To help see his two children off to school, 16 Horsepower's David Eugene Edwards wakes up most mornings around 6:30 a.m. Not exactly typical rock 'n' roll hours. But 16 Horsepower isn't the typical rock 'n' roll band.

“I don't even think about our music in terms of rock 'n' roll,” Edwards says via phone from his Denver home, as birds and a dog are audible in the background.

“I don't necessarily think the music I play is rock 'n' roll,” he continues.

“But I like heavy music. I've always liked heavy music.”

On 1997's Low Estate , 16 Horsepower crafted Gothic country-rock by mixing banjo, fiddle and accordion with razored electric guitars and galloping rhythms. By 2002, with Folklore , the band had assumed more subtle dramatic shadings, using more cello and acoustic guitar without losing any of the intensity or power.

Heavy topics too make up the 16 Horsepower experience. Edwards grew up in the evangelical Nazarene church, and while he doesn't overtly proselytize, an obsession with religion informs and colors his music. Edwards has become a kind of American Nick Cave, fueled by the themes of love, death and redemption that form the hallmark of 16 Horsepower's heaviness.

“God is gracious in the fact that he allows us to be a part of what he does,” Edwards says. “But it's him that's doing what's done. It's he that changes people's hearts. We have our responsibility to speak about what we believe in and represent it in the proper manner, and to do it well and right and all of that. But that's all we do. We don't have any control over how people respond and how people react.”

That raison d'être hasn't cost 16 Horsepower any fans in America, where it enjoys critical success and a loyal cult following. But the trio — Edwards- Pascal Humbert and Jean-Yves Tola — has focused its efforts in Europe, where many American bands working the margins often find they can better sustain a career. The mini-tour that brings 16 Horsepower to the Grog Shop this week marks the band's first U.S. dates in over three years.

“We have good fans in America, but it's just very difficult and very expensive and time-consuming [to tour consistently],” Edwards says. “We really have to put our minds to it to make it happen. If we were able to spend the time in America that we have in Europe, I think it would be equal, if not even better, but it's just not worked out that way.”

In the meantime, Edwards has stayed busy with his side project, Wovenhand, and scoring music for Ultima Vez, a Belgian contemporary dance ensemble. Edwards was introduced to the group's leader, Wim Vandekeybus, by a mutual friend in Brussels.

“The dance world's not something I'm all that familiar with or even necessarily interested in,” says Edwards. “Not that it's not good; it's just not what I do. I was like, ‘Our music is not really that type of music.' But that's why [Wim] wanted it.”

Edwards borrowed videos of prior Ultima Vez performances to watch while on tour in Europe. “I was really impressed,” he says. “I really liked the way he worked and the way he did what he did without worrying about what anybody was going to think about it.”

Edwards pauses and chuckles.

“And that's kind of how I do what I do,” he says. “Wim and I have a lot in common and we get along really well.”

The other 16 Horsepower members, Tola and Humbert, worked on a side project called Lilium and released the Short Stories CD last year. Also, a new Wovenhand CD is slated for release in September, and 16 Horsepower is currently writing songs for its next album.

“We plan to record as soon as time permits,” Edwards says. “Everybody has things going on, other things in their life, families and children and things that require quite a bit of attention.”

Edwards won't reveal much about forthcoming material, other than to say that the process remains very organic.

“We don't really plan or write things down,” he says. “We just kind of let it happen as it happens.”

16 Horsepower, The Twilight
9 p.m., Thursday, April 8
Grog Shop
2785 Euclid Heights Blvd.
216.321.5588
Tickets: $10