David Eugene Edwards is the pivot on which 16 Horsepower, the alternative country quartet from Denver, Colorado, hinges. Drummer and pianist, Frenchmen Jean-Yves Tola, has been around since the formation of the band in 1995 as well. In the present line-up there's another Frenchmen, bass player Pascal Humbert, and further there's newcomer Steven Taylor on guitar. The previous album Low Estate was produced by John Parish. That collaboration was a success, but still the band did not make use of a producer for this record, as Jean-Yves Tola explains.

JEAN-YVES TOLA: "It was nice to have the freedom of experimenting in any way we wanted to, without anybody trying to push you, even slightly sometimes, one way or the other. We just had to push each other and that was good."

Now the bandmembers felt completely free to experiment to their heart's content. For the recording they went to a big lodge, high up in the Rockies.

JEAN-YVES TOLA: "We rented a big house up in the mountains in Colorado, way high, in the middle of nowhere really. Blue River it is called, a beautiful place. It's just a big house people use for a vacation and retreats and whatever they wanna do. We just rented it and put everything up there, the engineers and the musicians and food, and locked the door and worked till it was done."

They had to bring along all the musical instruments and the technical equipment, but they could record there in peace and quiet, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. To relax they went fishing once in a while for a short time and then straightaway back to work.

For the titles of the first two albums David Eugene Edwards was inspired by the bible, not for Secret South though. "South" refers to the place where David and his family live, but what does "secret" stand for?

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "There's a lot of things on the record that are fairly secretive things that I wouldn't speak about maybe outside of the music. What I communicate in the song is as far as I need to go with it and I wouldn't speak about it and try to explain it. I just don't feel that it's necessary to do that, whereas the first two records were a bit more open."

David Eugene Edwards doesn't discuss his lyrics easily. They should speak for themselves, he thinks. Religion often is a topic, but sometimes he himself doesn't know exactly what a song is about. That's a result of his very special way of writing lyrics: he carries a booklet with him containing words and sentences that flash across his mind, and he puzzles them together by the feel, more or less.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "It's just a book where I write down whatever, maybe one word, maybe a sentence, maybe a paragraph. It's a long process; some of the things I have as lyrics on the new record were things that I have written maybe five years ago. Whatever seems to need to be brought out in a particular song at a moment, I just pick and choose from this book and put it together like a puzzle."

Many 16 Horsepower songs are about his belief in God. That was the case too on the previous two albums. David Eugene Edwards can not keep his faith a secret.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "I can do nothing else, I believe in it and there's no way I can hide it or keep it hidden. If I truly believe I could never do that in the first place. I think everybody needs to know about it and be a part of it. I think it has nothing but good for people. I'm sure a lot of people think I'm an idiot because of what I believe in, but I don't care. I'm not afraid of looking like a fool, it doesn't matter to me.

David can't hide his belief. He hopes his lyrics induce the listeners to thought.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "That's why I do it, so that they will think about it,whether or not they choose to follow or not , but at least they will think about it and maybe get a new view of something they had a view before that was very narrow. You know, I think God is bigger than religion, is beyond religion, beyond man's putting God in certain places, using God for his own person. God is bigger than that and better than that".

With his music David Eugene Edwards reaches many young people. In Belgium for instance, 16 Horsepower played at the Pukkelpop and Werchter festivals. He's fully aware that music can have a big impact and consequently he feels a have responsibility weighing upon his shoulders.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "A lot of people get to hear what I do and I feel very responsible for that. Not that it's because of me, but I have a responsibility with the chance that I've been given to do it properly and to the best of my ability and to do it truthfully and sincerely and to do it with some sort of wisdom. To not just blab anything off the top of my head that I wanna sing about of that I think that is cool. I think you're right, music is extremely powerful."

On Secret South' Just Like Birds the guest-violinist is David Eugene Edwards' 12-year-old daughter. Edwards himself plays a number of old, sometimes unusual instruments like the hurdy gurdy, banjo, a 19th century bandoneon or a 1930 guitar.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "They're just the instruments I like to hear, the music that I listen to and the things that inspire me. When I first heard Cajun music in America I immediately wanted to play the Cajun accordion because of the sound of it. So I started to play that and I moved from that to a bandoneon because it has a wider range of sounds and more minor keys, which I like very much. The same with the banjo: I listened to a lot of Appalachian music and mountain music and I listened to a lot of Hungarian music and Mongolian music. A lot of traditional music from all over the world."

Because David likes so many genres, it's no wonder that 16 Horsepower isn't a run-of-the-mill band with guitar, bass and drums. David's bandoneon really is the showpiece.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "It's a German made bandoneon that is 110 years old. The older the instrument the better, to me. I mean the sound of it, the way it looks, the craftsmanship that went into making it. It's always better than a new instrument. I like used things, I like used clothes. I like the fact of using something and making it last. They have already been worn in by maybe many different people, who have played in many different years. It changes the instrument, it gets a different sound over the years."

Moreover David plays many instruments, the piano as well by the way, but not a single one very well, so he says.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "Maybe I would be a better musician if I stuck with one instrument and really played that one all the time. So I'm not very good at any of the ones that I play, but I'm good enough to get the sounds that I want out of each one and that is good enough for me."

It's obvious that he has his work cut out singing and playing at the same time. That's why there's no big show during concerts, he sits down, concentrating, often playing with his eyes closed. Naturally he enjoys his own music, but physically he has to go through quite a lot.

DAVID EUGENE EDWARDS: "If you've ever seen us play it's pretty evident that I have a struggle trying to play and sing on top of it. It's very physical the way that I play, it's not easy for me."