David Eugene Edwards was 8 years old when his father died. Even before his mother needed to resume a working life, David was placed with his grandfather, a Nazarene preacher who traveled to the state limits to speak of hell and damnation.

"After grandpa had given his all during his preaching, that congregation’s regular preacher hardly dared to stand up before them again."
Before the night’s show Edwards sits back on the couch, the only piece of furniture in the 'Nighttown' dressing room besides a formica table with crackers, orange juice and mineral water on it. His pale blue eyes are closed to block out the neon lights. "He had a direct line with God. He knew what He liked, but above all what He didn’t approve of: make-up, dancing, card games, movies, pants for women and a few hundred other small things."

Rotterdam's Sixteen Horsepower fans are gathering downstairs in the bar and at the door. I'll bet that none of them ever worked in the harbour or saw a Feyenoord, Sparta or Excelsior football game. I'm pretty sure however that they know the methadon bus, platform 1 (sic) at the central station (a hangout for junkies) and the social services' unemployment desk. Sixteen Horsepower is not an ordinary pop group. None of their songs will ever make it to the hired band's set list for a wedding party. Listening to Sixteen Horsepower is not for pleasure. Sixteen Horsepower sounds like someone moving a razor across the mirror of your soul. Like Tom Waits' adopted son performing Appalachian murder ballads put to European waltzes, polkas and cabaret in Berlin before, no after Hitler came to take over. Anyway, you all catch my drift. David Eugene Edwards does: "Sixteen Horsepower is on a crusade. We’d never leave our families just to entertain people, that would be frivolous. No, we bring the truth and that can be hard."

How, for Heaven’s sake, did Sixteen Horsepower become the missing link between Joy Division and Hank Williams? And where does their unchosen leader come up with his lycris so intense, put to such haunting music. Dee opens his eyes, his look turns from wildeyed like Klaus Kinski in 'Cobra Verde' to serene like Jesus on Michelangelo's 'last supper'.

"I can’t explain it to anyone," he says after at least half a minute of silent contemplation, "but when I wake up in the morning I know whether it’s going to be a banjo, accordeon or guitar day! An hour later I’ll be playing that instrument of choice. It sometimes takes all day before I come up with something that sounds special in my ears, and even a whole week before I dare to play it to the other band members. The lyrics will also have to be complete by then. I couldn't imagine ever singing other peoples' words, except the gospels of course. I always have a little hard-covered notebook on me, in wich I write down things that come up in my head. Sometimes it's whole stories, sometimes poems, a couple of sentences or just one word. I look for lycris that fit the music I just made. The choice is made purely by feeling."

"Actually, all my songs are gospels, even the so called 'love songs', because God is love. To me, it's stunning to hear that people think Sixteen Horsepower's music is somber, heavy. I seldom feel like that, most of the time I feel light, in every known sense of the word. I've got more hope in me than ought to dare hope for. I believe in the new testament. Faith, hope and love, what else could one wish for? I constantly live up to that, like the bible describes, but not in the way the institutionalised christianity does. I’ve got nothing against radio stations playing christian music, but that music seldomly is any less synthetic than the music in the top 40. From my travels through the southern states I know that people actually sit on their porches, playing to an audience of friends and neighbours, putting many a sunday-morning gospelgroup to shame. The best christian music is probably never heard."

"All band members live in the countryside of Colorado, California or even the Mojave desert. Far from the action, as our record company never fails to point out. But we did try, living in Los Angeles at the time, bulding movie stages in Roger Corman’s film studio and playing in the clubs at night. Everyone in LA wants to get into the movie business. Every waitress is 'really' an actress, every taxi driver is 'really' an actor and their bosses are of course 'really' producers. On top of that everyone has a film script to 'pitch'. No, Hollywood is one stop short of hell. We wouldn't want to raise a family in such a place."

"We only come to LA to perform. Sometimes we run into the same women we met the last time we played at some venue. "How’s the wife?" they’ll ask; "how’s married life?" "Fine." I’ll answer to both questions, although I know they really want to hear a different answer. Most people think we’re a travelling curch group when our bus, 'the Plague Ship', parks behind the community centre. To the townfolk we must surely look like preachers from Dixieland. Tall, lean, messy hear and dressed completely in black, like Robert Mitchum in 'night of the hunter'. We don’t even look like musicians when we’re onstage . We’re not making a show, we don’t even look at the audience and we communicate only through our music. For fear of sounding anti-social, I hardly dare to confess that I actually enjoy those unconfortable silences in between songs. Grandpa used to have those too, in his preaching hour in church. But just like him I always assume that even those who don’t want to, can understand my every word."

"It’s not a miracle that we’re doing better in Europe than back home. American bands making American music have never really been popular in the US. I understand the aversion they feel. Who wants to tell them the US of A is a country based on genocide, slavery and the chain gang, when any boy-band can tell them it's wonderful to live in 'God’s own country'? The closest I ever came to confessing my love to someone was in 'Ruthie Lingle', a song on 'Sackcloth ‘n Ashes', our first cd. She was the girl my mother trusted to take me to church when she couldn't take me herself, for having to provide for our daily bread. Rhutie was 12 when we got to know each other. My first older woman! I loved her more than I loved my mother. She still pops up in some of the songs I wrote, mostly as a symbol things good, pure and immaculate. My mother has forgiven my infidelity a long time ago. If she's not babysitting to allow my wife to see the show, she sits in first row at all of our shows within a range of about 50 miles from Denver."

"I live in the 'days of old' more than my mother does. Mom can operate a PC, I don’t even like telephones and TV’s. I prefer to see and speak to people in the flesh. That makes people more dangerous, especially women. I stand firm, but sometimes the temptation can be very strong. Sex is like alcohol or nicotine: as long as it doesn't dominate your life, you can handle it. But it’s hard not to let it! My father -according to my mother, my resemblance to him is even stronger than to my grandfather- almost died from sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. He became a biker, not quite a Hell’s Angel but more like Marlon Brando in 'The Wild Ones'. For my mom, that was hard enough to take. When he finally came back home, for good at last, he was diagnosed with leukemia. I still have the tape recording of him saying thanks to the Lord for his disease, because it made him find back his religion. He said that without it, he surely would have ended up in prison, if he would have survived at all. He died not long after this. My mother says he held on to his faith found anew until the end. It shows this is important to her own faith. To mine it's not an issue whether he kept his faith or not. People always ask me how I can believe in a God who obviously cares little for his creation. I believe the Devil likes people to think that way. Of course, I believe in the Devil just like I do in God. I just don’t attribute the same powers to him. What are you saying? The salvation of all humanity's souls at stake in a game of chess between those two? I never heard of that idea. A movie by Ingmar Bergman? Never seen it. A cynic, Bergman, a gifted artist is what I can see so far. But in a greater perspective not more important than Nancy Sinatra, whose lyrics I slightly altered to 'these knees are made for kneeling, and that’s just what they'll do', to fit 'Black Bush'. Just kidding. Maybe it wasn’t as funny as when I first thought of it, but if God hasn't struck me down with a bolt of lightning yet, Lee Hazlewood will probably forgive me as well."

"Sixteen Horsepower are the Lord’s stormtroopers, alway on patrol behind enemy lines. Our wives aren't happy with that. They know, most of them by experience, what it's like in Sodom and Gomorra. The fact that we're playing fancy venues and sleeping in luxurious hotel rooms in Europe is a far from comforting idea to them. A suite in a four star hotel can infect you with worse things than the exotic flu viruses we infect each other with on our nightly tours of the US in 'the Plague Ship'.God I hate those long distance phone calls between two continents, and their uncomfortable silences. Nothing's more hypocrite than a family man who's away from his family. That must be the explanation for my desire to lead a simpler life, like my grandfather did. He had a full camera crew coming to visit him in his house though. He didn’t know what was happening to him, all the attention focused on him. Lately however, he's asking me to come and sing in his church, even one of my own songs if nothing else. That would be quite a concession for him to make. At the time, I was only allowed to sing the hymns from the collection the original pilgrims brought with them and consequently forgot about when they landed at Plymouth Rock. Well, if even my grandfather's becoming a worldly man at age 83, maybe I underestimated the power of the Devil after all. haha."