Daft Punk: Behind the robot masks

Bernadette McNulty from The Telegraph meets mysterious pop-maestros, Daft Punk.

Meeting the French dance duo Daft Punk, one of the most original and elusive pop acts of the past decade, is a slightly unnerving experience. They never perform, or allow themselves to be photographed, without their crash-helmet-like robot masks, so you start to worry: what on earth are they hiding beneath them?

The answer, I discover during an interview in Paris, is that Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo look disappointingly normal. They both have average thirty-something faces and dress in similar skinny black T-shirts and jeans with big, shiny trainers. But, 10 years after they burst on to the scene, they are not ready to hang up their flashy alter-egos just yet. "The robot masks are a statement of freedom," says Bangalter. "It was about defining the aesthetic of what we do."

After a false start as an indie guitar band, Daft Punk came up with the potent cocktail of electro, funk, acid house and techno music, matched with a striking visual identity and cutting-edge videos, that made their first album, 1997's Homework, a landmark in dance music.

On subsequent albums they mixed up the formula even more, throwing in slick synth-pop and house refrains that attracted and repelled fans in equal measure. For their last album, Human After All, they embarked on an even more unexpected excursion into heavy metal territory. And this year they have diversified further still, making their first film, Electroma - a futuristic, 2001-like dream of two robots driving across the desert trying to create human faces - and completing their second live album, recorded during an extensive and dazzling world tour.

What has at times felt like a rather disorienting musical journey across the individual records suddenly comes together compellingly in the live album, Alive 2007. "We wanted to show the connections between all our work and validate the music," says Bangalter, the taller, more talkative of the two.
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"Our music has always been a mixture: as much influenced by disco bands like Chic as by AC/DC. Music was segregated in the '80s, and then in the '90s the boundaries started to break down and rock kids got into electronic music. But then you got this reverse snobbery where people would only listen to electronic music and not rock. So we were always trying to fight this, to make music outside the establishment. For this generation, I think it is natural to like everything. But it was never like that for us."

Daft Punk were in many ways responsible for turning the spotlight on a new, cool underground of French music in the late 1990s, including bestselling acts such as Air, and have been a huge influence on the current generation of international star DJs, from New York's LCD Soundsystem to new acts such as Justice and Simian Mobile Disco. But, for two men who have made some of the most joyous, soulful, infectious dancefloor hits ever, Bangalter and his silently disinterested partner remain remarkably keen to define themselves as serious artists rather than good-time entertainers.

"'Fight for your right to party' was for us not about partying. It was about liberty in the wider sense of the word," says Bangalter. "Today there is nothing disturbing or revolutionary about dance music. It has become the mainstream."

Many of their contemporaries have gone on to make film soundtracks, but Daft Punk, ever the innovators, went a step further and actually made a film. "We wanted to express ourselves on a different level," says Bangalter. "We wanted to create a universe that people could interact with, in a visual way. Although parts of it are experimental, it remains accessible, just like our albums or our live shows."

Electroma has already become a cult hit on Paris's late-night cinema circuit, but surprisingly it doesn't feature any Daft Punk music. Although the lead characters are two robots, Bangalter and de Homem-Christo did not act the parts themselves. "If we had made the music or starred in the film it would have just given the impression that it was some form of vanity project," insists Bangalter.

This summer, Kanye West extensively sampled Daft Punk on his comeback single Stronger, a tribute which the duo say they "love because it's like repaying a debt. We have sampled other people in our music and now people are sampling us."

But the pair, who have known each other since school, say they have no intention of giving up music just yet. "The music business is dying but it is a very exciting time. We have nothing to lose because we have nothing to gain and that is a very good position to be in."

# 'Alive 2007' and the DVD of 'Electroma' are both released on Monday

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