Daft Punk Unchained

BEEPING

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS

It's really a misconception to feel like artists

will be able to gain back

a certain amount of control

if this control has somehow been compromised along the way.

We're wearing these black bags because,

as Daft Punk, we're not showing our faces

in pictures or on television.

Who revolutionised dance music the most?

And people say Daft Punk.

They're robots.

They don't need to be like anybody else.

Look at yourself. Look at yourself!

Here's something you don't see every day,

Grammy winners tonight - Daft Punk.

CHEERING

TENSE MUSIC PLAYS

MUSIC MUFFLED THROUGH HELMET

Everyone knows Daft Punk, you know?

And everyone can hear Around The World or One More Time

or even those records and feel it,

and it feels good.

# Beyond dreams

# Beyond life

# You will find

# Your song. #

The way we got into music is, pretty much,

the very common way

like many teenagers.

We were 17

and we just wanted to have a rock band, like anybody.

So, that's how Darlin' came about,

and the single was released.

DANCE BEAT PLAYS

# Can you feel the bass?

# Can you feel the bass? #

That was the amazing thing about the sound.

It was... We didn't have to turn it up so loud

and you could feel the vibrations of the bass.

Often, you'll see people closing their eyes and swaying their bodies

to certain moments and really taking in everything they're hearing.

# The bass in the place

# The way it shakes the floor... #

You can see they're taking into their bodies

and the sound system's pumping the vibrations through their bodies.

DANCE MUSIC PLAYS

We met Thomas and Guy-Manuel when we came to Paris.

Someone got in touch, didn't they?

-Serge Nicolas.

-Yeah.

Got in touch and said,

"There's these two guys that want to meet you.

"They really love the label,

"they love the record Positive Education,

"they want to come and hang out and let you hear their music."

I just remember these two really quiet, shy French guys.

We were all sitting there and they put on the music and,

for such quiet guys,

this music came over the system and it was like...

HE MIMICS BASSLINE

DANCE MUSIC PLAYS

So, Thomas invited us round to his dad's house

where he had the studio,

we sat down and heard the music again and a few weeks later...

We just... It was the days of phoning so we phoned up,

"Send us a tape, send us a tape."

And, exactly as the cassette came to us,

that was the first record.

BASSY BEAT PLAYS

I remember going into the Soma office and Richard Brown,

who was the label manager at the time,

had stopped answering the phone and going, "Hello, Soma Records",

and just started picking the phone up and going, "Hello, Daft Punk."

There was so many calls coming in.

The momentum, at that point,

really built so quickly.

CHEERING

BUZZING BEAT

Thomas was playing a track

and he took...

..the wire out of the mixer

from one of the turntables

and, you know when you go to connect a turntable,

you know, the wire?

Before you connect it, it makes a really bad buzzing sound.

Well, he did it intentionally

and started playing the buzzing sound

like a bassline to a track.

So he made this, like...

I'm getting goose bumps thinking, "What genius!"

BUZZING BEAT

CHEERING

They made great choices.

That's kind of what production is.

It's like a process of elimination.

I know now, retrospectively,

what they were doing was quite retro

in terms of the way they were making music.

# Work it harder

# Do it faster

# More than ever

# Our work is never over

-# Work it harder

-Make it better

-# Do it faster

-Makes us stronger

-# More than ever

-Hour after

# Our work is never over. #

Whether it was right from the start,

right from the start, from that first album,

the fact that Virgin...

It was that combination of Thomas and Guy, and Pedro Winter,

and that relationship with that record company at the time...

# Come on

# Da funk back to the punk

# Come on. #

MUSIC: Da Funk by Daft Punk

You know, the minute you heard Da Funk

and saw that video on MTV,

the band just went from here...to, like, here.

They just became so much more important.

I would say that's probably,

of all the things they've done,

still probably one of THE most important things they've done.

Obviously, they had to make great music and keep making great music

but actually, that moment at the beginning,

having that Spike Jonze video at that time,

for what video meant at that time,

was really significant.

-Got that drink?

-Yes.

Can you get me a Coca-Cola for Mr Bowie, please?

TECHNO MUSIC PLAYS

I just think that they're just a unique set of, like,

entities, you know?

I have a hard time calling them human,

just because, musically, you know,

the robots are just something else.

You just never experience working with someone,

you know, working with individuals like them.

Everything's just so concise.

There's a reason behind everything.

Nothing is done by coincidence, accident or mistake -

it's always a real, true intention

that's meant to serve a purpose.

They've never made any concessions.

I just think that they are these two super-special entities

that were meant to bring music to this planet

and remind people that feeling good is

not so hard to do when things sound good.

I remember the day when Thomas told me that

they were getting helmets made.

I'm like, "Who does this?

"At 20-something years old,

"I wouldn't have thought to do something like that."

I think the masks are a reflection

of who they are as people -

because, if they really wanted fame,

they could take the masks off...

Whatever, develop an image that showed their faces,

but they didn't want that.

They are successful.

They didn't start living these extravagant lifestyles, you know?

Even for being so successful,

I would still say that they are still...

They live kind of humbly,

materialistically so humbly,

and they reinvest into their art,

which...I love that idea.

THUNDERCLAP

So, this is the process, actually, that we did on

Thomas and Guy-Manuel for the helmets, originally.

Then, once the plaster sets up,

both halves are separated

and then, very gently,

the alginate is pulled from his face.

It's so delicate, it really wants to just break apart.

This is the way we did it for Daft Punk way back when.

And we had to do both the guys,

breathing was an issue

because, especially with Guy-Manuel,

there was no area for a nose.

We had to have a curvature to the head

that allowed for his nose to exist in there,

as well as all the LEDs and mechanics,

and then the helmet.

We didn't want it to get too big

and look like this giant head on a little body,

so the head cast allowed us to continue to refine the design

and compress it a lot closer around his head.

Get it over. Just try to pull straight back.

-There you go.

-Beautiful.

When we first met them, they were explaining

that they were shooting a series of videos for their songs

from that current album,

but each video, actually,

was a small piece of a feature film,

and it was all animated,

and they were working on it in Tokyo,

and they wanted to work with us to figure out the design

of their robot characters

so they could actually introduce their robots

into their own videos, so that they could have a little cameo in it.

I think we built all this stuff

in a position of what all the kids in our class

were doing or listening.

We wanted to do something different

than just listening to the chart or...

Now we are really on the same wavelength,

and even at the time too,

because we discovered everything together.

# One more time... #

And so, I remember, very vividly,

hearing One More Time as this big, kind of, muscly track

that was very electronic but kind of, like, happy

and had this big spirit.

I remember hearing it, I think it was during an awards show on MTV...

# One more time

# We're gonna celebrate

# Oh, yeah... #

..which was all I used to watch when I was younger,

and hearing that sound, and it was vocals,

but it was like electronic vocals,

and knowing distinctly that it was unlike anything else

that they were putting on that stage.

It was unlike any of these pop stars.

It was unlike any of these rock bands.

It was its own thing.

# One more time

# One more time... #

That was something that,

for a very long time, Daft Punk,

especially in the US, didn't have any contemporaries with that sound.

# Music's got me feeling the need

# Need... #

# One more time

# Music's got me feeling so free

# We're gonna celebrate

# Celebrate and dance so free

# One more time

# Music's got me feeling so free... #

I think they lost a few people then -

in terms of, like, the people

that just loved them for being this dirty, messed-up...

# One more time

# Music's got me feeling so free... #

The first album was a homage to their experience

and their love for house music.

I think the second album was the beginning of them saying,

"Well, actually, this is the kind of music we really...

"This is what's in us that we want to get out."

And they started, you know, showing us more

their more conventional, kind of, songwriting melodic capabilities,

but their reference points have always been rooted in

very, kind of, guilty pleasure, almost, type pop music

from the '70s.

# What's going on?

# Could this be my understanding? #

# It's not your fault, I was being too demanding

# I must admit, it's my pride that made me distant

# All because I hoped that you'd be someone different... #

What made the home studio a revolution

was that it allowed people to do what a whole band could do -

but as one person.

You didn't have to have a whole bunch of instruments,

you had everything at your fingertips

in a couple of pieces of equipment.

# Television

# Through the nation... #

I was just looking back before, while I was waiting for you.

Apparently, Human After All, you did it in six weeks.

-I forgot that.

-Yes.

Human After All was maybe made in 12 days,

but THAT was the concept of the record,

which is looking back at rock or garage records.

Electroma actually started out

as a music video for Human After All,

but the music video Human After All

became the feature film Electroma...

..and it was really all about two robots

living in a world with other robots

and wanting to be something else.

In this case, wanting to be human beings.

To be quite honest, we all thought...

We all thought at the end of Electroma,

when both the robots self-destruct,

that that was the end of the robots.

BEEPING

I'll tell you what, they have a really good last name, Punk,

cos that's what I am until I die.

You know...

..so many artists have been,

de-powered by the concept of money and possessions.

They lose their voice,

you know, out of fear of losing possessions,

when the greatest thing they have is their voice.

Music is where a revolution can happen

and music is the place

where two different lunch tables can sit together,

where all stereotypes can be broken cos, at the end of the day,

if the people dance, it has a chance.

Simple as that.

I think that I definitely have an attitude.

An attitude that's fighting for freedom.

I mean, my parents were activists so,

if I get a chance, I'm going to activate.

MUSIC: On Sight by Kanye West

# Yeezy season approaching

# Fuck whatever y'all been hearing

# Fuck what, fuck whatever y'all been wearing

# A monster about to come alive again

# Soon as I pull up and park the Benz

# We get this bitch shaking like Parkinson's

# Take my number and lock it in

# Indian hair, no moccasins

# There's too many hoes in this house of sin

# Real nigga back in the house again

# Black Timbs all on your couch again

# Black dick all in your spouse again

# And I know she like chocolate men

# She got more niggas off than Cochran, huh?

# On sight. #

-CROWD:

-On sight!

Yeah, you always have to fight for your freedom.

Well, Coachella, which is in Indio, California -

which is Southern California, near LA -

was the annual destination travelling festival,

became a big part of the American live music business.

If you were a new act and you really put it over at Coachella,

you became a star.

So, Coachella was a star-making festival.

They had been trying to get Daft Punk every single year

and failed...

..and in 2005,

they made them an offer of 250,000 -

and they said no.

The following year, they upped the amount.

The way it typically works in a live situation

is that the promoter advances you maybe 10% of the money...

..and Daft Punk kept asking for more of the advance

because they needed it to build their show.

Almost no-one knew what was going on.

They kept it completely secret, except to their tech people.

Their manager, Pedro Winter,

didn't even know what they were doing with the money.

The last act of the night, before Daft Punk,

was Audio Bullys from the UK -

and, typically, there was a half-hour between acts.

There was an hour.

They made people wait an hour.

The entire backstage was cleared.

Everybody who was a hanger-on had to leave.

Everybody is just like,

"What the hell are they going to do?

"What could they possibly be doing?"

And then out comes the pyramid.

CHEERING

It takes a while for the entire thing to become visible.

The entire pyramid, all the visual stuff...

MUSIC: Robot Rock by Daft Punk

..and no-one had seen anything like that.

No-one had seen that level of production,

no-one had seen that level of LED,

no-one had seen that level of projection graphics.

They were at a completely higher level,

just in terms of production, than everybody.

Everybody who was in that tent

was texting everybody else.

"You are missing this. This is the greatest thing I've ever seen.

"Oh, my God."

Everybody I know who was a dance person was like,

"Yeah, my phone blew up that night."

Like, "You're missing the greatest performance of all time."

MUSIC: Aerodynamic by Daft Punk

This is a "biz" crowd as well as anything else.

This is where everybody in the music business goes to, Coachella.

So, everybody in the music business,

including all the rock people who had, for years and years, and years,

been like, "What's the big deal? I don't get it.

"Why isn't that guy on stage doing anything?

"Where are the guitars?"

They get it for the first time.

For the very first time,

all the rock people in the music business are like,

"Oh, THAT'S what everybody's into.

"THAT'S what people have been talking about all these years."

MUSIC: Around The World by Daft Punk

When Daft Punk came to the LA Sports Arena in 2007,

I went alone, actually.

I didn't have a ticket and I was... "Hopefully, I can scalp a ticket."

So I bought some ticket from someone for something like 150,

just all my money on the ticket

and it really did change my life

and rocked my world, messed me up, you know?

In a good way. It just like...

Being such a fan of the records, and seeing how they -

one, the live show and the pyramid and how awesome it would -

but how they took all the songs and blended it together

and created, like, new, live mashup versions.

I've never seen anything like it.

DUBSTEP PLAYS

It blew my mind.

It just like...

It really opened the doors to what you could create live

and how you reinterpret records live as well.

So, all those things just stuck with me, you know?

Wow.

I am here, back in Electric Lady Studios and...

..I cannot tell you the history I have with this place.

Let's come into the room.

This is Studio A...

..and in studio A, here,

there's just nothing more magical.

As a matter of fact, when we play in this room,

everybody always says there's voodoo in his room.

You know, from Hendrix, Voodoo Child,

they say that there's something in this space

that there's just spirit inside these walls.

# Have you got a penny, Benny?

# I'm on the telephone, Jenny

# And I just got

# Just got

# Nine cents to my name

# Have you got a penny, Benny? #

Studio time was expensive.

Things were...

They had to run like clockwork, like a train schedule.

So, when I explained to them,

I said, "You know, we didn't have much money."

"So we came in and we set up, and we started recording."

They had no idea

and Daft Punk are very big Chic fans -

so when they found out that we were standing in the exact same room

that we made the first record, they said to me,

"Well, how did you make Chic records?"

I said, "Well, typically, what we would do is

"write the basic song and then I would listen to the bassline

"and once the bassline was laid down,

"I would map out the bassline."

so in the case of, say, a song like Get Lucky,

the basic chords where...

HE PLAYS GET LUCKY CHORDS

So, that's the basic chords.

So, what I would do, usually, is I would go...

HE PLAYS BASSLINE FOR GET LUCKY

And then I play...

HE PLAYS GET LUCKY

And once they heard me do that,

they went, "Oh, my God. This is cool."

If I didn't have to go do another record,

we'd probably still be here making the record because

it was so exciting to be in a room

with people that you respect,

doing live music, taking ideas from one another,

trading back and forth, and...

..there's no special feeling in the world, to me,

that matches the magic of creating something from nothing.

You know, while people were still alive -

like Giorgio Moroder, in particular, and Nile Rodgers -

they wanted to collaborate with those people and see what happened.

Thomas says that they would have made it earlier

if they knew how to do it.

It was really only after coming to Hollywood

and then working with Disney and getting the Tron soundtrack

that they started to work with orchestras and more real musicians

and they got very comfortable with that and very inspired by that.

This is going to be quite the ride.

SCREAMING

I think for Thomas and Guy-Man to hear the orchestra

for the first time on Tron Legacy

was like a kid going into a candy shop.

That's what almost gave birth to the idea of Random Access Memories,

saying, "We can do this."

This whole world, in that fraction of a second,

from when Gavin lifted the baton and said, "Go!"

You know, that moment...

Artists like Daft Punk get built up bigger and bigger,

and bigger, actually, but when you cut through all of it,

it's actually quite simple, their story.

They've actually been quite consistent since day one

about what they like and what they sound like.

They just got better at doing it.

I think that they got the opportunity,

with Random Access Memories,

to make a record that sounded like that.

The fact that they were so painstaking

about the recording process

and honouring these great techniques that...were dying,

they were becoming obsolete,

extinct, in terms of the way people made music.

GUITAR BEING STRUMMED

Daft Punk is such a perfect example.

My guitar is clean and straight.

There's no fancy effects, there's no nothing.

It's just me playing guitar.

Well, I can tell you one thing.

I came in the studio, in Paris, they sat me down

and they just told me,

"Talk about your life."

'My name is Giovanni Giorgio,

'but everybody calls me Giorgio.'

So they had three microphones and I asked,

"Why would you have three microphones for an interview?"

They said, "OK, the microphone on the left is...

"..a very old one and that's what we're going to use

"when you tell about your youth, when you were 15.

"Then the microphone in the middle was the microphone", they said,

"where you, kind of, recorded in the '70s

"and the microphone on the right is the microphone of the future,

"the microphone they use now in 2014."

So, I said,

"But who would hear a difference?"

And the technician said, "Nobody would hear it."

So I said, "Why are they doing it?"

"Oh, they are going to hear it."

I know for a fact that everybody else in the business

spends a lot of time - or has spent hours and hours, and hours -

listening to Daft Punk records in a studio going,

"How did they do that?"

You know, "We want to sound like Daft Punk.

"We want a kick drum like Daft Punk. We want to do this like Daft Punk."

They know that.

They're kind of proud of that.

You know, it's so easy to make music now

and it's so easy to access all these, you know, on your laptop

and all this software and everything like that,

I think they thought,

"What could we do that's really difficult to do?

What can we do that nobody else can do all the time?"

Four years in the studio,

it's crazy.

So, at the end,

when we finished mixing,

it was...

There was no way we were going to

let the master tapes leave our sight,

so we started another journey.

So, yeah, we decided to drive

the Random Access Memories tapes ourselves

to Bob Ludwig, the master engineer.

We didn't really trust anyone

so we drove from Los Angeles to Portland, Maine,

which is on the east coast.

If the tapes were lost, I think I would change my name,

become, like, a scuba-diving instructor in Costa Rica

-or...

-Cozumel.

Yeah.

Each tape is a unique

and each mix is unique.

There's only one of them and it existed in a trunk in the car.

It's like the opening of a great MGM,

old-school, major dramatic film.

This is... This is life.

This is the essence of life.

This is the gift of life,

and it's all in this music. It's all right there.

MUSIC PLAYS THROUGH PHONE

And then... Tsh!

# Dream

# Beyond dreams

Dream beyond dream, that's what life is.

# Beyond life... #

Look at yourself.

-RASPED BREATHING

-Look at yourself!

What's that horrible sound you're making?

-Can't you talk?

-RASPED BREATHING

Look around you, Winslow.

You've destroyed your face,

your voice

and now you're trying to destroy the Paradise.

Haven't we all had enough?

I can give you the power to create again.

I can make you somebody.

We're going to do start all over again, Winslow -

only this time, working together, instead of against each other.

The time for your sound is now.

People are going to want to hear your music.

I mean what I say.

Tomorrow, I'll put a whole new group together.

We'll do your songs, your way. You don't have to believe me.

Come to the auditions and see for yourself.

Trust me.

You create a mystery with a mask.

The mystery is fascinating.

Without the quality of art that they presented,

it would have been a gimmick.

But because they are Daft Punk,

because the quality of what they present at the level that it is,

it's not a gimmick,

it's something larger.

As I start immediately thinking of the great quotes, like,

"Give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth."

I think that the gifts of remaining anonymous...

..have been huge for them.

Beyond their art, of course, to have a private life.

To have families and

be able to walk on the beach or the pier.

CHEERING

Bonjour, people of Earth.

I bring good news. We are all about to Get Lucky...

CHEERING

..because here's something you don't see every day -

Grammy winners tonight, Daft Punk.

# Like the legend of the phoenix... #

It was unbelievable.

I mean, we just had a myriad of people on stage

that were just like historical, really incredible figures

that have played on countless records that we grew up to.

Masters.

I mean, it was just...

It was another level.

# If you wanna leave, I'm with it

-# I got...

-Come on, y'all!

# I'm up all night to get lucky

# I'm up all night to get lucky

# I'm up all night to get lucky

# I'm up all night to get lucky

-# I'm up all night to get lucky

-# Harder

-# I'm up all night to get lucky

-# Better... #

The enjoyable part I have that Grammy evening is

after the first award was won

and Pharrell and the guys came back,

and Thomas took his helmet off

and you could totally tell that one moment of...

"We didn't say anything and, Pharrell, you need to express more."

Dude...

-..on the behalf of the robots...

-SCATTERED LAUGHTER

But you could totally tell the love and the passion in Thomas

that he was like, "We're not saying anything.

"We're robots. You need to tell them about the magic."

You know, I just got a message from the robots

and what they wanted me to say is that as elegant and as classy as...

APPLAUSE DROWNS OUT SPEECH

# Touch

# I remember touch

# Pictures came with touch

# A painter in my mind

# Tell me what you see

# A tourist in a dream

# A visitor it seems

# A half-forgotten song

# Where do I belong?

# Tell me what you see

# I need something more

# Kiss

# Suddenly alive

# Happiness arrive

# Hunger like a storm

# How do I begin?

# A room within a room

# A door behind a door

# Touch, where do you lead?

# I need something more

# Tell me what you see

# I need something more. #