"Everything I do, I do for God," says David Eugene Edwards of 16 Horsepower and he means it. The message, a not very cheerful one, in their American/psychobilly/folkpunkrock is aimed at everybody, but especially at the heathens among us.

David Eugene Edwards: "The Bible wasn't written for the believers, you know, it was written to make people believe. I sing for people who don't believe in God and don't go to church. It may sound arrogant, but I think that I'm being used by God. He gave me the talent to make music. It's all I can do."

- Do you get shown on religious tv-stations in America?
Edwards: "One christian station wanted to play our videoclip, but when they heard our lyrics, they were shocked. We had to edit out the words 'fuck' and 'bitch', and of course we didn't do that. I don't want to get played on christian stations altogether anyway."

- Whence your love for the church?
Edwards: "I have always enjoyed going to church. I'm happy there, because I'm in the presence of God. There He speaks to me, and I to Him. The church may be ruined by chic vestments and rituals, but I deeply love the order that reigns there. When I write songs, I have old hymns in mind. That's what gives our music that heavy overtone, but because we play acoustic instruments, it never becomes obtrusive. It's a kind of possessed church music."

"My grandfather was a preacher, and likewise my grandmother was very religious. Thanks to her I saw a lot of corpses (laughs). They were morticians too and whenever we went to call on people at their home, she always made me look. I didn't find that scary at all, it was fascinating."

- Do punk and God go together? Do they?
Edwards:"I have been through all the development stages of a normal teenager, so I liked punk and new wave. But I never rebelled, and I never had problems with my parents. When I heard a lonesome farmer play banjo for his family, I sensed the agony, aggression and agitation that Joy Division has as well. I love the spirit of punk; very honest and straightforward, but that doesn't imply I agree with the message. All music, rock music too, is a gift from God. You can use music for good ends, but for evil ends as well; money or women."

- What do people in America think of your music?
Edwards: "They pigeon-hole us as American Gothic. For the average American the word 'gothic' sounds morbid, and I quite like that. Reality often is morbid and sad."

"I'm not really proud of being American. America is future orientated. There's an inconceivable obsession with progress, but the past is forgotten. A society like that can not function properly, I'm sure of that.

- You have lived in Los Angeles for a few years. How was that for you as a christian?
Edwards: "My wife hails from Los Angeles, I had followed her there. In L.A. I met Jean-Yves Tola, with whom I founded 16 Horsepower, but we returned to Colorado. Los Angeles to me didn't seem like a good place to raise my children. I've only seen decadence, filth, drugs and sex there."

- You play a cross between punk and country. Which one of the two do you actually prefer?
Edwards: "Hard to say. If you play loud music, you will perhaps be heard, but you will get nothing in return; no love and no comfort. People nowadays again are in want of a heart, they (re)turn to acoustic music, that is much more intimate than samplers, computers and electric guitars. Yet, I stand in need of aggression in music too. I'm quickly bored when I'm only playing traditional music from the 20's or 30's. Musicians were good then, but the lyrics don't amount to much more than 'Oh, my woman left me' or something in the same vein."

"I very much love old instrument that have passed through different hands; the spirit and soul of those musicians is inside them. They have also defined the sound. My bandoneon is over a hundred years old, my guitars were built in the 30's. They have a personality."

- Are you also influenced by the blues from the south?
Edwards: "I have a problem with the blues, probably because of my upbringing. Not that I was raised a racist, no way; I have black and hispanic friends. It's just that I have always preferred the white blues of the Scottish and the Irish. Black blues is very emotional, but it doesn't affect me like more rigid white church music or banjo-country do. I'm not proud of my whiteness, but I was brought up that way."

- Finally: you smoke and you're drinking a glass of wine now. Is that also a sin?
Edwards: "Yes, I'm not saying that this bottle is Evil itself, but intoxication is. Letting yourself go, for your own pleasure, almost always is at someone else's expense. I'm a complete asshole when I'm drunk, and every gulp is a step in that direction. So I'm in conflict with myself right now."
(note similarity with, not only that, quote from Vrij Nederland interview of 18 March 2000)