Anonymity has always been a major component of the Daft Punk ethos. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo kept their faces hidden under robot helmets for years, allowing them to go about their personal lives with ease as they cranked out earth-shattering house hits. I’m sure maintaining privacy as a famous person has a lot of perks, but there’s also the possibility that someone could also use your elusiveness to their advantage. For example, someone tricked former Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flür into thinking they were making music with Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk.
In a February 2023 interview with Blitzed Magazine, Wolfgang Flür and his musical partner Peter Duggal mentioned once receiving a complimentary Facebook message from someone who claimed their name was Thomas Bangalter. Flür didn’t recognize the name at first, but once he found out Bangalter was one of the Daft Punk guys, he asked him if he wanted to collaborate. Duggal later tweeted a photo of the interview, adding that “cool things [were] emerging from the collaboration with Thomas Bangalter.” But Daft Punk fans know the duo aren’t very active on social media, and even if they were, Bangalter doesn’t seem like the type to use a measly Facebook message to extend his gratitude to a fellow artist. Duggal deleted his tweet about the collaboration a few days later, leading some to think the project had simply fallen through, or that the musicians had just jumped the gun in announcing it.
But by January 2024, Flür said in another interview that he had an album slated for the following September, with Bangalter among its collaborators. This seemed like enough confirmation, and so electronic music publications started picking up on the news. After September came and went, Duggal posted an update saying that March 2025 was the project’s new release date -- maybe a bit suspicious, but delays in album releases certainly aren’t uncommon.
In January 2025, the release date for Flür’s new album called Times was confirmed for March 28, and the pre-order links went live on Cherry Red Records’ website. Cherry Red also listed the album’s official tracklist for the first time, and while Thomas Bangalter’s name isn’t on there, two tracks include guest contributions from someone named Thomas Vangarde. “Vangarde” was a stage name Bangalter’s father had used to maintain some anonymity, and so it seemed plausible that Bangalter would do the same in his post-Daft Punk endeavors.
A little bit later, Flür did an interview with Ben Cardew, a longtime music journalist who quite literally wrote the book on Daft Punk’s Discovery. Flür said:
He sent me a message on the social media. He had just heard the Magazine 1 album and he was furious about it…He said, ‘It's so wonderful. Can I have a signed album? I collect albums but it must be signed personally from you. We love you guys. Without Kraftwerk we would not find our own robot style, being on stage with the helmets, you know. And I love you Wolfgang. And please, can you send me [an album]?
[Afterwards] I asked him, “Could I invite you to be on a track because I'm just working on the theme, on space, I'm a space fan.” And he said, “Oh I’m also a space fan. I already have an idea, Wolfgang. Maybe you can use it? Give me two days, I must find it. I must not play something new. I think it is exactly what you can maybe use.” So he sent me something and it was not really fitting in the musical key. But we changed the key and we corrected it a little bit, with the tempo. But we could very, very much use it in the middle part, together with the bass line of Peter Hook. And it fitted very well.”
For what it’s worth, Daft Punk have cited Kraftwerk as a major influence, though they’ve also joked that they’d never work with the German band. And while it’s unlikely that Bangalter would collaborate with someone without going into the studio in-person, it seemed even more unlikely that Flür would actually end up working with a Bangalter imposter.
But alas: Times arrived Friday, and the following day, the owner of the official Daft Punk Discord channel -- widely regarded as the main line to Team Daft Punk -- said that “Thomas Vangarde” was not Bangalter, and that the real Bangalter had no involvement in the project whatsoever. The real Bangalter has been working on musical projects over the past few years, but a collaboration with an ex-Kraftwerk member is not one of them. “Thomas Vangarde” is still listed in the Spotify credits on two songs, "Monday To The Moon" and "Uber_All." They're the artist's only credits on the streaming service.
Weird stuff. Many thanks to the Daft Punk Historian for getting to the bottom of the fiasco.
