song is, you know, cause sometimes when people talk about cover songs, they're like, ah, sometimes when people do a cover, all it does is, you know, make me think of the original or want to go listen to the original.
00:58:31
Speaker
um and And while the original is, yeah, absolutely fantastic. um I think you guys really had your own moment with it where it didn't feel it didn't feel like a continuation. I can understand people thinking that was just y'all's original composition for sure. Another coincidence or connection with that song is that my first manager after leaving 10,000 Maniacs was John Landau. Oh, wow. Who had produced that song. Right, yeah.
00:59:00
Speaker
I mean, he didn't he didn't produce the song. ah Well, I guess, yeah, he helped record and produce that song. Yeah. Yeah. Because Springsteen did record it. He just didn't release it. Yeah. But he was Springsteen's manager and producer. Yeah. Wow. I can't remember the story he told me about how it came to be because that was an unlikely pairing for Springsteen and Patti Smith.
00:59:22
Speaker
Right. Yeah. I think the connection point, if I remember from all the Springsteen documentaries I've seen, I think Jimmy Iovine was the connection. He was working with both of them and he was like, hey, Bruce, can we steal that song and give it to Patty? Or I think at that time Springsteen knew it wasn't going to be like on his album, but but yeah yeah. Oh, that's incredible. I do not know how I never knew you ah worked with John Lindau. Okay. Yeah. John was my um my manager for Tiger Dillion Ophelia.
00:59:52
Speaker
Oh, fantastic. Okay. I wanted to mention too that the other connection with David Byrne was years later when he did Here Lies Love, which became a really popular and successful off-Broadway and Broadway play for him, the musical yeah about Imelda Marcos. yes um David called me and asked me to to sing one of the songs um when he did the album Sort of as a proof of concept album, Fear Lies Love, having all different female singers. yeah yeah Yeah, there were continued relationships and connections as a result. These are on plug performances seem like they're really important artifacts because artists given it an opportunity to do a full set, an hour long set of their music in the way that they envision it without any interference.
01:00:40
Speaker
right Do you remember when David Byrne had his sessions at 54th Street? Yes, the PBS one did. it Yes, so good. i was That was one of the only other opportunities, and he invited me to do that. There's a very funny interview between the two of us where he asked me if I ever feel crazy.
01:01:00
Speaker
because of the song Ophelia I wrote about a woman who has multi multiple personalities. But it's it's a really entertaining interview. But anyway, that was one of the only other times. And I think I actually was on that twice because um when Philip Glass and I ended up doing a piece we wrote together called Planctus, which is a Latin text from the 15th century or 14th century that I put to music with him. yeah But that was a great program.
01:01:30
Speaker
And but what what programs do we have now like that? I don't know. I really think Tiny Desk Concert is of course i need from a performance angle. But what's interesting is I don't think it has anywhere remotely close to the larger pop cultural impact in the sense of they don't have albums coming out of it. You don't you don't see you don't see it anywhere else other than if you go to the website or YouTube and you know watch the video. Well, there are a lot of smaller produced things for the web.
01:01:59
Speaker
like the black cab sessions, which i I loved. I don't know if they're still ongoing, but I used to watch those and they were great. Yeah. You do see stuff like that come up occasionally where like even when South by Southwest comes out every year, like sometimes they'll be like, Hey, we've outfitted a minivan with instruments. And so like when we see bands walking down the road, we'll like drive them around the block and make them play us a song or like you'll see stuff like that, which is very, yeah it's very cool because it strikes the sort of intimacy and uniqueness and broken down version of you know some of the stuff that that's in there for Unplugged, but it's also very not produced, almost too off the cuff because you're just like, yeah, this is cool. But like you're using the word artifact, I think is perfect because you almost kind of think like, oh, that was a cool thing to watch, but am I going to think about it again ever in the future? Whereas
01:02:48
Speaker
Some of these unplugged performances, again, just like y'all's. Whenever the press release came out that y'all were putting it out on vinyl, I literally had like five different friends immediately reach out to me because for years I've always made the joke that ah daily, like my Natalie Merchant prayer candle, that this album will finally come out on vinyl because I've wanted it on vinyl forever. And so, yeah, I was i was ah super stoked that that that that was finally happening. And I was just like, yes.
01:03:15
Speaker
It was funny, and and and I didn't even know it was that. That's so funny when you said that I was like, man. I just got a copy in the mail. You're like, by the way, we did we did this. Check this out. But yeah, I know. and And it's funny because some friends were reaching out to be like, hey, it finally happened. Shut up talking about it. And some friends were were just as equally as excited as me to be like, Yes, we you know, we finally have this and especially having the bonus songs because so many of my friends we had MP3s ripped off of the VHS version of three songs that you did with David Byrne. And so it's really nice to have a much higher quality version. Totally out of the blue a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine wrote and said, great version of Jolene. And I was like, when did I record Jolene? I couldn't even. Right. And then so I called her and said, where did you hear that? She said, you saw the MTV Unplugged album you just put out.
Merchant's Latest Album Themes
01:04:10
Speaker
To close things out, I'd actually like to you know bring it to the present and ask you a couple questions about your most recent album, last year's incredible Keep Your Courage record. Can you give us a little bit of the part harrowing, part healing backstory that inspired you to write this new collection of songs? I wrote the songs for Keep Your Courage during the pandemic lockdown.
01:04:33
Speaker
and I'm sure everybody's tired of hearing about every song that is pandemic struggle for inspiration. Yeah, it was, it was basically, I think I was writing about connection because it was so hard to connect with other people. And I really was missing the physical connection with other human beings. I had my daughter throughout the whole lockdown, but I was really missing all my friends.
01:05:00
Speaker
And I didn't have a romantic connection to anyone, so I didn't have a partner. And um there were just so many times when I realized that the thing that I valued most in the world were the relationships with other people. So I just wrote an album about love in all its different forms. Yeah.
01:05:18
Speaker
craving for love, I guess. Fearing love, celebrating love, cursing love. All all the angles of it. it is a multi-tentacled beast, that's for sure. These these themes of connection and and isolation and community that you're talking about ah that that run so deep through those lyrics Did having to then also record the songs in a bit of an isolated piece together manner, you know, because of Covid, did that impact the instrumental or vocal performances? ah What I remember about the recording of Keep Your Courage is everyone just being so thrilled to be playing music again, to be physically in the same room and playing music again, even if we had to do it in small groups. But all the yeah yeah um
01:06:06
Speaker
bass tracks, all the basic tracks were done with a band of five people playing in a room together. Nothing was pieced together other than the strings came in and layered next, which is normal anyway. You don't want strings in the same room with a drum kit anyway. yeah And then we had the woodwinds come and backing vocals. So it was basically like four layering sessions, but every one of those layers was put on in concert in a group.
01:06:34
Speaker
all the woodwinds were in the same room playing together and all the strings were in the same room playing together. Nice. Okay. So it wasn't one of those where people were swapping computer files. No, it wasn't like that. It was recorded in Vermont and near Brattleboro in a studio that was on a 300 acres of wooded property and it was just a beautiful retreat from the world.
01:06:56
Speaker
um And everyone had been isolated, but this was more we went together to retreat from the world to make music. Okay, very nice. And then, so so after sort of navigating the the writing and recording phases, what has the experience been like for you to be able to actually, you know, get back out on the road and perform those songs for your audiences, you know, over the last year and a half or so of touring? Because you've been all over the place.
01:07:21
Speaker
It was great. I really enjoyed it. I was very worried that people wouldn't remember me or accept me as an older version of myself. What I had to remind myself of was we're all getting older. But one of the things that I found really exciting was that there's this whole group of fans who are in their 40s.
01:07:41
Speaker
they were in high school when 10,000 Manics was winding down and you might be one of them. Yeah. Guilty as charge. Yep. I'm 44. So I'm right there with you. And it's exciting because I started so young. Usually everybody in the room was 10 years older than me. And so I have an audience that goes people in their eighties all the way down to people in their twenties because these are people who's parents are in their forties who raised them listening to my music. So I have a really great intergenerational audience. Yeah. And that was really fun to see. I mean, I always had an extremely varied audience, but now the age spread is so wide. Yeah, it's fun to look out and see, you know,
01:08:22
Speaker
every generation. Absolutely. getting out there Yeah, ah that's beautiful. Okay. Natalie, I cannot express just how much I appreciate you being so kind and generous with your time
Episode Conclusion and Gratitude
01:08:34
Speaker
and your memories. Thank you for talking with me today and for being here on Unplugged Revisited. Thank you.
01:08:40
Speaker
All right, there we go. I hope you all enjoyed hearing Natalie's stories as much as I did. I mean, could you imagine just chilling in a bar in Ann Arbor in 1997 and all of a sudden Natalie Merchant and Patti Smith jump up to do a duet of Because of the Night? What an insanely cool, mind-blowing experience that would have been.
01:08:57
Speaker
Alrighty, to close things out, first, thank you again to Natalie Merchant for being on the show. What an absolute gift to get to talk to her about Unplugged, her time in the band, her solo records, and everything else, including about an hour of friendly, trauma-bonding commiseration on the woeful state of US politics and public education that I cut for time.
01:09:16
Speaker
Second, the 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged expanded reissue with the three David Byrne bonus tracks is available now, so go grab yourself a copy, especially on vinyl if you're into it. And who knows, maybe that'll help spark interest in their first Unplugged episode materializing into some sort of official release.
01:09:34
Speaker
Third, as a reminder, if you dig the show, want to share your own unplugged memories, ask a question, request a show topic, or connect with the pod for any reason, you can email me at unpluggedrevisited at gmail dot.com, you can reach out on Twitter at unplugged underscore pod, or you can leave a voicemail that'll maybe get played on the show by dialing 234-REVISIT. That's 234-738-4748.
01:10:00
Speaker
Alrighty, I'm very excited about my next episode in two weeks. It'll feature my interview with... You know what? I don't think I'm gonna spoil it. You'll just have to tune back in and see what other incredible 90s legend shows up to talk unplugged. Please take a moment to follow the pod on your platform of choice so that it'll automatically pop into your feed when it goes live. Until then, my friends, be kind to yourself and look out for each other.