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David Eugene Edwards, lead singer and lyricist for the Denver-based band Sixteen Horsepower, doesn't think people really want to hear what he has to say. Tonight he will be proved right. The band is about to open for Ratdog, a band fronted by Bob Weir, formerly of the Grateful Dead, at William Paterson University in New Jersey. Sixteen Horsepower and Ratdog prove to be an ill-matched pair.
Before the show, outside in the parking lot, a bunch of typical Deadheads are hanging out, selling hemp necklaces and woodcarvings and whatnot, and most of them seem like a tolerant, easy-going bunch of folks. When the show gets underway, though, a vocal minority starts yelling at Edwards. Their heckling clearly gets on Edwards's nerves, but he keeps his cool. He wishes peace to the mockers in the crowd and finishes his set with "Brimstone Rock," the first track from the band's newest release on A & M records, "Low Estate." Edwards plucks at his banjo meditatively and delivers his lyrics, a mix of divine wrath and human frailty, in a tight-lipped deadpan. By the time he gets to the end of the song, though, he is wailing like a man in the throes of barely suppressed anger. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord," and for the benefit of the hecklers in the crowd he tacks on an extra line: "And I believe him--and I believe him." He is obviously distressed by the way the crowd has treated him, but he resigns his right to get angry and take vengeance. That is God's business.
What is it about Sixteen Horsepower that alienates some people? Is their music too strange? Are the lyrics too Christian? Edwards thinks the answer is probably both and that any success they have is due entirely to the grace of God.
The music of Sixteen Horsepower is certainly not to everyone's liking. A blend of Appalachian folk sounds that must have come right out of the Folkways anthology, Cajun stylings, European waltz and cabaret sounds reminiscent of some of Tom Waits' material, it has been described as part Old World, part New World, and part Another World. It is very eclectic and, though some of it is definitely rock-influenced, decidedly old-fashioned. The retro sound is anchored on traditional instruments; Edwards plays banjo, concertina, hurdy-gurdy, and an antique push-button accordion called a bandoneon. The newest guitar he plays was built in the 1940s. He is backed up by upright double bass, cello, and a fiddle. Some of the songs are not even composed in the traditional pop structure of verse followed by chorus followed by verse. Instead they play straight through, with variations rather than repetitions, like miniature sonatas. Sixteen Horsepower's sound would have been regarded as quite progressive during the Civil War. Nowadays some folks regard it as too strange for their modern ears.
Then there are the lyrics. Edwards doesn't so much write songs as piece together scraps from his journal, poetic phrases, and Bible verses. The songs are ragged, jaunting love ballads, prayers to a righteous but loving God, barn dances for an Old West church social. Edwards is unafraid to confess his failings, to preach a little hellfire and brimstone, to kneel before a God whose love is just as terrible as his justice. His words are not for those who don't want to be exposed to anything more challenging than schmaltzy sentimentality. Edwards on depravity: "You're gonna hafta cut off both my hands/I got pride as big as Dixieland." On redemption: "O so enchanting/Are these lovely ties that bind you/'Neath their deadly weight/The Lord's eye did find you/With fear & tremblin'/Before the one with your wounds/Your eyes are as empty as my/Savior's tomb." On temptation: "I entertained that thought so much/It'll never go away/Get outta here you yellow bellied/Snake/Slither your way through town/I ever see you again--put you in the ground." On judgment: "Oh yeah I heard your talkin'/That little Jesus geek need a good ass good ass clockin'/Don't you dare boy--think my Lord hath done forgotten."
Now that is old-time religion for the new millenium. It is dark and rough enough to bother everybody, even some Christians. Put together the music and the lyrics and you get the rollicking cowboy song "My Narrow Mind," the haunting lament "Golden Rope," the Spirit-filled hootenanny "Black Lung," and "Brimstone Rock," a song that sounds like something Uncle Cletus composed on the porch the day he dropped a match in his moonshine still, blew himself and the hound dog sky high, and called it a religious experience. All that comes out of the mouth of Edwards, who sounds like the lost child of Nick Cave and June Carter. Edwards looks strikingly like Antonius Bloch, the existentially troubled knight who plays chess against Death in Ingmar Bergman's classic film The Seventh Seal. He is so thin that with a banjo in his lap he seems like a skeleton playing one of his own bones. He shows almost no animation during shows and barely speaks to the audience.
On the day of their last show in New York City (which was very enthusiastically received) they were photographed for a page in GQ. During their recent performance on Mountain Stage, the national acoustic show on NPR, Edwards concluded a song with one of his deadpan, semi-sarcastic comments: "Thank you for clapping." A woman from the audience cried out in response: "Thank you for playing." Let them that have ears hear. Edwards understands that some of us don't have the ears to hear, but those of us that do are grateful.
CJ: If you read the critical material on Sixteen Horsepower it seems that no one is able to decide if the music is demonic or divine. Do you think there is some confusion on that issue or are there elements of both at work?
D.E.E.: I think there's definitely confusion. But at the same time I don't think they're that far off in that I show the struggle between the two. I'm definitely a believer, and I think I write about situations that every man goes through, the choices that they make and the outcome of those choices. It doesn't really matter either way what they think. Not too much. I don't have that much control over it. I think a lot of times I don't even understand a lot of the stuff that comes out of me.
CJ: Do you think people are put off by the kind of confessionalism you practice, like in songs like "My Narrow Mind" or "Dead Run" where you are pretty honest about human fallenness?
D.E.E.: I think there's a certain amount of people out there who are looking for somebody to be that honest. To me truth is everything. That doesn't mean I'm always truthful, but I believe truth is everything, and I believe God is truth, and love is truth, and that's the most important thing there is. No matter what the outcome of the truth is, the truth is the best thing always. Sometimes the truth is believed, and sometimes it's not.
CJ: What kind of responsibility does that put on you?
D.E.E.: Well, I don't really think about it that much. Other than I just believe I'm supposed to do what I do, which is play music, and say what I say, which is what I believe. I don't know what else I would say. Other than what I think about and what I believe in. I don't go any deeper into it than that. I've been given an opportunity to do what I'm doing.
CJ: Have you come under any criticism from Christians?
D.E.E.: Certainly, certainly. It's very mixed. I get letters from people of all different denominations and whatnot, and some of them are wondering about my salvation, whether I'm sincere, and others are just thanking me, saying we're so happy that you presented Christianity in this way. On the whole, the Christian Media Association or something like that, they want us to be a part of it. When the first record came out, they contacted us, and they wanted to sell our CDs in their stores, if we would take out some of the lyrics that were on it. And I said no. This time around, I guess there's no words on this record that offended them, so they came again, and so we're in the process right now of working that out, starting to sell them in Christian record stores and whatnot. I've been doing lots of interviews with Christian magazines and online things....
CJ: What's you're impression of that experience?
D.E.E.: It's hard to think of it in other terms than business, 'cause Christian music is just a big business like any other big business. If you do it right, you can sell a lot of records, and if you do it wrong they're not going to put you on the radio or your videos on or whatever. You have to not offend anyone basically. As the world gets a little more liberal in every way, even in the Christian community or whatever, things are allowed to be...like I remember when there was the first punk rock Christian band when I was a kid. To me they were a joke. It was music that was copied. The Christian community looked at the secular community and said "OK, the kids like this now, so we'll dress up like that and play this type of music and win a bunch of souls or something like that," and I think that's complete bulls**t. I think that people who are real and play music because that's what they do, and it comes from their heart.... I think there's a lot of good people in Christian music who are really popular and sell a lot of records, and I agree with every word they have to say, and I'm happy they have the success they have. But I'm sure that most of the bands that are truly like every member is a believer, there's a lot of good ones that you just never hear, because they just don't have the slickness to get out there.
CJ: In a sense it's odd that you guys are having the success you are having, because if you just described the music to someone it might sound off-putting; it's a very different sound.
D.E.E.: I truly believe it's only by God's grace at all that I am where I am, that I even got signed on a major label, because for the most part I truly believe that people don't want to hear what I have to say. The music is too dark for most people. They don't want to hear that music, I mean just the music itself. I think there are enough people that need it, to where I've gotten where I've gotten.I may be washing dishes next week. Whatever the Lord wants is what he'll have.
CJ: I'm curious to know what you regard as creative influences--in books, film, music, whatever.
D.E.E.: I'm not that big of a reader. I've read pretty much all of C. S. Lewis' books. I just love him. Dostoyevsky--I've read most of his books. I just really like him. A guy named George MacDonald, his book Lilith is my favorite book I've ever read. I read some other things, some books...And the Ass Saw the Angel, that Nick Cave book. Then I read books that my mom gives me, by religious people and whatnot. I trust anything she has to say. Whatever she gives me I read it; I usually don't remember who the people are.
CJ: Were your parents supportive of your desire to go into music?
D.E.E.: Oh yeah. My mom comes to every show we do in Colorado. My dad too. Certain things she'll say, "I didn't care for that in that song." She always questions me, and I love that. I think for most people who are believers, and their mother is a believer, you have a pretty tight bond. She wants to be in the band is what she wants. She wants to play tambourine and sing backup.
CJ: I can see a parallel there to the Carter Family.
D.E.E.: I'm hopin' one day to do a whole family. My daughter plays the fiddle, and she's getting pretty good at it. CJ: I've read at least one place that you go to a nondenominational church. I was wondering what your church experience is like.
D.E.E.: I'm not exactly sure where it came from. It sort of came out of a kinda of communal Christian atmosphere. I think it may have originally come from the Brethren, similar to the Mennonites in a way. There's no preacher, just elders, and they take turns preaching, there's communion every Sunday, and we meet in an elementary school cafeteria, about fifty or sixty people. This is in Boulder, Colorado, which is about forty minutes from my house. I used to live in Boulder, and that's when I started going there. I just never found another place where I felt really welcome. I just keep going back there.
CJ: What do think is wrong with most American churches, from your point of view?
D.E.E.: Well, I'll tell you, pretty much everything except the Word itself. I mean you have good people in every church, really good people, people of God, it's just that overall it's just...certain people need certain things. Some people need to go a suburban church, some people need to go to an inner-city church. I don't really have anything bad to say bout any religion, Missionary Baptist, Pentecostal, Episcopalian or whatever. If they believe in Jesus more power to them. There's just too much of a...I have trouble dealing with a lot of rules for no reason, legalism out of fear, cause I grew up the Church of the Nazarene which is just completely ruled by fear. A woman can't wear a dress, you can't step into a movie theater, you can't drink any alcohol, you can't play cards, just whatever comes up and causes somebody to stumble they say, "Oh, you can't do that." They're so fearful of losing their salvation, which is not biblical at all. Once saved always saved. That's why we had to leave that church, my family went to a Baptist church. That's primarily where I grew up, in the Baptist church. I think it's a really hard thing. I go every now and then to the church my parents go to, which is in a really wealthy neighborhood, and that's much different from the one I go to now. It's like a fashion show every Sunday. There's a lot of good things that go on, but I just can't...everything else around drives me to go insane...It causes me to realize I should be somewhere else, where people are more like-minded. I'm not talking liberal, like "Do whatever you want." It's almost a lifestyle preference, all these people with so much money, playing golf, whatever, just the typical American Christian lifestyle, blending in with everything else. I can't deal with it.
CJ: I would assume you are something of an enthusiast for Christian freedom. All things are permissible, but not all things are profitable.
D.E.E.: I believe that whole-heartedly. If you're enslaved to something, that's wrong. If you do something that you think is right in front of someone who thinks it's wrong, that's a wrong thing to do. But I think there are situations where just being a human being means that it's not going to work out that way, but God makes the best of those situations. I offend some people by just the music I play, but I believe in the people who really need it, so I do it for them. The others can tune it out. Music is a hard thing, cause it's such a broad thing, it goes out to so many people. You can't please everybody.