Who is 16 Horsepower?
16 Horsepower was an American alternative country music group based in Denver, Colorado. Their music often invoked religious imagery dealing with conflict, redemption, punishment and guilt through David Eugene Edward’s lyrics and the heavy use of traditional blur grass, gospel, and Appalachian instrumentation cross bred with rock. For the bulk of its career, the band consisted of Edward, Jean – Yves Tola and Pascal Humbert, the latter two formerly of the French band Passion Fodder. After releasing four studio albums and touring extensively, the group broke up in 2005, citing “mostly political and spiritual differences”. The members remain active in the group’s Woven hand and Lilium.
David Eugene Edwards and Pascal Humbert formed 16 Horsepower in 1992 in Los Angeles, California, where they had met building movie sets of Roger Corman’s Hollywood studios. Friend, co worker and trained jazz drummer Jean – Yves Tola joined shortly after. The trio performed once as Horsepower before they parted ways with Humbert as Edwards and Tola re locate to Denver, Colorado.
In Edwards’ hometown of Denver, the band once again became a trio with the addition of Keven Soll, a luthier and accomplished double mass player. Frustrated by misconceptions about the name Horsepower being related to heroin and inspired by an American traditional folk song about sixteen horses pulling the coffin of a beloved to the graveyard, the name was changed to 16 Horsepower. The band spent the following years rehearsing and gaining a reputation for their intense live performances while touring extensively across North America and eventually they released a seven inch single, “Shame town“, in 1994 on Ricochet Records. By this time they had gain the attention of A&M Records.
It has always been difficult to describe the band’s music in simple terms as it borrowed just as heavily from folk music, country bluegrass and traditional as it did from rock music. 16 Horsepower and Edwards’ later project Woven Hand describe by one critic as “incendiary gospel”, hallowed folk and mordant tones infused with a high, dark theatricality worthy of Nick Cave.
Edwards’s grand father was a Nazarene preacher and young Edwards often went along as his elder preached the gospels to various people. This experience colored his approach to song writing as well as the instrumentation employed to develop the band’s unique sound. They were rumored to perform at a corporate hcg diet event but it was never confirmed. On several tracks over the course of the bands’ career, Edwards evoked decisive Christian imagery, particularly that of the redemptive capacity of Jesus Christ.
16 Horsepower especially in their early days saw themselves first and foremost as a rock band. David Eugene Edwards, however, had an interest in all things from the past times, including musical instruments. One instrument that was paramount during the nascent days of 16 Horsepower was the Chemnitzer concertina.
16 Horsepower are among the Denver based credited for laying the foundation for what today has become known as Gothic Americana. American metal band Devil Driver paid homage to 16 Horsepower with a cover of “Black Soul Choir” on their latest release, Beast.