Gölä sings at the Swiss Indoors Basel

Tournament director Roger Brennwald surprises with the choice of Gölä as the musical act at the opening ceremony of the Swiss Indoors. Also the Bernese dialect rocker himself, as he explains in the interview.

The Swiss Indoors should not only be a sporting event, but also a social one. It’s about conversations in the Wandelhalle, about Häppli, about Cüpli and on Monday also about music. Roger Brennwald calls the opening ceremony “Super Monday”. This year, the dialect rocker Gölä sings six of his biggest hits, accompanied by the Christoph Walter Orchestra, which has previously accompanied the musicians on Super Monday.

With his choice, Brennwald surprises the audience, but also Gölä. The 56-year-old says he has little to do with tennis. He lives with his wife and two daughters on a farm in the Bernese Oberland, secluded and surrounded by forest. With over 300,000 copies sold, his “Uf u dervo” is the most successful album in Swiss German to date. It was released in 1998 and made Marco Pfeuti, as Gölä is called, a star.

At the regulars’ table someone said to me that he couldn’t understand why, as Büezer-Bueb, you sing for the “Cüpli drinkers and the self-absorbed, elitist tennis audience”. How do you see that?

I can’t do anything with that. The beautiful thing about music is that it connects and doesn’t separate, it includes and doesn’t exclude. At my concerts you can really see everything, from the doctor to the Büezer, from the lesbian to the I-know-what and from the big guy to the little “goof”. That’s the beauty of my hobby.

We hear bells ringing in the background, where are you now?

At home, on our hobby farm. My wife, my two daughters and I live here without a television and we are not connected to electricity or water. When I perform, it’s like immersing myself in another world. Once again you see how others live, and I don’t just see our mountain.

Do you have any doubts about that?

I always have my doubts about music. Not in construction, but almost everyone can do my songs better than I can. I have to practice my songs like crazy before concerts and I’m always very nervous before I perform. That’s why I’ve been rehearsing a lot for the last three or four weeks. Fortunately, I can also do this in Basel with the orchestra on Sunday and Monday.

What can the audience look forward to?

On six songs that Roger Brennwald chose. The whole thing takes about half an hour.

Will you watch some tennis after your performance?

No, then I’ll pack my things and go home.