In the fog of drunken nights

Simon Jäggi (42) says about the name of his new project that he is enamored with strange balls, night owls and woodpeckers. His name is Birdman Jäggi – as Vogelmann Jäggi. The first album titled “Pull off, I need reda” has just been released. What sounds like a silly macho phrase at first, in the context of the title song, is a woman’s request to a man. A man who wants to discuss a relationship conflict to the death, says Jäggi. “Sometimes in moments like these it’s best to stop talking and sleep together.”

Jäggi is known as the lead singer of Kummerbuben. The Bern-based rock band broke new ground in 2007 with newly interpreted Swiss folk songs. The following albums contained their own songs and entered the top 50 in the Swiss charts. The last one appeared four years ago.

Jäggi worked with Thierry Lüthy (38) for his new project. The music producer, saxophonist, and music chief of band Traktorkestar accompanied Jäggi as he sang in a tone somewhere between 2raumwohnung’s electro-pop, Massive Attack’s trip-hop and Marilyn Manson’s (53) industrial rock.

Ivana’s heart is as cold as her hands

Jäggi says it came very naturally to him to release an album with electronic influences. But he adds that his new album is more than just club music enriched with organic sounds and dialect lyrics. “I tell stories in the style of a singer-songwriter.”

One is about a woman named Ivana. “I was born to make me miserable,” says Jäggi. And more: “Stay by the bed until I get into it.” It’s this fantastic visual language that songs thrive on. The stories Jäggi tells take place in the atmosphere of drunken nights and fleeting, intense bar flings. Love is always unhappy here. And to Ivana, who loves to play with fire but whose heart is as cold as her hands. The song reads “Pyromanä früürä liecht”.

In real life, Jäggi is married to insectist Andrea Staudacher (33), and they have two children from a previous relationship. When she’s not making music, she works for the Natural History Museum in Bern. Until recently, the former journalist wrote a weekly column for Blick, presenting one genre at a time. It seems that he lives in a completely different world from the one he celebrates in his lyrics. Where does he get his inspiration from?

Mermaid from the book Petzi

He says his words are usually collages of little things he has observed about himself or picked up from somewhere. For example, he likes fireworks and gets cold quickly. “The freezing pyromaniac goes for me.” The idea for the song “Merjungfrou” came from a Petzi book she read to her children. “In it, a sailor falls in love with a mermaid. I found the image of this impossible love beautiful.”

Other tips for listening to these dialect firecrackers are “Novämber” and “Chopf ufä”. “Schüfeli und Bäseli” has a cynical style. The song is about so many broken things that you can just erase them. In addition to a love triangle, the music business is part of it. “I want to thank you for your interest. Exactly 4 francs for 100 streams on Spotify », Jäggi rhymes in the lyrics. This is crazy, he adds to the interview. It earned as much as kummerbuben, selling five CDs with all the streams of the recently released album. However, the album will not be physically released. “That would be a waste of raw materials.”

On stage, Birdman Jäggi wants to break the line between concert and disco night. This is helped by Bernese multi-instrumentalist Milan Slick (18) and former Züri West guitarist Tom Etter (57), among others. The first of seven planned concerts is also the record launch and will take place on February 24, 2023 at the Heitere Fahne in Wabern, near Bern.