Thomas Bangalter Opens Up About Ending Daft Punk

Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter has spoken out about why they chose to end the two-person project in a new interview.

Speaking to BBC Radio 6 Music, Bangalter opened up about the pair’s split in 2021, saying it “felt good”.

“The question I ask more myself is why we did end it rather than how it could last for so long,” he said when asked why the pair decided to part ways.

“It’s a lot like a story or mini saga – sometimes there’s a TV show that has a special place in people’s hearts and it keeps that place, and it runs for one, two, three, four, five, sometimes 10 seasons,” he says.

“There’s a moment where it ends and I think it’s actually interesting to have this opportunity to start, have the middle and to end it.”

The French Dj added that he was “relieved and happy to look back and say: ‘Ok, we didn’t mess it up too much’.”

“You have an idea when you’re like 25, you don’t say ‘you know what, we’re going to dress up like robots until the day we die’,” he explains when speaking on their decision to start wearing the infamous helmets following the release of Homework back in 1997.

“I really remember thinking – it would be fun to just have some special effects guys from Hollywood do these personas - robotic personas like if they were part of the cantina scene in Star Wars or something like that,” he continued.

“It was a weird idea and neither me nor Guy-Man ever imagined it would end up taking such proportions.”

“In some way, I felt it was almost like directing a film without cameras.”

The interview comes a few months after Daft Punk celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Random Access Memories with a special anniversary album featuring over 35 minutes of unreleased music.

The first single on the album, released in March, is aptly titled The Writing Of Fragments Of Time, and you can hear Thomas Bangalter and Todd Edwards chatting together, working through the complexities of the song released song Fragments Of Time, and humming along to see what works. Listen to it below.