Since the official split of technobots Daft Punk two years ago, French musicians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter had chosen to stay quiet about the reasons behind their demise. Now, with the latter preparing his first solo orchestral album, Mythologies, he shared some inside baseball about the beloved group in a new interview.
Listen to Daft Punk Radio and more on the free Audacy app
Speaking with the BBC, Bangalter reveals that the emergence of technology in music, which had for years become part of their artistic commentary, had caused some discomfort. “[Daft Punk] was an exploration, I would say, starting with the machines and going away from them. I love technology as a tool [but] I’m somehow terrified of the nature of the relationship between the machines and ourselves,” he explains. “We tried to use these machines to express something extremely moving that a machine cannot feel, but a human can. We were always on the side of humanity and not on the side of technology,” he added.
On May 12, the duo will drop a deluxe version of their final album, Random Access Memories, featuring a demo of the track “Fragments of Time.”
“Daft Punk was a project that blurred the line between reality and fiction with these robot characters. It was a very important point for me and Guy-Man to not spoil the narrative while it was happening,” Thomas continues. “Now the story has ended, it felt interesting to reveal part of the creative process that is very much human-based and not algorithmic of any sort.”
Creating art for the algorithm with AI at the helm was never in the cards for Daft Punk. Thomas adds, “the last thing I would want to be, in the world we live in, in 2023, is a robot.”
Thomas Bangalter's Mythologies will be available on April 7.
Listen to more of your favorite music on Audacy's X-Tah-C, Electrified, Drivin' Alt, New Wave Mix Tape, IndustriALT, 90s and Chill, Alterna 00s, and ALT Roots stations -- plus check out our talent-hosted Kevan Kenney's Music Discovery, Megan Holiday's My So Called '90s Playlist, and Scott Lowe on the Go's Post Modern Music Box.
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram