Listening to David Eugene Edwards talk about his music is nearly as intense an experience as watching him perform.
“My music is pretty loud and heavy, but it’s not as heavy with two people as it was with three,” Edwards said earlier this week. “But now it’s stronger. It’s a trade-off. And I guess I would rather be heavy in mood and content rather than volume.”
The former 16 Horsepower frontman almost gives new depth to the word “heavy” with Woven Hand, his latest project. Drummer Ordy Garrison’s beats carry a relentless bottom, and while foreboding atmospherics swirl from Edwards’ driving guitars, it’s the singer-songwriter’s lyrics that shape Woven Hand, which headlines The Denver Post’s fifth annual best underground bands showcase Sunday at the Bluebird.
Woven Hand’s most recent disc, “Consider the Birds,” is a heady gothic folk excursion. It is dark, moody, dense, morbid and prodding. And it’s the logical extension of Edwards’ songwriting career after 16 Horsepower finally called it quits in April after years of sitting on the fence.
“We all took a break in late 2001,” Edwards said. “We’d been on the road for eight years straight, and everyone had responsibilities other than traveling and playing music – life, children and business – and all of that needed that time to be taken care of.
“Jean-Yves (Tola) has a horse farm in northern California. Pascal (Humbert) lives out near Utah, still in Colorado but close to Utah, and he lives on a ranch and just had a baby and built a house.”
But the reasons for 16 Horsepower’s elongated demise went deeper.
“There were also differences of opinion – not musically, but religiously and philosophically,” Edwards said. “But I’m still good friends with both of them, and we talk frequently.”
Edwards’ music has always been built around his intense faith – and the fiery juxtapositions and boiling conflicts that come with being a modern, thinking religious man. “Being a Christian means that you’re owned by God,” said Edwards, who spends his off-tour time with his wife, Leah, and kids Asher, 18, and Elijah, 8, in their south Denver home.
It wasn’t the content of the songs that caused conflict within the band, but the content of Edwards’ media interviews.
“They’d want to talk to me about what I sing about,” he said, “and I’d make the disclaimer that it was my belief and not the band’s, but in the long run people ignored that and that became a problem with Jean-Yves and Pascal.”
It was late 2001 when Edwards started over with Woven Hand.
“I didn’t have a way to make money other than playing music,” Edwards said. “Luckily I was playing music and writing new songs and I ended up recording them and the record company ended up liking it and putting it out.”
While confident about its reception overseas – where his music has long been embraced and understood on a more mainstream level than on his home turf – Edwards was nervous about the stateside reception. Still, he went forward and told The Post just days before Woven Hand’s debut show (at the Gothic Theatre with The Czars, on Oct. 13, 2001) that he was still writing songs with 16 Horsepower in mind.
But then Woven Hand came into its own, and as 16 Horsepower slowly died over the next three years, Woven Hand became the dominant outlet – and frame of reference – for Edwards’ complex psyche.
“I now have less restrictions inside of every song,” Edwards said, comparing his songwriting parameters today with those of 16 Horsepower. “I can go wherever I want to go, and Ordy follows me wherever I go. That adds a different element to every show.”
Edwards and Garrison are working on the next Woven Hand record, which they expect to release in spring 2006. Guitarist Peter van Laerhoven, the band’s third member, lives in Brussels, Belgium, and hasn’t yet contributed to the disc, though Edwards said he likely will. When asked how the new material is coming along, he replied, “For me, it’s just another song in the line of songs that I wrote. Maybe it’s a little bit heavier sonically.”
Heavier indeed.
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
3more
BRENDAN BENSON Benson has been the next big thing for nearly a decade, and while this year’s “The Alternate to Love” is a far cry from his 1996 debut “One Mississippi,” he’s still making music informed by the same rocked-out indie elements. Benson plays Saturday at the Larimer Lounge with The Robbers on High Street in support.
KASABIAN Of the many exciting British breakouts of the past year – Bloc Party and The Kaiser Chiefs included – Kasabian gave us one of the most righteous singles in “Reason is Treason.” The band holds up well in the live arena, too, as you can see Monday at the Bluebird. (The band also opens for Oasis at Red Rocks later this summer.)
PERNICE BROTHERS Joe and Bob Pernice, along with their band, are making some of the saddest, truest music out there. They bring their caravan to the Bluebird on Thursday.
– Ricardo Baca
Woven Hand
GOTHIC FOLK|Bluebird Theater; 8 p.m., Sunday headlining The Denver Post’s fifth annual best
underground bands showcase, which will also feature Born in the Flood, Hot IQs and Bright
Channel. The top 20 of The Post’s annual survey of the local music scene will be revealed on a
special edition of Radio 1190’s “Local Shakedown” today at 4 p.m., featuring Post writers Ricardo Baca and John Moore, and in a package in Sunday’s Arts & Entertainment section.|$6|
through TicketWeb.com.
