Original subtitles

We're always trying

new things.

We are so used

to having crappy products.

Daft Punk thought about their music before they made it.

That makes a real difference. And weirdly enough,

creating those robot personas let them stay human,

grounded and completely free.

They bought their freedom by sending the robots

to do their dirty work.

They were proud to release an EP on the same label as Stereolab.

That's how it all started.

Guy-Manuel and Thomas were 17 or 18 back then.

They thought everything had been set in motion.

But a critic from Melody Maker called them "daft punky thrash".

That made them stop and wonder.

It changed the optimistic view they had on their music.

It took them six or seven months to send me two other tracks.

I think they just did not want to go that way.

They would say "you'll have the new tracks next week",

but what they really meant was "we don't care.

We have other things to think about."

We were 18 when we went to our first rave

on the roof of Beaubourg.

We discovered a new kind of music and energy

with people dancing to music they had never heard before.

Something new was happening on that scene

and it was still alternative and underground at the time.

Not the kind of music you heard on the radio.

We thought there was something to be done

with electronic music.

Thomas, Guy-Manuel and I met there

and the closer we got, the more we could feel the vibrations.

There's a track from Chicago with a dark voice

singing Can You Feel The Bass...

It was the last major revolution in recent decades.

Electronic music and hip-hop were the last great revolutions.

Everything since then ultimately comes from

one of those two movements.

There were people discovering drugs as well.

I remember Thomas saying he did not like it

because using ecstasy made you

lose your critical faculties.

And that was it.

He hates nothing more than losing control.

I called and asked them to come

and to bring their demo.

When they arrived,

they were wondering what was going on.

They come in, their eyes wide open. Guy-Man is blushing.

I introduce the people from Slam.

We didn't have a name.

We decided to use the name from that bad review.

They called us "daft punk".

They have a very clear vision of their careers

because they get advice from Thomas's Bangalter father.

He produced disco music in the 70s under the name Daniel Vangarde.

He helped them work out the deals they were offered.

He was the ideal advisor for a band

making dance music produced in France

with lyrics in English and aimed at the whole world.

We've received faxes

from Denmark, Sweden,

Spain, Japan, New York...

although we've only sold 15,000 records.

It shows that there is an audience

for that kind of music all around the world.

When I met them in 1995,

between the Scottish label, and their energy and talent,

Daft Punk were already in demand

for a live set.

I would say that they were recording their first album

and a live set wasn't possible yet.

Technically, it was stunning.

That music was made in a bedroom...

this big.

There were electric cords all over this child's bedroom.

Child's. Not teenager's.

It was full of cables, keyboards and stuff.

The two albums which changed the face of electronic music were made there.

The specificity of our music and our work is that

there is a real interaction between music and technology.

In a way, we consider technology to be a part of the band.

Thomas is a genius with machines.

When he was working on their debut album,

he read his instruction manuals once a month.

He was one of the first to have a Macintosh in France

so he had a very early approach to computer-aided

music and images.

But artistically there's more to him than that.

He creates wonderful melodies.

He has a real feeling for what makes a hit.

Guy-Man is the mystical one.

There's just one thing that works for him

and as long as he hasn't found it, the rest is junk.

The contract we signed with the label is 100% good for us

so we've avoided problems that others artists have had

with their record companies.

The deal they signed with Virgin was a break with the norm.

Artists usually signed for 4 or 5 albums for a percentage.

They said "no, we own our recordings and

we'll give you the rights for 10 years."

This showed me something.

What I learnt was

that success is built on solid foundations.

Guy-Man and Thomas were already thinking

about an international deal.

They already had quite a clear vision of their career.

Their album was almost ready, they were finishing it off.

From the start, they already understand the business.

The business model is in place.

They know they need complete artistic freedom and control

of their image and everything else.

They were able to impose their own rules

because they were OK financially.

They were not starving.

They even became an example for hip-hop bands

who were influenced

by their business model

which was said to be the greatest hold-up ever.

They invited us to listen to the album in Thomas's flat.

We went with the London Virgin team and some of the French team.

It was fantastic, a small studio, with not much equipment.

We listened on a ghetto blaster,

which impressed us all.

It was a revelation.

We listened to one hit after the other.

Spike Jonze's video had a huge impact.

When Michel Gondry hears about Daft Punk, he has the great idea

for the music video of Around The World.

Where's that stupid little black box?

I'm looking for the remote control.

It's crazy.

Why would I have put it somewhere else?

It has only one use.

That's the story of my life.

Alright.

I met them in a hotel room

in London.

I was sitting on the bed and they were on chairs.

I don't like having an idea before talking to the group.

I don't want to get on the wrong track.

I always talk to the band first

before I propose anything at all.

I think it was Guy-Manuel

who came up with the idea of a choreography.

Choreo-

graphy.

I asked my designer Florence Fontaine,

although we did not have much money,

to make robots.

She used motorbike helmets.

She added two antennas.

Then we decided to cover

the visors with semi-transparent tape.

I think it's the first time they wore helmets.

Maybe it was their idea and I just worked around it,

but I think I wanted them to look like Robocop.

One question,

techno music is supposed to be underground, anti-star system.

Yet you're becoming stars.

How do you feel about that?

I still believe it's anti-star system.

We try not to expose ourselves too much.

The music is the only thing that really matters.

Then people decide for themselves.

But we're not really trying to show ourselves off.

The choice not to show their faces anymore

was made when they decided

to go to the top by signing with Virgin

with the aim to sell records and to conquer pop culture.

Before that, they released EPs with a small Scottish label.

The movement was underground

so there was no reason to protect their identities.

Hiding one's face is part of techno culture.

The founders of techno like Underground Resistance did it.

When techno emerged, it was a faceless music.

Back then, people even danced

backs turned to the DJ.

Americans had done it before. Kraftwerk did it and Kiss.

All pop stars invent and reinvent themselves.

They aren't born that way.

When I talk to David Bowie,

I'm talking to one of his thousand avatars.

Not to the Bowie born in London in 1947.

Those bands influenced them by using make-up and costumes.

They did photoshoots

at the beginning but they probably thought

they looked like kids.

What could be smarter?

That was part of the process as well.

How to still make music when you're 40?

When Homework is released, they are what shakes up the 90s,

they bring a new energy with their electronic music.

It soon becomes clear

that all the major pop stars want to get in touch

to produce them or to work with them.

People from all around the world want to work with them.

Janet Jackson, Madonna, George Michael...

They all tried to collaborate with them.

Thomas and Guy-Man always answered politely

but there was no collaboration.

I can't see a thing.

We have to walk slowly.

They would send me to buy masks at the last minute like the time

they did the NME cover.

I would buy cheap masks from joke shops.

It wasn't very well prepared.

Once in Japan,

they went to the shop an hour before their meeting with EMl.

They bought crazy costumes to disguise themselves.

They did not want to play the game.

There's a good story about meeting Virgin in New York.

We were all going to a restaurant.

A huge limo was waiting for us.

Thomas and Guy-Man see that.

They don't like it at all.

So they decide to run away.

I'm left alone in this limo with the people from Virgin.

Thomas and Guy-Man took the subway

and I got there in the limo with Virgin.

It's a rejection, a philosophical position...

They don't partake in the charade.

Do you use your anonymity to get closer to your public?

We do live a lot of exceptional things

but we still have a very normal everyday life.

We live more like our audience than the artists

who have the same kind of fame as ours

but who are attached

to physical recognition by the public.

The band, and especially Thomas,

had a fascination for the Millennium bug.

How to explain that in 1999 these two guys wear masks

and on the 1st of January 2000, they become robots?

That's the Millennium bug.

We told the journalists that they were in the studio

and at midnight something happened.

Thomas and Guy-Man became robots.

WE ARE NOT DEAD

BUT WE'VE BECOME ROBOTS.

I remember very well the first tests at Alterian.

We'd been driving a long time to get to Los Angeles.

I was hoping it would be worth the trip.

We arrive there and meet Tony Gardner

who was kind of a nerd, with glasses

surrounded by monster heads and dolls.

From 2001on, they're no longer two regular guys.

We're talking to robots.

Last time I interviewed them, we talked for three hours

and Thomas never used the word "I".

It's crazy. The first person singular no longer exists.

It is totally erased. They are Daft Punk.

It's still playful. But they control everything.

They're still kids.

One More Time

is THE song that opens up the USA for them.

It's crazy to think

that it took two French white guys from Paris

for Americans to discover

house music when it was invented by African-Americans.

They were lucky because they started out

at the same time as home studios.

Albums needn't be recorded in a limited time anymore.

They can spend four or five years on an album.

This album is important for pop music.

It's one of the first post-sample albums

which builds music out of other sounds.

Sampling means

taking parts of a song, looping it over and over

until it becomes music.

But they changed them so much that samples became unrecognizable.

They had colossal ambitions

for their work.

They recorded their second album while making Interstella 5555.

It was a silent anime

which came alive with music.

Their original idea just took off.

The music video turned into a feature film.

They got into debt because they were the producers.

No record company would have produced it.

Daft Punk is not just about making music.

It means controlling a universe

and protecting it from any outside intervention.

They answer to no one. It's punk and rebellious.

Interstella was ten years ahead of its time,

before the big TV shows featuring lots of bands

who are then tied to the network for life.

They made a wishlist of people

they wanted to work with.

Leiji Matsumoto was number 1.

He's the man behind Captain Harlock.

People born between 1975 and 1980

were fascinated by

Japanese animes.

Captain Harlock was quite different from the others

that were childish and colorful.

Captain Harlock has a huge scar on his face.

He's a pirate.

If not a rebel, he's definitely marginal.

The way I see it,

the robot has a human heart.

He is a calm and non-violent being.

If necessary,

he protects people.

He becomes their shield

in order to do so.

This vision come from the traditional

representation of ghosts

and other supernatural beings.

In the Japanese tradition,

they are not evil monsters

but beings who have hearts

and a free spirit.

My hero

Captain Harlock often says

"I live freely under my banner!

But I also accept all my responsabilities."

All creativity should be based on this principle.

There was a kind of reaction after

the huge ambition of the Discovery album.

We wanted to go back to something raw.

Since we are Human After All we'll record it in two weeks.

This is the music we want to make.

When this album came out,

it disconcerted a lot of people.

Even the media

and people from the label.

It was more difficult for us to promote

this album.

There was no single to play

on the radio so we had to find ways

for people to talk about the album.

I think the public did not understand.

People are used to saying

debut albums are underground, the second's a success,

and the third one even more successful.

But they were not running after success.

I think they just wanted to express

what they had inside.

People tend to say

this album is not as good.

People expected something else from them.

In any case, that's what you hear.

It's interesting to see that years later, those same critics

reevaluate the album...

and realise the impact it had.

It attracted a wave of French producers,

the French Touch 2.0,

inspired by Daft Punk's energy

and a return to the raw energy of techno.

Bands such as Justice

and the new generation come out of Human After All.

The robots dress up as humans and eventually kill themselves.

Maybe they were trying to tell us something.

Is Daft Punk over?

That crossed my mind.

I figured they were done with the masks and had a new idea:

showing their faces.

They probably thought about it.

They had the great idea

of simplified robots dressed in black leather.

It was Mad Max meets Tron.

300,000 dollars for a Daft Punk concert.

I say the band is not touring

but it's a big offer, so I'll talk to them.

Coachella 2006 was a big risk.

The band is going through a rough patch.

People think they are outdated and maybe uncool,

that they didn't reinvent themselves with Human After All,

which is essential

when you are a major band of the electronic scene.

They are almost over.

They call me back a few hours or days later

to ask me to say they might be interested.

I go to the rehearsal studio ten days before Coachella.

I see everything, the set-up, the pyramid, the LEDs...

Now everyone uses LEDs, even nightclubs.

But back then,

to cover the pyramid with LEDs, we had to go through

all the suppliers in the USA. It was no easy task.

Thomas and Guy-Man

ask me to sit down while they play me what they have prepared.

It was just the audio part.

They don't let me see the pyramid yet.

It's a mix of their three albums and it's amazing.

It's Daft Punk's turn to go on and we're backstage with them.

We're dressing the duo, checking the last details.

The tent gets so packed it's overflowing with people.

We realise Daft Punk's return is awaited.

We start to get the numbers.

There's 40,000 people when the tent can only host 10,000.

Everyone took out their phones.

It was the time people started filming with cell phones

and the beginning of YouTube.

It was crazy.

Everybody was so stunned by the power of the show

that they filmed it and posted it on YouTube.

I'm not ashamed to admit I cried.

I was moved by the show and people's incredible reaction.

It was completely unreal.

A spaceship had landed in the middle of the desert

and there's 40,000 of us happy, stunned by the light and sound.

The pyramid was the start of a gigantic tour

and of a movement in the United States

called Electronic Dance Music.

The starting point was the pyramid at Coachella.

A whole generation of musicians was in the audience.

They discovered it and they were blown away.

Bass players, drummers,

all those musicians are part of the history of music.

They are the rhythm sections

of Quincy Jones, George Benson, Michael Jackson.

It's not easy to sum up as just a studio musician's thing.

The dream of house music was

to revive the spirit of dance and disco

which no longer existed.

I think that with Tron,

they got to be students again, people who wanted to learn.

And God knows how hard it was for them.

They'd built Daft Punk not to have to answer to anyone and yet

they're ready to take orders from one of the largest corporations.

It was like walking into the lion's den.

When I met Thomas, I was 12 or 13.

Phantom of the Paradise was the film that covered it all.

It was like a Warhol trip,

not just the music, but the film, the cover design.

This film had it all.

I wanted a mix of the two to forget that they are robots.

I think that works well.

They didn't take their helmets off, not for a second.

That obviously created a surrealist atmosphere.

We expected them to take their helmets off between shots.

But they didn't. That was very powerful.

I imagine it hasn't always been easy for them to work together.

There are a lot of pitfalls in a career like that.

Some people may even have issues with their ego.

But those two always tried to stay on the right path,

almost like a model of human behaviour.

That's very rare.

I've been working in music for 30 years

and less successful people don't even say hello.

But not them. They pay the same attention

whether talking to a nightclub bouncer

or to the boss of a record company.

To keep these qualities throughout your life,

you have to win battles with yourself.

Subtitles: Manon Typret