It's always nice when musicians are demystified in an interview, especially the type that cover themselves in black leather and wear lit up helmets during performances.
One half of the Paris-based Daft Punk, Thomas Bangalter traded e-mails with a staffer at Pitchfork and cleared up exactly how they were able to arrive at such a visually stimulating live show.
"We personally worked as much on the music as on the different multimedia elements. We designed the general concept with our long time friend and creative partner Cedric Hervet and also Paul Hahn who runs our production company Daft Arts based in L.A.," Bangalter said.
He added that their live show is "very structured and precise, following a strict setlist." But, the boys do improv a bit during their sets, which the intuitive amongst you might've noticed in your endless quest to find a high quality clip of their live mid-song splices.
"There is indeed a level of improvisation where we can distort and shuffle the music patterns, samples, and loops in each phase of the show within fixed cue points, but at the same time there is a constant result that we are trying to achieve each night while performing and operating our system-- quite similar in spirit to a broadway show for example: If you go see a musical two nights in a row, the performances are different yet similar," Bangalter explained.
Bangalter also details the difference between their shows now and their shows 10 years ago, in addition to dishing his opinion of Kanye and Justice, who "are talented." He added that they "make good tracks and have fun doing it." Brotherly love in Paris, how nice.
