ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 23, 1996 TAG: 9608230012
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: JENNIFER BOWLES ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Natalie Merchant makes no apologies for injecting her concerts with a little social consciousness.
During a stop here this summer, for instance, the pop singer let the audience know that on their way out they could donate money or items at a table set up to benefit a local battered women's shelter.
``I always make the assumption that if people like my records there's a certain level of sensitivity and tolerance for some serious subject matter seeping into the music,'' she said.
Merchant is part of a well-known cadre of singers, including friends Michael Stipe and Peter Gabriel, who are socially and politically active. In fact, the three recently appeared on ``VH1 Honors,'' a concert that benefited the Witness program, which provides groups around the world with hand-held video cameras to document human rights violations.
``I just think it's my responsibility as a citizen,'' she said of her activism. ``I don't like to point fingers at other artists, because a lot of artists all they're devoted to is making people feel good. That's an admirable aim in life to make people feel good.''
Among Merchant's top causes are animal rights, domestic violence and homelessness. And no hamburgers for the singer, please, she's a vegetarian.
In fact, Merchant, 32, turned to her activism after her breakup with 10,000 Maniacs, a band she had fronted since she was 17 and with which she had recorded such classics as ``Trouble Me,'' ``Because the Night'' and ``Like the Weather.''
The decision to leave came shortly before she turned 30, an age in which ``you want to assess your life and decide `am I achieving what I would like to at this point in my life?' I didn't think I was.''
The final months of touring with the band felt more like a contractual obligation than enjoyment of her work.
``I was feeling very cynical about music. I was just feeling like it was all about commerce at that point,'' she recalled.
To rejuvenate and refocus, Merchant took six months off, lived in Manhattan and spent two to three days a week volunteering at a homeless shelter on the edge of Harlem.
``There were plenty of times I had to remove dead rats or knives or crack from the playground. It was just New York. It wasn't a pleasant place for children,'' she said. ``But when you played music for them, this calm and peace would come over the room.''
The experience, she's quick to point out, was not one-sided.
``It's not all this bleeding-heart altruism; I draw out of it, too. For me working with the kids gave me a sense of belonging and a sense of worth,'' she said.
That in turn inspired the singer-songwriter to sit back down at her piano and churn out her first solo album, ``Tigerlily.'' Released last year, it has produced three hits: ``Carnival,'' ``Jealousy'' and ``Wonder.'' Another single, ``San Andreas Fault,'' will be released at the end of August.
One song on the album is a tribute to another activist friend, actor River Phoenix, who died of a drug overdose outside a Sunset Boulevard nightclub in 1993. ``I met him through animal rights functions, we were both vegetarians,'' she recalled.
The song, Merchant said, was a plea to respect his family and his memory.
``The media was focusing so much on his death and the [overdose],'' she said. ``He was a talented, young artist and he was also very committed to many social causes, and I felt that just because he died in that fashion it didn't negate everything that he devoted himself to during his life.''
The song that Merchant is most proud of is ``Wonder,'' an uplifting tune inspired by a woman who had a productive life despite her severely handicapped body.
``Wonder sort of sums up what I want to do for people - to feel a sense of amazement about something that we would consider the most mundane things of life, but they're not mundane at all and to celebrate so many aspects of our lives we take for granted,'' she said.
``Just the fact that we exist. It's amazing that we can walk and talk and exchange ideas, that we have a language.
``I think if more people were more in awe of their own existence, there would be no violence, there would be no greed, there would be no aggression. There would just be people in a state of wonder all the time, the way children are.''
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Natalie merchant performs at a recent concert in Losby CNBAngeles. color.