So, can we start?
Jean-Yves Tola: Ouais. (means yeah in French)

In French? In English?
David Eugene Edwards: Whatever you want!

(to DEE) You speak French too?
DEE: No! (laughs)

So, you've got a new album coming out, with new atmospheres. How do you feel you have changed your music through the years?
DEE: It's been changing ever since I've started to play music. I mean all the music that I've ever made is always evolving.

But how do you feel it has changed?
DEE: Well, this record in particular is less of me, musically, and more of Jean-Yves.
JYT: Yeah, let's say we co-operated a little more on the writing of the music.

For the words, too, maybe?
DEE: No. It's still me. The words have not really changed. And the way I write the words.
JYT: But the delivery of them...
DEE: Yeah, the way, you know... When he brings the music it's very different than the music that I would make, so it causes me to sing in a different way, and maybe it helps me to become a better singer when I have to change from my normal way, which is kind of (he whistles to show he thinks he sings on a monotone tune).
JYT: That was a good thing, a good experience, and maybe on next one we'll have more people.

And you brought a lot of new instruments through the years and particularly on Secret South?
JYT: I wouldn't say particularly on Secret South. Secret South has more piano and organ that David is playing. And I think there's more violin presence on the record, toward the record.
DEE: And there's less of things that we normally do, like the bandoneon that I play much less than I did, like on Low Estate.

Why did you almost abandon the bandoneon?
DEE: I just got to concentrate more on the piano and organ, you know. We cannot use those together, the bandoneon and the piano, it is too similar, so we've had to chose one. There's a little bit of it on the record but...
JYT: Yeah, there's one song that has a bit of accordion. And, you know, we only have a certain amount of time on a CD, and we don't want to put too much of everything so, there's a choice of tunes and...

What was the approach of the music? Did you come with the lyrics first?
JYT: Hmm... No.
DEE: The lyrics are always there before the music, but not in a form of a song. I just have a book with a lot of words, nothing going together, just words, and so we make the music then, and I just go through it and pick sentences and piece it together for the song, like a puzzle maybe. But this record is much more... each person plays less of their instrument than on any other record, and that's something that we really felt strongly that we needed to do.

Why?
DEE: I think it becomes more intense, the less you play. It has more depth.
JYT: And it gives more room to the other person that's playing as well. You know, the space created gives more room.
DEE: It gives everything more definition. I think it comes with experience of just playing music for... over time. When you first start out, you say: to fill the space I must play, I must play, I must play... but, hopefully we learned that you don't have to do that. You just have to give a little bit, it means more than doing too much.

The general atmosphere is a little more calm on this record, in the words also. Did you find... maybe peace in you?
DEE: I think everybody in the band, everybody involved with making the record, is more that way in their live at this moment in time. Not that I've found you know, some deep nirvana peace (laughs), but everyone is more comfortable with themselves to a certain degree, and I know that's the case for me, and I think it's true for all of us. I think different things outside of the music, that don't have anything to do with the music, have really changed in each one of our lives. And it's time itself. Time has brought it to us, we have grown older, and hopefully more mature... and less anxious about things maybe.

One of your fans said 16HP fans would be surprised because there is one song with joyful lyrics.
DEE: I don't know which song they're referring to, but it's probably the Bob Dylan song, "'Cept You," which is not our song, so (laughs). But no, I mean, yeah. We did that song for a reason.
JYT: It's not that we have suddenly changed thoroughly. I think we could have written this record maybe a few years ago.
DEE: Yeah. It's another side of 16HP.
JYT: And there's a couple of songs on that record that are pretty intense, pretty busy... and pretty urgent, and there's still that in us as well, and probably still in the future. That's all I just wanted to say. It's not that we're "it's all one thing or the other." As David said, it's more a side that was maybe not...
DEE: Yeah, it's like looking at a picture and you only see this much of the picture, but each record, you see more of the picture.
JYT: It's a side of us that we finally, in a way, succeeded into putting into a record. For many reasons, it just was not there before.

You're doing some covers -"'Cept you," "Wayfaring Stranger" on this album. How do you choose your covers? Why do you choose to put covers on your CDs?
JYT: Hum... 'cos we like the song (laughs)... I mean there's more than that.
DEE: It's kind of a respect thing.
JYT: A reverence.
DEE: It's not like we needed filler for the record. We can write enough songs, we don't need any other people's song to fill up the record.
JYT: We play covers quite a bit and we don't always record them. And some of them we've never even played live. We like to do it as a reverence.

It's a tribute to your influences, maybe?
JYT: Yeah, exactly, I mean. All these covers that we've done are written by people we admire and that we enjoy listening to a lot, that we do listen to a lot too.
DEE: And the reason that we do admire them so much and we do listen to them so much is because we really identify maybe with their emotions, and where they are coming from, and we feel some sort of kinship with that, that's why we are able to do this. Because it is kind of a... I mean we're doing a Bob Dylan song on the record, you know what I mean, that's pretty... Maybe a lot of people would never do that because of who he is, but I think he's the type of person that... maybe who won't even like the song, necessarily, but I don't think he would be upset that we had recorded one of his songs. Because he's that type of person who doesn't say "I own this song that I wrote and it's mine," you know what I mean, it's a more free relationship even though we don't know these people, we just feel that this is the case.
JYT: Personally, it helps me understand the music better by playing it too. When it's not yours also.

You also played with other bands. You had an experience with Bertrand Cantat, you played on one song of the new Louise Attaque album. What does it bring you?
DEE: Oh, it just brings me a lot of things. The joy of being able to work with people that you like, outside the people that you normally work with. But I don't get very often a chance to do that, cos we're busy, we don't have a lot of time to do other things, so when we do have a chance to do that, it's nice.

Have you played with other bands than these French bands?
JYT: We already played with Morphine, with Mark Sandman...
DEE: And with the band the Innocence Mission from America, I mean doing songs with them live.
JYT: And also some people you may not know of, in America.
DEE: People that are not so well known, but people that we respect.

How about your record company? You are with Glitterhouse in Europe, but how about the United States?
JYT: Well, it just happened the last couple of weeks for the US and Australia. So... Glitterhouse was the first label that we signed with after we got dropped by A&M, Polygram and all that stuff. But we looked here first in Europe because Europe is quite important for us as we do well and better here, and also there was a lot of interest out of here, but we were looking everywhere. And we kept on working, we kept on touring, so it takes a lot of time and effort, and we had no manager for a while, so, to do with all that business thing, it takes a while. But it's all pretty much finished now.

Why do you think that you have a particular success in France and Holland?
DEE: I don't know...
JYT: One answer that is not gonna be complete, but that's one side of things I know, is that we spend more time here and in Holland than we do in other countries. But we're fortunate enough that even in countries where we don't do as well, we still do enough and we can continue go there and... the exact reasons I don't know.

Maybe the public in these countries is more sensitive to this kind of Southern "mood"?
JYT: Maybe...
DEE: It's true, I mean it's obvious because there's so many bands that are in our same situation, that do much better in Europe than in America.

Like Calexico maybe?
JYT:Yeah exactly.
DEE: You know if Calexico comes to Colorado, there'll probably be 30 people there, maybe 20, but if they play in Germany, in Holland, it's gonna be full of people.
JYT: It takes time, I think it's just a matter of time. Who knows, maybe on this record New Zealand is gonna like, you never know. Things may change and in France they may say "we don't like this record at all, sorry guys."

You did a solo show in the Netherlands recently, I heard. Was it a really different experience for you?
DEE: It was terrifying.

You played in a church.
DEE: Yeah, and I was terrified for weeks. I've never done anything like that before... and... I made him play with me so...
JYT: I had to go (laughs). He was like "I'm not going if you don't go."
DEE: No, it was wonderful, you know, I mean the people made it as good as it was, cos the people really... it was full of people, I didn't know that there would be anybody. Maybe I thought there would be some people there, but full... There was all these people looking at me, and they were all very quiet, it was a really neat experience, really cool, I feel really happy about it.

How did it happen? Did you choose to do that?
DEE: No, the Crossing Border festival contacted me. Cos they have a theme every year. And this year was the Bible.

Why not inviting the whole band?
DEE: Well, because the whole band has played there for the past two years.
JYT: Every time we go there, it's a joke now, it's not the Crossing Border festival, it's the 16hp festival.
DEE: They wanted us there because of the theme, but they wanted it to be different.
JYT: I think they just wanted more David (laughs).
DEE: Yeah because I'm the one that writes the lyrics, I'm the one that has the belief. Cos everyone knows that hopefully we all have different views and we don't present ourselves as this Christian band.

These different point of views have never been a problem in the band...
JYT: No, not so far.

And your music is quite strong (all the atmospheres) so how did you met, how did you decide to create a band as you had some different beliefs?
DEE: Well, we play music, we're musicians, you know what I mean. First, before anything, as far as being people. You know we met each other and we became friends because... I don't know, I don't why exactly, we didn't even really know about each other's music really, like we work together at the same job, he's a really nice guy so anybody that meets him is gonna wanna... So that was first friendship, and then we learned a little more about each other in our music. It was the next step of what we were gonna discuss, probably, you know, and we had so many common interests in music. That's how it came about.
JYT: Desires of how to do it and what to do...

You seem to have a particular relation with your fans through the internet. Once in a while, you write a little something to your fans...
JYT: I feel it's the only way that I can communicate with some people out there.
DEE: Yeah, we get letters, besides e-mail we get mail, stacks of mail from people, and it's too much, you can't write to these people back, there's no time for this.
JYT: And, even though I'm not a big internet person, I do use a computer for work but, the internet itself I don't really use it that much, but I guess I feel the need of looking at it once in a while, and see what's going on, and if I see somebody that's looking for something I can try to help or inform him by saying something. And also the person that does the site for us, she writes me regularly, and asks me questions of things that she's wondering or things that people are wondering, so I was trying to make an effort and take time to do it, it's kind of a shortcut and I should probably write letters back but we can't, I mean we don't have time. It's easy to reach a lot of people at once so... I think it's important for a band to know what people think and what question they have and to understand the band as good as they can.

And if it was possible would you go further maybe in making a chat once in a while or even a concert?
JYT: We have done that before, we've done interviews, concerts. I personally don't think that's great because the truth is the quality is still bad, it's not good, and we've seen it and we just thought it was terrible.

But it's a way of reaching thousands of people throughout the world at the same time.
JYT: Yeah, but I think I would rather just for them to take the music, because the picture is so far from reality that you get a wrong idea. Anything that you see on there, it has nothing to do with the reality. So I don't find that important.
DEE: I think we find much more important to concentrate on one on one communication with people. It is possible to reach all this people, in a short amount of time, immediately almost but maybe that's not the best way to do it even though it's possible.
JYT: Not that we wouldn't do it and we have done quite a few shows in the States, when people come and say "can we film it for the web?" and we say, sure, do it, but are we gonna go out of the way to do that? I don't think so. We would rather play a show.

I heard of a Minneapolis live CD of you. What is that CD?
JYT: It's just a compilation of songs that were recorded live, all of it I think it's in Denver except one song, in the last couple of years, and we just put it together. It won't really be available in the stores, it's more like something that we have with us when we are going on the road or through the mail order of Glitterhouse, our company, they have a mail order catalogue where you can order a bunch of music. But, we'll make it kind of a special thing, you know.

Cos people would like to have a live CD of your songs...
JYT: Yeah, it's something that we hear constantly, you know, live, live, live, live...

Because of the particular atmospheres.
JYT: But it was hard for us to agree and to actually decide that we were gonna do it because we're pretty critical of what we do...
DEE: I can't even listen.
JYT: And so we're always maybe too self-concerned about it and finally we can't... I believe it's a pretty good representation of one show, of one way of playing the songs. And we kind of decided it was maybe time to just let go and do it.

I heard you were shooting a video. How do you feel there's a need of a video for a song? Can you find a kind of video translation of the music? What do you think it can bring?
DEE: Well, most videos don't really bring anything to me. I think if it's done well it is really great, because when I make music and listen to music I see it in pictures, more than I even hear it I think, so I think it can be done, and done really well, but just the form in which it is done, I think it's just really, most of the time not very good, and it's almost maybe a detriment to the music. But, we're in a business where.. we don't HAVE to but it's probably a better idea to do it than to not do it.
JYT: Yeah, it's a tool for us. The record companies want them. Like David said, we like pictures, pictures in every sense whether it is a still picture or a movie and we try to make a video that's good.
DEE: We did it with limited resources as far as money and time, so we did it as a live video. Us playing live, which I think for us is the best thing. If people haven't seen us live and only heard the music, sometimes it's hard for them to understand what we are.

Which song is it?
DEE: It's "Clogger," the first song on the record, the heavy one.

Why this one?
DEE: It's the one that the record company chose.
JYT: We don't really care about what the record company wants to do with the music.
DEE: Which ever song they pick to say "we think this one is gonna be the single," we're like, sure, whatever. It doesn't really matter to us. We could have done a video for any other song.

Would you have done the same video of you playing?
DEE and JYT: Probably not.

If you had the opportunity, would you make it by yourself and choose the person that you would like to work with?
JYT: Well, that's what we do. I mean, don't get us wrong, we do decide of everything that touches us, most of the time.
DEE: When it comes to making the music, we make the decision about what it's gonna be, who we're gonna work with, and the same with the video. We basically did it ourselves.

For some bands it's not the case...
DEE: Some bands don't have any ideas of their own anyway! Someone else has to make the decision for them.
JYT: We did it ourselves, mostly, and we like to work with people, and specially if their speciality is video or producer or an engineer, so we did.

You don't work any longer with John Parish, for your album I mean...
JYT: Well, we did this record ourselves. We just wanted to work with somebody later in the process of the record, which is actually when you mix it.
DEE: We wanted to have complete control of the whole thing but at the same time we realised that maybe at some point during the process you need somebody that is outside of it to bring you back to some sort of reality when you've gone off in the wrong direction. So we did as much of it as we felt comfortable to do, and then we worked with this guy Paul Corkett in Bath, England, who we like and who we wanted to work with so we had him. I mean we mixed it with him.
JYT: And it was great, he did help a lot, because it's easy to get lost into something.
DEE: Yeah, if you're too involved sometimes it's hard to make the proper decision.

On the global mix of the album, are you very much implied or do you let the engineer make it is own way and then choose what you like?
JYT: I could say it depends, like on this record for instance, he had the tapes a few days before we actually got there and he had mixed a few songs just by himself. And it was great for us to hear somebody else's view of our music. His ideas...
DEE: Of how the album should sound.
JYT: Some of it was great and some of it wasn't and from then we took it further, the three of us. So it was real collaboration. And he's a very good engineer and also he's a very talented musician, well maybe not musician but musical person so it was very easy actually to mix it and to get to where we wanted to go.

I found this album more representative of a kind of Southern United States music. Is it a king of general state of mind in the US right now that this kind of music comes up more heavy, maybe hotter?
DEE: I don't really understand what you mean.

I feel that this album is warmer in the mood. And I just wanted to know if it was a general state of mind in the US right now?
DEE: I don't know if I understand your question correctly but I know that in America right now there is a lot of people doing things that are similar to what we're doing, and it hasn't been that way in the past. But it's coming out of every part, not just the South and probably less out of the South than it is in other places. And it's a really good feeling because in my opinion there hasn't really been good music out of America for a long time. And this music has always been around but no one paid it any attention.

Well, that's it because, to make a comparison again with Calexico, their new album is quite different from what they made before, and it's also heavier, with more powerful songs...
DEE: I think that's true, I think you're right when you say that. I understand your question now. Cos in the past it's been unacceptable to play the music, the instruments and you know the type of Southern music in the way that we do it. Kind of heavy. The way we play the instruments, this kind of unorthodox way of playing this type of music. And you were looked down upon by people if you played the music that way, by the purists of folk music or bluegrass music or country music or even rock and roll music. Now it's just people have... I think it's a matter of generations of people moving on. And the kind of the old school way of dealing with that is kind of... I mean these people are dying off (laughs)... In a way that's kind of the case. And it's a new generation of people that really are in love with the past but are still very much in the present, you know what I mean, it's a mixture, they're mixing these things. And it's becoming a new form of traditional music in a way.
JYT: To add to what David said, there's also the fact that when there's a new music, first it's always disturbing, it's a little difficult to get into it or like it, and it takes a little bit of time to say "oh, maybe this is not so bad." I'm sure it has happened to you, it has happened to me a lot, to hear something and say "oh, what is that" and 60 minutes later take it out of the CD player. And I think it's the same thing for the people in the States and maybe here too. You hear a little more, you hear a little more, and eventually you understand what these people are trying to do and maybe like it...

Translation by Arnaud himself.