A segment of the population will always connect singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant with 10,000 Maniacs, the Jamestown, N.Y. alt-rock band she joined in the early 1980s, when she was still a teenager.
Merchant’s career, however, really took off with “Tigerlily,” her self-funded 1995 solo debut, a critical and commercial smash that yielded three hit songs: “Jealousy,” “Wonder” and the sublime “Carnival.” Every Merchant project since then, it seems, has been increasingly ambitious; she spent the last half-decade performing exclusively with orchestras and chamber ensembles, while 2010’s “Leave Your Sleep,” a 26-track exploration of childhood inspired by 19th and 20th century poetry, allowed her to deep-dive into new musical styles and genres. Released last year, Merchant’s latest, self-titled collection of songs hearkens back to “Tigerlily” while also incorporating much of what she’s learned since then.
Merchant performs with a pianist, acoustic guitarist and string quintet at UConn’s Jorgensen Center on Saturday, March 28, starting at 8 p.m. She spoke with CTNow about the most recent phase(s) of her career and what fans can expect in the near future.
CTNow: After working so extensively with orchestras, does that spoil you in a way? Is it hard to go back to working with other types of ensembles?
NM: It’s a tremendous feeling [performing with an orchestra] but it’s not so flexible. I like both approaches. There’s more improvisation with my group, and with five string players you can still have a very full, lush sound. Many of my arrangements were actually written for a quartet, and then they were expanded for an orchestra, and some of the ones that were originally orchestral, we’ve pared down. I find both shows to be interesting.
CTNow: With so many songs to draw from, how do you go about crafting a set?
NM: We end up having a long set. I usually end up playing for about three hours because we have so much material. I did an orchestral show last Friday, and I think we played for two hours but we could have easily played for three, because we have an excess of material now. Usually for an encore I just go back onstage with my trio — bass, guitar and piano — and we could play another three hours just like that. If we played all of the material we know, we could play for six hours probably. My guitarist has been playing with me for 17 years, and then add in every cover song we’ve ever done, every folk song we’ve ever done, holiday songs — it’s a huge repertoire. In a way, having the string players is a limiting factor. It’s a device we can apply to keep us from playing for too long.
CTNow: When was the first time you performed with an orchestra?
NM: I think the first show was six years ago, with the Boston Symphony. We did two nights at Symphony Hall in Boston, and it was pretty daunting, but I definitely enjoyed it and wanted to do it more. It was at their request that I did it, their invitation, and I waived my fee in exchange for the commissioned scores. At that point, it was only a half-hour set. Half of the evening was with the orchestra playing by themselves, then an intermission and I played with the orchestra for the second half. That’s when the program was first introduced, and I liked it so much that I made the album “Leave Your Sleep” that had many more orchestral arrangements and smaller ensemble arrangements. Then I did my last album, and now I’ve just re-recorded “Tigerlily,” my first solo record, which came out 20 years ago. I re-recorded five songs from that with strings. That added five more songs to the program. And then we have five more unreleased tracks, and I’m planning to make a fully orchestral record in September.
CTNow: Obviously you’re enjoying it.
NM: After playing with the standard pop ensemble for so many years, I’m just so thrilled with all the orchestral colors. And I’m enjoying exploring more of my catalog with new arrangements.
CTNow: Generally speaking, do you have to retain enough of the rock feel of “Tigerlily” songs for fans of that sound?
NM: I usually just try to satisfy myself. But so many of those songs were ready for that treatment. “River” from that album is just piano and voice, but now it’s a string quintet, which adds so much dimension to it. It sounds so much more mature and multi-dimensional.
CTNow: “Leave Your Sleep,” performing with orchestras: those strike me as very intense experiences to have with words and music. Did they transform the way you approached writing songs for your latest album?
NM: “Leave Your Sleep” — for five years, all I did was read poetry when I sat down to write music. I’ll be honest with you: the reason I did that was because I had a child, and I didn’t have those huge expanses of time for introspective poetic exploration. It was lots of fun to just pick up someone else’s words. I can write melodies and chord structures all day, but lyric writing is very time-consuming and takes a lot of energy, which I just didn’t have.
One thing I learned from it was I wanted to explore all these different genres that I never imagined myself writing in… In putting some of those words to music, I sort of opened up the tool box and could pull out any style of music. For “The King of China’s Daughter,” which is an old Mother Goose rhyme, I wanted a Chinese music ensemble, and I wrote an arrangement for a bamboo flute and pipa, a 6,000-year-old Chinese lute, and an erhu, a very strange, bowed, stringed instrument.
What I learned the most about “Leave Your Sleep” wasn’t so much about lyric writing. It was about arranging music and curating a very large piece, because there were, I think, 26 songs in the end, each one in a different style of music. There were 135 musicians involved in that project, and it took a full year to do all the workshop recording sessions. We hired the musicians and usually did a day or two of rehearsal and a day of recording, and I just kind of immersed myself in teaching music for three days, and the song would arise out of that.
CTNow: That was your first project for Nonesuch Records, correct?
NM: It was. I finished the whole project and then took it to Nonesuch. I thought it was probably the best home for it. They did a beautiful package for it, and they wanted the next record and the one after that.
CTNow: You’ve talked about the dual nature of the new album — the inward, personal, interior side and the side that looks outward at the world, the news of the day, and so on. Going into the project, did you have any intention of organizing the new material in that way, or did it just happen?
NM: It was more of a hindsight assessment, but I think that’s how we all live. We’re forced to live with the outside world and so many forces that are beyond our control. We respond to them in different ways, sometimes with anger, sometimes with rage, sometimes it just makes us numb. I think people retreat and discuss things with each other, they discuss the news of the day or things happening in their own communities, or even their own families. And then some of us who are artists reflect on these things through our work. I think it’s always a balance between the interior and the exterior when you’re an artist and you’re looking for subject matter or inspiration.
CTNow: Going back to the single “Carnival,” all the way through the new album: I’ve always felt like you own the minor mode, in a way that other artists do not. The default way people talk about major and minor is happy and sad. Does that hold any truth for you?
NM: I think the minor mode tends to have more weight to it. I think to categorize music as happy or sad is unfair, because sometimes you can have thoughtful music that’s in a minor mode, but it’s not necessarily sad, it’s just more introspective. I feel sometimes that minor is hopeful, in a way. I’ve always loved songs that put forward more than emotion. Life is more complicated than that. I look at my daughter growing and I’m so happy that she’s thriving, and I’m really heartbroken that she’s not who she was three years ago, because it’s so precious. Every time I look at her, I have this pull in two directions. I’m encouraging her to move forward, and I know the end result of that is she’ll be an adult and she’ll leave. That breaks my heart too. Even though I think I’m very attentive as a parent, I oftentimes feel like there’s no way I can pay attention to every detail of every stage of development and not miss anything. Years ago when she started to master the language and she stopped mispronouncing the words, there would be a little chip taken off. She’ll never say “Jegus Christ” any more, or “Baby Jegus.” The day she said “Jesus,” I almost cried.
CTNow: What do you have coming up in the near future?
NM: The [orchestral, expanded] “Tigerlily” project is coming out in September, and also I’m recording the new record. It’s an orchestral record, so it’s a combination of unreleased material and older songs with orchestral arrangements. There’s also a companion film coming out about “Tigerlily,” a retrospective piece about the last 35 years.
NATALIE MERCHANT performs at the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts in Storrs on Saturday, March 28, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 to $45. Information: jorgensen.uconn.edu.
