Impassioned, ardent and challenging; the voice and lyrics of David Eugene Edwards suggest that a conversation with him will be equally as daunting. Various articles and reviews through the years have described episodes from an unorthodox upbringing, deepening perceptions of an intense and sober minded fellow, haunted by a constant struggle of will over way.

Tonight Edwards and his side project Woven Hand are to play The Borderline, a rustic, rusty, folk/country club, tucked away almost out of view in London's West End. I sit at the bar watching the strikingly slender, blonde-haired musician set up and then soundcheck. As voyeur, I spend my time noting his movements, his inflections and considering the ways of this intricate man and how he became who he is.

The Sixteen Horsepower writer and frontman's strict religious upbringing has been widely commented upon. There have been tales of his Grandfather, a travelling Nazarene preacher, impressing the boy with his blood curdling sermons. Stories too, of the minister's faithful old wife sitting attentively in the pews beside the young David while other at times, she would school him in the rites of death by exposing him to the cadavers of parishioners. As the minister's grandson, the young man might attend at least one funeral a week, standing, observing, beside his spiritual and temporal guardians.

In April this year, Sixteen Horsepower, the band Edwards had steered since 1992, chose a parting of the ways after a year or two where rumours persisted of an irreconcilable breakdown. The relationship spawned six albums and a hefty fan base, but mostly on mainland Europe where shows would routinely sell out.

Although having long since left the church of his youth to find his own path, Edward's lyrics resonate with old time imagery and battles of the flesh, underlined by a guiding desire to emulate Christ as much as prayer, meditation and the spirit will allow him - “I love the Lord Jesus above everything.”

Soundcheck completed, we sit at a gnarly wooden table in the corner of the venue and over the space of forty-minutes, a patient, gracious individual unfurls before me. Eyes sparkle, bright with warmth and attentiveness and despite the austere preconceptions, Edwards turns out to be a man of subtle wit and a broad and generous smile.


How are you feeling about tonight's show? I hear that it hasn't been publicised properly?
It's always difficult for us in the UK for some reason. I'm not sure exactly why. But when we do play here, the crowds are always good and responsive. Whoever shows up, I'm happy.

You're here as a three-piece with your regular Woven Hand drummer Ordy Garrison and new Belgian guitarist Peter van Laerhoven. Why did you choose to have a second guitarist, instead of bass?
What he plays is kinda in-between guitar and bass. There are things I want that a bass can't do and he's able to do that with the guitar as well as supply the low end. It just works really well. As of now it's just the three of us and it will be that way for quite a while I assume.

Reports from shows in Europe say you are playing a couple of new songs on this tour. One of them, Dirty Blue has an uncharacteristically heavy sound. Will you be taking Woven Hand in a harder direction now?
It just comes in phases you know? Sometimes I feel like playing really heavy. I listen to a lot of heavy music and I like heavy music, but at the same time, I listen to a lot of really quiet music, folk music and so on. So I just go through different stages of wanting to do certain things. It's been a while since we really went at it, so now - we're just really going at it!

With the demise of 16hp, do you think Woven Hand will still be defined as your solo project with guest musicians?
I write all the songs and, even when we record, I end up playing a lot of the instruments, so I can get exactly what I want. If there's something I can't do, I find someone who can help me or whatever. So Woven Hand is not a big collaboration, but I'm not a dictator either. (It's not necessarily a democracy either, you know.) I kinda make the decisions but I definitely listen to what other people have to say about whatever it is. Woven Hand is my main and only focus at the moment. All my energy and time and everything is put towards it.

So what will happen to any songs you've already written for the next 16hp record that now won't be? Will you just pass them over to Woven Hand?
I've never written any songs particularly for one band or the other. I just write songs and then, whoever I'd be playing with at that moment, that's where the song would go. There's not one song that would fit better with this, or with that. I've always written the same; the lyrics are the same. I'm not any freer now than I was before the break-up to speak or say what I want. It's no different at all. It's just different people playing the music now, you know.

Who instigated the break-up of 16 Horsepower?
It had been coming for the past couple of years really. We had taken a long break (and that's when I started Woven Hand), because we'd been touring for eight years without a break pretty much, and everyone has families outside of music. Jean-Yves Tola has a horse business. He and his wife raise horses, so he can't really leave home because the horses are a 24 hour job for him. Pascal Humbert lives in the middle of nowhere, works on a ranch, has just built a house and has a new baby, and so neither of them can really tour. We're still really good friends and we speak on the phone. There's no animosity or anything - none at all. We were at a time when it was obvious that we had taken it as far as we could go and everyone needed to move out into different directions. Of course, we definitely have different views on certain things but that doesn't lead us to be at enmity with each other. We still love each other and uh, yeah.

The official statement that announced the band's split in April, gave political and spiritual differences as the main reasons. These were present from the start so I wondered why they had suddenly become an untenable issue?
Um, you know, whenever there is an interview to do, they usually talk to me because I'm the singer and I write the songs. So I'd end up speaking about what I believe in and what I care about, and the guys kinda get lumped in with that because they're in the band. My opinions and my beliefs are not theirs and I would always try to make that apparent in interviews, but I think it's gotten a little weary for them to always have to worry about it, if you see what I mean.

So the band just came to its natural conclusion?
U-huh.

After a series of delays, and just weeks after the band broke up, the 16HP DVD was finally released. Are you happy with the results?
I haven't watched it and I don't intend to.

Is that because you would be seeing an era that's now passed and you're finished with all that?
It's because I don't like looking at myself or hearing myself talk or watching myself sing. Of course, I know what's on it, but I won't be looking at it.

Some fans have expressed a quiet disappointment with the DVD, as they'd hoped to see more, and better quality, live footage as above anything else, 16hp had a reputation as a very powerful live band.
Since then, we have started working on compiling another DVD but this time made up of concert footage.

That news will please people. What kind of a time schedule they are looking at before release?
I really don't know. We are still having a look through our closets to see what we have, before putting it all together.

You're known for using antique instruments that lend themselves to your very individualised sound. What's the latest addition to your collection?
Well, this time, it's not an antique as such. I have so many that kinda fall apart on me on the road that I ended up buying a newer guitar, a Gretch, to take on the road with me. I'm tired of dealing with the problems that come along with the old ones but the banjo I have with me tonight is a wooden banjo. It's from 1887 but it holds up pretty well.

You've mentioned previously in interviews, that you have a kind of distrust of new things and you hold to things from one hundred years ago, but it struck me that there was a time when those things were new too.
Oh, of course!

How far back do you have to go to feel safe?
Um, I don't think I'm that logical about it. It's just that certain things, older things, to me are more beautiful. More care and more thoughts gone into making them, from furniture, to instruments to paintings to everything. At the same time there's a lot of modern stuff that I enjoy as well that I think is really creative, but a lot of that stuff just kinda gets thrown away because of 'progress' and money.

You probably won't know too much about English Victorian history, but there was a prominent art critic at that time called John Ruskin, who promoted the medieval crafts over machine tooled art; the particular over mechanised artefacts.
The creativity of people and what they are able to do is very beautiful to me. There are all these old instruments that no-one hears anymore and no-one wants. Now it's just bass, guitar drums; bass, guitar drums or whatever. Or you get the classical world with their instruments. Before, there were all these classical instruments being used on the streets by everyday people. I really like it when I can find something that has a medieval flavour or something like that, but I like to hear it come out of the concert hall and onto the streets, if you see what I mean.

In 2002, you scored a production for the Belgian modern dance troupe Ultima Vez called Blush. I saw a two-minute clip of the Blush movie online recently, and with the dance's ethos of emotion and impulse, it would appear to have been spectacular.
The choreographer and the leader of the troupe Wim Wandekeybus was fantastic to work with. The dance world is something I knew nothing about so when he approached me, I was like "Wow, show me something that you've done!" So he gave me copies of all their past productions and I watched them on a tour bus. I just really liked the way he went about doing what he did and I found several similarities between the way we both work, particularly in the way he would not give it too much thought, but just runs with what comes out. It was fantastic to play live and just be at the back of the stage and not be the focal point. It was really interesting, and hopefully made me a better player, because I had to pay attention to what I was doing rather than losing myself in it like normal. I have just finished a soundcheck for the next production. It's called Puur (Pure) and this time, I also acted in the film that goes with the performance.

What did that involve?
Um, I just played kind of an outcast from this society and a musician as well.

Is it a speaking part?
Yeah, but mainly I speak in a language that I made up, and so...

Is that what I heard you using at soundcheck a little earlier? It sounded Russian to me.
Yes. It kinda has that Eastern European sound to it but it doesn't really mean anything. It's just kinda... gibberish.

So do you have made up phrases? Can you go on all night in it?
Er, I can go on for a little while...
Haha... That's cool.

Do you see your musical ability as a God given talent?
Oh definitely. I think it's pretty much the only thing that I really know what to do. I don't think I'm that good at it but it's something that I want to do, and it's always been that way, ever since I was a kid. So yes, I think it's something that's been given to me to use.

You spread the Message through your music but do you feel at ease doing that? Do you ever feel as though you have to be brave to carry it through?
Um... Oh, I don't think it's easy for me, no not at all. It's a... it's a struggle for me all the time to get it out or to bear what I bear, you know what I mean; just to talk about certain things that are uneasy to talk about.

Thinking of your music as Christian Rock, albeit very loosely, to me the attitude and content set it apart from other kinds with an overt Christian content. It's as though most of the rest don't seem to care about music?
Um yeah, I agree with you. They are more concerned with getting the message over (which I understand, you know what I mean) but at the same time, if, like the Bible says, every man is without excuse, then just by looking at what God has made, you know that there is a God, and I think that can be the same for music. There's beauty in music because God is the author of music. And so with that, I try to be true to the creativity of it and to make it interesting and beautiful. Or maybe confronting, or peaceful, or angry, or whatever the mood is. I try to stay true to my own creativity as well as the message. I used to be really bitter towards Christian music, rock, or whatever, when I was younger and I wouldn't listen to any of it. I still don't really listen but I don't hate it like I did then. You know, God uses that kind of music for the people who like it and for people who need that kind, so who am I to say it's no good?

Your physical father died when you were quite young. Did you look to the spiritual Father to replace what you had lost?
Uh, no. My mom remarried soon afterwards and my stepfather was a great influence on me. Okay, he wasn't my father in that sense, and it was always that way, and he never tried to be, but he was real quiet and he was the kind of guy who goes to work and makes the money and takes care of my mom and me. He set a great example for me.

Where did you first hear music that really made an impression on you?
My Grandfather (my dad's father, who's the preacher) had a record collection. He would listen to Johnny Cash and Hank Williams - but only the Gospel parts! So they were the only records I ever heard when I was a kid. Other than that it was just the music of the church.

In conclusion, what is the last dream you remember?
Uh, oh yeah. The last dream I remember... Usually when I'm on tour, I have dreams about everything going completely wrong on stage and I had one of those the other night. It was complete panic! People were rioting and screaming at me. Yeah, it was pretty horrible but that's par for the course for me.