Stephan Eicher was born on August 17th 1960 in Münchenbuchsee, a town in the German region of Switzerland near Berne. The young Stephan came from a highly musical background. His father, descended from a long line of Gypsies, was a talented violinist and his two brothers were also musicians, involved in the rock and jazz world. Stephen thus grew up in a household constantly filled with music.

Stephan, a difficult and rather lonely child, was sent to a special local boarding-school at the age of 11. The school, renowned for its alternative teaching methods, proved ideally suited to Stephan’s needs and the teenager blossomed in his new cosmopolitan environment, throwing himself into his literature and language studies with passion.

Stephan soon developed an interest in art and when he left the boarding school he would move to Zurich and enroll at art school, taking classes in video, computer-assisted design and avant-garde art studies.

Stephan had also become greatly interested in music and at 17 he joined his first band Les Noise Boys, performing several local gigs with them. Two years later he left the band to form his own ‘techno punk’ group with his younger brother Martin. The group, Grauzone, soon went into the studio together to record their début single "Eisbear", which proved a great success (selling 500,000 copies in Germany and Switzerland).

In 1981 Stephan took a break from his music for a while, spending a year in Bologna, Italy. When he returned to Switzerland the following year he met the all-girl group Lilliput and set off on a tour of France and Germany with them. It was around this time that Stephan was to make another fateful encounter, meeting Martin Hess, the man who was to become his manager and help him get his solo career off the ground in earnest.

After recording a mini solo album entitled "Les filles du Limmatquai" (an album which Eicher produced entirely by himself), the singer went on to make his real début album, "Chansons bleues", in 1983. Eicher was mad about computers and the distinctive sound of his début album was largely due to his computer-assisted compositions and the influence of early 80’s electronic music (such as New Order and the Pet Shop Boys). The Eicher sound soon caught on and "Chansons bleues" became an instant hit.

Stephan Eicher’s first major performance in France dates back to 1984 when he appeared at the Printemps de Bourges Festival. The singer then went on to perform at the famous Paris nightclub "Les Bains Douches" on June 20th. 1984 proved to be an extremely important year for Eicher’s career for it was in 84 that the singer met Philippe Constantin, the famous French producer and talent-spotter (responsible for ‘discovering’ Etienne Daho, Starshooter and Valérie Lagrange). Constantin (who went on to become director of the Barclay label before his death in 96) gave Eicher the opportunity of recording his second album, "I Tell This Night".

The first single from the album, "Two People in a Room", went on to be an enormous hit and in March 1986, Stephan Eicher gave a triumphant performance at the legendary Olympia concert hall in Paris. Needless to say, the auditorium was packed out.

Eicher’s husky vocals and unique singing style proved a great success with the French public as well as in his homeland. Writing and singing in 3 different languages (French, English and German), Eicher was able to cross national boundaries without the slightest difficulty and his popularity appeared to know no bounds.

In 1986 Eicher won the coveted "Bus d'acier" (an award voted by French rock critics) for his second album "I Tell This Night".

The following summer Eicher was back in the media spotlight with a third album, entitled "Silence". The first single "Combien de temps", which rocketed to the top of the charts immediately, became an absolute Eicher classic, requested by fans at his concerts for the rest of his career. The album "Silence" marked a veritable turning-point in Eicher’s musical style. On several tracks on the new album, the young singer was already beginning to turn away from his computerised electronic sound and experiment with other musical genres. Eicher, who had always performed alone on stage surrounded by his beloved ‘machines’, was also beginning to tire of being a solitary rocker and he soon began to think about playing with a group.

On Eicher’s fourth album, "My Place", and the new single "Sois patiente avec moi" (both released in 1989) the singer broke away from his computerised sound completely. He even performed with a string quartet on certain tracks, a radical change of musical direction which left some of his early fans feeling most bemused. The album "My Place" also marked the beginning of Eicher’s successful collaboration with the writer Philippe Djian (famous for his novel "37°2" which was made into the cult film "Betty Blue"). Djian would go on to write the lyrics on all Eicher’s future albums.

But the record which really catapulted Eicher to international stardom was the album "Engelberg", released in 1991. This album, named after the Swiss ski resort where Eicher recorded his album in the local casino included tracks in French, German and English. But it also featured a bonus track for Swiss fans - the song "Hemmige", which was recorded in the Berne dialect. "Hemmige" proved to be an extremely popular single but it was the second single "Déjeuner en paix" which proved to be the most phenomenal Eicher success, smashing all of the singer's previous sales records. The success of this second single fuelled fast-rising album sales, and "Engelberg" ended up selling well over 2 million copies worldwide (many of them bought by fans in the canton of Zurich !)

Eichermania soon spread from Switzerland to France. Tickets for the singer’s two concerts at the Olympia (January 11 and 12 1992) , were sold out weeks in advance and when Eicher appeared on stage the crowd went completely wild before he had even reached for the microphone.

Later that year Eicher travelled to Carcassonne, a medieval town in the South of France, to begin work on his new album. He would set his studio up in the old town hall, a particularly favourite place of his, to record the 12 new songs specially written by Philippe Djian. The songs on the new album "Carcassonne" (released on June 9 1993) were for the most part tender ballads about love and spirituality - which marked a radical change of musical style from the computerised rock of Eicher’s early days. On certain tracks (such as "Rivière") Eicher even introduced the sound of medieval instruments.

Eicher devoted the summer of 94 to touring, playing 114 dates across the country. These concerts provided the raw material for his live album "Non ci badar, guarda e passa" (Don’t Stop, Just Look and Walk On) released at the end of that year. The singer then set off on a tour of Africa, where he gave several concerts. The highlight of these was Eicher’s performance at the "Gilles Obringer de Dakar" theatre in Senegal (December 15) where he appeared in concert with the Senegalese singer Ismael Lô and the legendary African percussionist Dudu Ndiaye Rose.

In July 96 Eicher was invited to perform at the prestigious Montreux festival in Switzerland, where he appeared with a host of other international stars including the Romanian Gypsy group Taraf de Haïdouks.

Eicher spent the rest of the year working on his new album, "1000 vies", recording it in various studios in Italy, France and Switzerland (where he worked in his home studio in Lugano). The album, released in December 96, produced a whole string of hit singles including "Oh Ironie", the soul ballad "Forever", and "Der Rand der Welt", a duet recorded with the Senegalese singer Ismael Lô .

In spite of the fact that Eicher had recorded the album with a number of extremely talented guest musicians (including drummer Manu Katche and the Malian kora-player Djeli Moussa Diawara) and the lyrics had been written by his long-time songwriting partner Philippe Djian, "1000 vies" received a rather lukewarm reaction from the critics and sales were not as successful as expected. However, tickets for Eicher’s concerts at the Zénith in Paris (April 20 and 21 1997) sold out weeks in advance as usual.

Eicher took a break from the music scene after "1000 vies", not setting foot in the studio again before 1999 when he recorded a new album entitled "Louanges". (In fact, Eicher's new album was not actually recorded in a studio but in an abandoned casino in Engelberg). On this album, which featured lyrics by Eicher's long-term collaborator Philippe Djian, the Swiss star turned away from computers and synthesisers and began experimenting with a more acoustic sound (apart from on the track "le Même Nez"). The first single chosen for release from "Louanges" was "Venez danser". Eicher had not performed in concert in Europe since 1996, preferring to head off further afield and visit fans in Asia, Africa and South America. Following the release of his new album "Louanges" however, Eicher embarked upon an extensive tour of France, bringing the house down when he appeared at the Olympia in Paris in October '99.

Stephan Eicher, probably the most truly European of all the artists on the current music scene, has come a long way from the electronic rock of his early days. Slowly building on the musical experience acquired on each of his successive albums, Eicher has developed his unique style and built up a strong following of fans in several different countries.

In July 2001 Stephen Eicher performed solo on the main stage of the Montreux Jazz Festival—the first time since 1984. Solo but not alone, the artist was surrounded by a huge number of musicians, including a 14-member orchestra, a Tzigane trio, the Kaos String Quartet, as well as his old friends from the Lost & Found Orchestra not to forget Paul Personne.

The concert announced the October 2001 release of a double compilation entitled ‘Hotels.’ An evocation of the artist’s previous tours, the album paid a tribute to the Hess Hotel in Engelberg where Eicher often recorded albums and where he gave a private concert in March 2001, a few days before the hotel was demolished. The first CD featured most of the artist’s hits whereas the second one, entitled "Lost & Found, Objets trouvés, Fundbüro", consisted of a more personal album in which Eicher presented previously unreleased albums or peculiar versions of his usual repertoire.

In early 2002, he penned the soundtrack of his friend Antoine de Caunes’s forecoming film, "Monsieur N".

During the summer of 2003, Stephan Eicher put out a new studio album entitled "Taxi Europa", which featured the artist’s comeback to rock’n’roll, even though some of the tracks presented a slower tempo. Philippe Djian penned the lyrics this time again, mixing European languages: French of course, but German and Italian as well. Famous guests such as German artist Herbert Grönemeyer, Benjamin Biolay, Maurane, Swiss singer Tinu Heiniger—who sings in the Bern dialect—and impressive whistling performer Micheline Dax contributed to add great shifts of mood to the album.

On 21 February 2004, Stephan Eicher won critical recognition for his film music, nominated for the for "Best film soundtrack" award at the Césars award ceremony, in Paris, for his soundtrack to "Monsieur N." The singer then hit the road again, touring the album "Taxi Europa" with a series of European dates in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and France (where he put in an appearance at the Cornouaille Festival in July 2004). Eicher’s skilful mix of rock, folk, pop and cinematographic mood moments appeared to go down well with the crowd wherever he played.

Fans who missed the tour were able to enjoy highlights featured on the live DVD and CD "Tour taxi Europa."  After the experience of touring Europe with a mega-rock production, Eicher turned back to a more intimate form of concert in 2005, performing alone on stage with only his computer and his instruments for company.

This new mood was reflected on his next album, "Eldorado", released in April 2007. Eicher had, in fact, been toying with the idea of writing more jazz-flavoured material for a while and the eleven tracks on his new album tapped into more of a jazz mood and a personal songwriting vein. While some critics saw this as Eicher returning to his roots, others praised his perpetual quest for songwriting gold. "Eldorado" shone with finely-crafted melodies and perfectly-honed lyrics. Eicher also injected a note of freshness into proceedings inviting the young French singer-songwriter Raphael to write "Rendez-vous" and Michaël Furnon to contribute "Dimanche en décembre." He also called upon the services of his loyal songwriting partner, the French novelist Philippe Djian and the Swiss writer Martin Suter. Fréréric Lo was brought in as producer..

In May 2007, Eicher hit the road again for a series of concerts which included an appearance at Le Bataclan, in Paris (30 May).

June 2007