10,000 Maniacs

As much as the 1980’s might be remembered for pastel colours, bouffant hair and Rick Astley, only a fool would deny that it was an absolutely stellar decade for indie rock on both sides of the Atlantic. Some of the bands made their name during the decade of MTV, Thatcher and Reagan would go on to define the next three decades of guitar music. We’re talking The Smiths, The Cure, R.E.M, The Replacements, and all those bands that we know and love. However, in the form of 10’000 Maniacs, we have a band who could rival each and every one of those bands at their best but don’t get nearly the same amount of praise and kudos that most of the bigger names do.

Forming as Still Life in 1981, the band started out as something of a collective before their first line-up was truly finalized. The core members of the group were Steve Gustafson and Dennis Drew on Bass and Keyboards respectively, who to this day are the sole constant members of the band, joined by Chet Cardinale on the drums, Robert Buck on guitar and Teri Newhouse as the bands singer. However, Gustafsen soon invited the 16 year old Natalie Merchant to contribute some vocals and lyrics to their songs. Also contributing to the band infrequently was the guitarist for a local band called The Mills by the name of John Lombardo, who would guest with the band onstage when he was around.

As the band continued to gig and develop, Newhouse and Cardinale left the band in the summer of 1981, and almost immediately afterwards Merchant was asked to join the band full time and she gladly accepted. In this time of change, Lombardo was also asked to join the band full time who accepted as well. Over the next three years the band would chop and change drummers repeatedly, but more importantly, by the September of 1981 they’d found their new name of 10’000 Maniacs, inspired by the horror film Two Thousand Maniacs!. With the change in name, the band started to focus on writing and performing their own music, rather than the covers they’d previously relied on in concert.

The band built up enough of a local following with their concerts to record their debut E.P “Human Conflict Number Five” and release it themselves in 1982, but the band still remained at the lowest rung of the touring ladder. However, by 1983 they’d found a permanent drummer in the form of Jerry Augustyniak who still plays with them to this day, and self-released their debut studio album “Secrets Of The I Ching”. The album was a massive critical success and made the band highly hyped in the U.K, most notably catching the attention of BBC Radio One godhead John Peel and sending their single “My Mother The War” into the independent singles charts.

The band would spend the rest of 1983 and most of ’84 on tour, and during then they were spotted by Howard Thompson, an A&R man who had the band signed to Elektra Records by November 1984. Over the next two albums the band became a surprise sensation, with 1985’s “The Wishing Tree” giving them wider critical acclaim than ever before and 1987’s “In My Tribe” finally getting the band some elusive commercial success, staying in the Billboard 200 for 77 weeks at the cost of Lombardo, who left before recording on the album began.

The band finally hit the mainstream with 1989’s “Blind Man’s Zoo”, which went Gold soon after its release and peaked at number 13 on the Billboard 200. Since then the band has continued to release acclaimed albums and tour in one incarnation or another, even though Merchant left in 1993. 10’000 Maniacs are a constantly evolving beast that even today brings something to the table that the incarnation of the band that are twenty years old couldn’t dream of showing. For that reason they’re one of the few bands that it’s worth seeing as many times as you can, and thirty years into their career, they still come highly recommended.