Just because of Johnny Cash' regained underground-status country-music has gained ground and can enjoy a steadily growing popularity. After all, we're not only talking about bleaching-agent-country (Garth Brooks brand), but about an old-established great. As hardly anybody else he knows how, with biting, sarcastic lyrics and a cooly picked guitar, to get the listeners under his spel. Not unwillingly would 16 Horsepower, who sound like a "rural" mixture between Nick Cave and Gun Club, want to tour with the "old man".

"Buy it now, before everyone finds it cool"; the advertisement of their local record company said in order to whet the potential buyers' appetite for their latest work, Low Estate. Certainly not everyone will find this music cool, even though their fan club is growing steadily. Lastly a crowd of over 300 people showed up for a concert at the Strasbourg club "La Laiterie", to indulge in the sounds of David Eugene Edwards, Pascal Humbert, Jean-Yves Tola and Jeffrey Paul Nolander while enjoying beer and hash. A slightly different concert as everyone had to conclude afterwards. Here country-sounds collided with loud guitars, violin and accordeon. A very very unusual and rather cool amalgam.

"I like the music we're making, which doesn't mean it's absolutely cool. On the other hand, it depends on what you consider to be cool. 16 Horsepower fans come from all walks of life. There's no typical 16 Horsepower fan. They're older people, as well as young people, soldiers as well as workmen..."

16 Horsepower succeeded in carving out their own niche in the rock-world, and winning the hearts of fans of the most-divergent colours . Very few good bands manage to do so nowadays. It's easier to offend people then to get them on your side. Even so, David is convinced he can tour with any band.

"Then people will certainly not accept us all the time, but we enjoy that too."

It said that David - influenced by Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Joy Division - already found his way to Cajun-music from the twenties and thirties and to Appalachian Hillbilly when he was still young. And as he can not desist from collecting old and the same time extraordinary instruments, it's by no means surprising that a multitude of these instruments figure prominently in 16 Horsepower's sonic tableau.

"I collect all instruments whose sound I find interesting. In addition I like the variation, using a different instrument for each song. Always playing the same would bore me stiff. This way I'm content and happy and at the same time it's very beneficial to our overall image. Besides the sounds I'm often also fascinated by their outward appearance. Moreover, most were comparatively cheap. Many of my musician colleagues would certainly never use such bizarre instruments, as you phrase it. To me that is the very thing that constitutes the special attraction of 16 Horsepower. I like loud as well as traditional music. Therefore I wanted to blend both modes from the start - in an artistic and stylish manner. Actually I'm not a real collector. I only buy them when I need something new to broaden the sound. I don't even have the money to buy one after the other just because of a collector's mania. They're not museum pieces inasmuch, but my tools."

Once David is crazy about an album, he plays it day and night, day in day out (for weeks)...

"...until I have driven my family mad. At present I'm addicted to the new Bob Dylan album, before that it was the latest Nick Cave record. Besides contemporary work I love to listen to traditional music, for instance Hungarian folk-music or Appalachian-music."

As a rule journalist find it hard to capture 16 Horsepower's music with words. The band is being praised and reviewed in metal magazines as well as in alternative magazines. Especially such hacks were "spared' your music so far. How would you therefore decribe your music in your own words?

"I don't define our music, because I don't see a necesitty to do so. People should listen to our albums unbiased, and form their own notion of them. Any other way would be nonsensical. I don't even know myself how I should word our music. I can only tell you, that all the music that I have been taken with in my life so far, is reflected by us. That range stretches from church music, classical music, Irish folk music to AC/DC."

To what extent does your present hometown Denver, in Colorado, influence your artistic being?

"Well, Denver is a metroplis with 3 million people, that is extremely conservative and above all things boring. Around the city you can find numerous cattle and horse ranches. For all of 21 years I have lived in Denver and surrounding places. (My father (sic) was an itinerant preacher, that's why I got about Colorado a lot). I'm sure that not only my music, but my whole life is influenced by this environment."

Low Estate was recorded in Lafayette, a former mining-town (?). The studio there used to serve as a bar and now as a smithy for first rate music, as in 16 horsepower's case

"Lafayette is a wonderful patch of land. All people there either speak French or cajun. Despite all that you still have the feeling you're in America - solely everthing is somewhat more unaffected and relaxed."

Normally music is the reflection of the artist's soul. According to that your soul should be black and dark and you should be depressed and frustrated.

"My lyrics are based on my personal life expierences and all that which is still in store for me. By no means does that mean that a song mirrors my feelings at this very moment. I sing about the past, about something that has had an effect on me or - hypothetically speaking - how something could affect me. I'm certainly not a confused guy who has lost all illusions. I know what I want, and I have a stong faith. If anything I'm realistic and I don't try to embellish things. The truth often is very unpleasant, tough or painful. I have already heard many people say that our music is extremely gloomy and bitter. Personally I love that kind of music. But not because it is that way, but because I have a connection with it, I can recognise myself in it. Many people in this world are depressed. Just because someone comes along and says "don't worry, be happy", does by no means mean that everybody is happy."

You grew up at your grandmother's who, in your early childhood, frequently took you along to the morgue. Bizarre, bizarre...

"Yes, that's right. After my father died, she somewhat lost her wits. I think that she was somehow obsessed by death. She only wore black and became very quiet. Maybe, likewise, that was a major influence on my life.."

What did go through your head, when you saw a corpse for the first time?

"The first dead body was my own father. I did not comprehend what had happened and stared at it for ages. Everyone around me was crying their hearts out. I then started weeping too."