RFI Musique: Why did you decide to call your new album Eldorado? What sort of gold were you looking for exactly?
Stephan Eicher: You know, every time I’ve been asked that question I’ve given a different answer. But I have to admit, I’m beginning to run out of inspiration now! Hmm, let me see, what can I come up with for you? Let’s think of something here… OK, I’ve got something, but I think you might be a bit disappointed. Here we are, it’s this: I think human beings tend to dream a bit too much. And I’m no different – I’d imagined something bigger, vaster, more golden. People from Zurich are like Parisians in that respect. They’re very sure of themselves. Have you heard the one about the guy from Zurich who heads off to see the Atlantic for the first time in his life? Anyway, he gets in his car and he drives and he drives and he drives. Then, at dawn, he finally gets there and sees this vast ocean stretching out before him, a simply superb view, and all he can say is "Well, I’d imagined it would be a bit bigger!"

The other reason for the title is that after Engelberg and Carcassonne I didn’t want to use another precise place name. With an album title like Eldorado everyone can read what they want into it!

And what did you bring back from your journey to Eldorado?
Well, I have to say this was an inner voyage, so it was basically a static experience. I think the best journeys are always ones where you don’t actually move. When I go on any physical kind of journey I somehow always feel insulted and a bit kind of dispossessed. I feel as guilty going through customs as I did at school when I got caught chatting in class. Reality’s an over-rated concept – it’s never as real as you think! It’s a bit like Eldorado really. If human beings actually reached their Eldorado they’d just be disappointed. What man loves about Eldorado is being able to dream about it. The most amazing thing you could ever come up with in reality could never quench that desire.

Despite the fundamental gap between dream and reality, I managed to bring back eleven songs from my inner journey. And I feel that what I brought back was good – in any case, I couldn’t fit any more in my hands. I couldn’t have carried any more!

Once you’ve found your inspiration, how do you go about composing?
I basically get an idea then I sit down and write it. It’s like I’ve got the first sentence in my head, but I don’t know how the story’s going to end. From that point on, I meander about a bit, taking off wherever my fancy takes me. I write in my head, using my imagination. It’s like I’m creating an entire scenario around a few lines, marrying an idea with a series of chords, a series of words.

There’s always something that triggers the actual urge to compose. With Eldorado, for instance, it was the tempo. I could imagine the precise beat for every song and it’s a beat that hardly changes from one to the next, in fact. This was the first time it happened like that with me but that’s where Eldorado comes from. The album stems from that tempo, my inner pulse, the rhythm of my heart which always beats faster when I’ve drunk too much coffee or fallen in love. When I sat down to write this time round, I locked myself away in a tiny room right up in the roof. And it felt like the walls just pushed further and further back as I advanced on my inner journey.

Eldorado is a very gentle album. It’s very different in essence from your last album, Taxi Europa, which was basically much more of a rock affair. Where did this new need for softness and intimacy come from?
When I was working on Eldorado I was staying in places where I couldn’t make any noise. There were lots of young children around and I didn’t want to wake anybody up. So the songs I wrote turned out very calm and serene because they were basically interiorised. I was really trying hard not to disturb anyone. Whenever anyone knocked at my bedroom door and asked what I was up to, I was like "Oh nothing! Nothing at all!" When I wrote the material for Taxi Europa it was written with live performances in mind. It was very much a spring album, throwing all the windows open - Eldorado is like shutting them all again! On my last album, I really felt this need to open up and move towards other people. This is more a case of me recentering myself, shutting the door and shouting "leave me alone!" I’m basically showing the "me" that maybe people tend to see not so much of. And I hope I’ll be able to transpose that same kind of intimacy live on stage, as if I’m just playing for the person listening to me, not for an entire audience. That’s what I’m aiming for anyway.

There’s a very original sound to your new album which stems both from an unusual choice of instruments and the arrangements. How did you go about creating this?
I think the originality you’re talking about comes from the arrangements and an overall idea of architectural structure. For me, orchestrating an album is almost a carnal pleasure. But I did impose a few rules on myself this time round like replacing the string quartet with a brass section and banning computers at the beginning and the end to work with magnetic tapes instead, which gave a much vaguer, unclear sensation. And that fitted in with my idea of taking things back to a human level.
I was one of the first musicians to use computerised techniques in my music, so believe me I know all the advantages and the drawbacks involved with that. I use a lot of unconventional instruments, too, like the mellotron, for instance. Imagine, a musician arrives on stage with an actual mellotron and changes the tapes right there in front of the audience between songs! I have to say, I worked with some really excellent jazz musicians to achieve the orchestration I’d dreamt up in my head.

Your mix of Mariachi-style trumpets, bandoneon and banjo feels a bit like you’re recreating a certain idea of America in your music…
Well, if you really sit down and analyse things, Mariachi is not actually so different from Austrian polka, adapted Mexican-style. Even the instrumentation is Austrian. And when you trace the bandoneon back to its origins, you find it comes from Bavaria and the best ones are made in Germany! Man really does dream too much – but if "Americana" revolves around a cultural mix like this then it’s something I’m very much in favour of!

You still sing in three different languages: English, French and the local Berne dialect…
The way I see it, a language is like an instrument in its own right. It adds its own particular sound. Switching between languages is like switching between alto and soprano sax. Using a different language opens up all kinds of new musical possibilities.

French singers Raphael and Mickaël Furnon (from the group Mickey 3D) both wrote a song for your new album. How did you come to meet them?
Well, I’ve bumped into Raphael several times now and we’ve spent a lot of time chatting about music. When it comes down to it we’ve really got the same chord structures. As for Mickaël Furnon, I just got this e-mail from him one day which read "subject: demo for Eicher". So on the one hand with Raphael there was this sort of personal history where we’d actually met and exchanged things and with Mickaël there was this sort of cyber postcard, written in a bit of a grumpy style but very touching all the same!

Then, of course, there’s your ongoing collaboration with the author Philippe Djian, someone who’s always written your lyrics. Does he still represent the Stephan Eicher voice, the Stephan Eicher history?
You know, it’s like we’ve created this third person now. There’s a lot of Philippe in him and a lot of me. Like he’s Stephan Djian or Philippe Eicher! There’s really an immense affinity between us. I invariably sit down and discuss the ideas for my songs with him, but he never actually listens! When I call Philippe up and say I need some lyrics for a new album, he immediately gets down and concentrates on the task in hand even if he finds the whole thing a nuisance. He likes me enough for that!

Philippe Djian also wrote the music on one of your songs, Pas déplu, didn’t he?
Yes, the thing is as my understanding of French improves, I find that strictly sticking to the lyrics as they stand means you lose a lot of interesting musical possibilities. And I actually got a bit blocked with Pas déplu. So one day Philippe picked up my guitar, strung a few chords together and said, "See, it’s really easy!" And what he came up with was just perfect.

You scored a huge hit with your single Déjeuner en paix, but since then you haven’t had any other big chart hits. Has this been a deliberate choice on your part?
It was like I knew I’d never be able to do that again, so I didn’t even try. And I think that was an intelligent decision on my part. After all, you can never repeat things. You have your youth, then you go through a period of clairvoyance. You lose your passion and your fire. And you don’t try and do what you did before, because you know it wouldn’t work. You just have to move on to something else. 

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re going out on a limb and taking a risk with your music?
I’d say I’m simply letting my life guide my music. I don’t want to invent some kind of persona and then feed off that. It would definitely be a lot simpler and less of a hassle to do that. But, at the end of the day, I’m not a good actor. I can only be myself!