About
10,000 Maniacs is an American alternative rock band, was formed as the band named “Still Life” in 1981 in Jamestown, New York. The founding artists of the band are Dennis Drew (keyboards), Steven Gustafson (bass), Chet Cardinale (drums), Robert Buck (guitar and Newhouse’s ex-husband) and Teri Newhouse (vocalist and Buck’s ex-wife). The group gigged widely and recorded independently before signing with Elektra and making The Wishing Chair in 1985. Co-founder Lombardo left the band in 1986, and the band proceeded as a quintet, releasing their second album, In My Tribe, in 1987. This collection broke into the charts, where it stayed 77 weeks, peaking at number 37. Blind Man’s Zoo, the 1989 follow-up, hit the charts at number 13 and went gold.
Steven invited Natalie Merchant, who was 17 at the time, to perform a few vocals. When Newhouse and Cardinale left the band Natalie Merchant became the main singer.
The band performed the first time as 10,000 Maniacs on 7 September 1981 on Labor Day and, with a line-up of Merchant, Lombardo, Buck, Drew, Gustafson, and Tim Edborg on drums. Edborg left and Bob “Bob O Matic” Wachter was on drums for a large portion of the 1981 gigs. Their first outstanding American hit was cover of the Cat Stevens hit “Harmony Train”.
Merchant released her first solo collection, Tigerlily, in the summer of 1995 and a follow-up, Ophelia, in 1998. In 1999, the remaining Maniacs released The Earth Pressed Flat on Bar/None. Different drummers came and left. The band changed its name to Burn Victims. Shortly after that they changed it to 10,000 Maniacs named after the low-budget horror film Two Thousand Maniacs.
In late 1993, the remaining artists of the band decided that they wanted to continue to perform and they added folk-rock duo John & Mary in the band.
10,000 Maniacs released two collections with Ramsey on vocals. In 1997, they released Love Among the Ruins on Geffen Records, from which their cover of the Roxy Music song “More than This” turned into a moderate hit and, and followed up in 1999, with The Earth Pressed Flat on Bar/None.
