Thomas Bangalter has opened up about Daft Punk's split and life after the iconic duo in a new interview with The Times. Speaking from his Paris studio on June 4, the French producer ruled out the possibility of a reunion and reflected openly on what came after.
Crucially, Bangalter framed the ending as a successful one. “I’m really happy that throughout our long run we were able to not screw it up. There are other things to explore,” he told the paper.
Notably, he extended the thought with a wider take on creative partnerships. “The history of music is made of fruitful partnerships and they usually last way shorter than the 28-year run that we had,” he continued. “It was great, but staying in character and not spoiling it became very difficult.”
Meanwhile, the conversation also touched on the scale of Daft Punk‘s legacy. Thomas Bangalter admitted the numbers still don’t feel real. “Some of the music recorded in this studio has supposedly had billions of plays,” he said. “But still my brain cannot, in a tangible way, make sense of that.”
Equally, he revisited the identity of the project itself. “It was almost performance art where you create these characters and blur the line between fiction and reality,” Bangalter said. “I was one of the robots, but now I’m just a human without any superpowers.”
Indeed, the interview lands the same week as the release of his new solo album ‘Mirage – Ballet for 16 Dancers’. Furthermore, the project is openly inspired by the music of Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis, continuing his post-Daft Punk arc through ballet, orchestra and electronic exploration.
Still, the bigger story is the framing. Crucially, Bangalter‘s message reads as final without sounding bitter. The duo never spoiled the legacy. The robots have stayed retired. The work goes on, just in a different form.
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