Vic Eugster was probably the most versatile of the Eugster trio. He ran two restaurants, produced music for other artists and politicized. An obituary.
One of the last performances: Vic Eugster (front) in 2011 together with his brothers Guido and Alex at the Heirassa Festival in Weggis.
When the brothers Vic, Alex and Guido Eugster had the idea of singing dialect hits at the end of the 1960s, they were laughed at. The Beatles, the Bee Gees and Les Sauterelles dominated the Swiss charts at the time. The language of the hits: English.
The trio Eugster, as the three brothers call themselves, on the other hand sings: “Oh läck du mir”, “Now de Buuch has to go” or “Ganz de Bappe”. And, contrary to expectations, it has been successful.
In 1970 the brothers sell 100,000 records. The “Schweizer Illustrierte” comments: “It’s a huge success on the Swiss hit market, it’s almost a sensation when you consider that a local record production with a circulation of 10,000 pieces is already considered a hit.” And the magazine also justifies the success of the trio: “Everyone can identify with them, at least every average Swiss.”
The brothers produce 20 albums and sell more than 2 million copies. They appear on television more than 100 times. They are considered the “first boy band in Switzerland”.
Born in 1940, Vic Eugster is the most reserved of the three brothers. Alex sings the solo parts and Guido gets the laughs with his facial expressions. But it’s Vic who keeps the trio together.
Vic Eugster likes to do without the solo parts. In an interview with Tele Top many years later, he says: “I always had trouble memorizing text.” Once he actually sang a solo and accidentally completely twisted the text.
Instead of a flying dove, he sang about a flying sailor. The brothers laughed so hard that the concert had to be interrupted.
“Our family was very poor”
The brothers have been making music since they were children. The mother sings and makes music with them. And when the aunts and uncles come to visit the Eugsters in Dübendorf, the children have to sing. “We didn’t hate doing it, but we didn’t always feel like it either,” says Vic Eugster in one Interview with the “Blick”.
The father is a butcher and crane operator. To enable all six children to get an education, he works double shifts. “Our family was very poor,” Vic Eugster later told Blick. The mother earns extra money sewing military clothes and bras at home, and the children have to help and insert the pads into the bra.
At the very beginning of their career in 1967, the four brothers perform. However, the eldest brother Paul quits when the Eugsters decide to pursue their music career professionally. He becomes a hotelier in St. Moritz.
In 1971 the Eugster brothers founded a record company. Vic becomes CEO. The brothers not only produce their own music, but also that of other artists. This is how the hit “Gigi von Arosa” was created in collaboration with Hans Gmür and Ines Torelli.
That was also typical Vic Eugster: working in the recording studio in the seventies.
Not everyone likes the music of the three brothers. The singer-songwriter Tinu Heiniger describes their music in a song in 1979 as “entertainment brunz”. The brothers don’t want to put up with that. They go to court and win. Heiniger’s song is banned, the records are pulped.
In 1981 the trio stopped. And the music career almost ends tragically. After one of the brothers’ last concerts, a ghost driver races towards them on their way home from Bern to Dübendorf. The brothers can narrowly dodge. Vic Eugster later described the moment as “the worst experience of our career”.
In 1982, the brothers return to the nation’s screens. Swiss television is tailoring a Saturday evening show for them. The program is called “Iischtige please” and runs for two years. Then it’s over with the trio Eugster. But Vic Eugster keeps making music. He performs as a trio with TV presenter Sepp Trütsch and singer Nella Martinetti.
Later he, who originally trained as a surveyor, took over two restaurants and a vinotheque in Dübendorf. From 1980 to 1990, Eugster was on the Dübendorf municipal council for the CVP and was even president of the municipal council in 1985/86.
He also continues to run the family music label. He suffered a setback in 1994. At that time, the Eugsters took over 13 Interdiscount record stores. “A mistake,” as Vic Eugster later said in an interview with “Blick”: “We got into record sales when the record market was already rapidly falling. We lost over a million francs with that.”
From the stage to the church choir
He remains closely connected with the brothers even after his music career. They sing together in the church choir. In September 2022, the musical “Oh läck du mir” will premiere in Zurich in honor of the trio.
Today, only one of the three brothers lives with Alex, 85 years old. Vic Eugster died on Saturday morning at the age of 82. His older brother Guido passed away in April 2021 at the age of 84.
