Daft Punk tell all about Tron: Legacy

Daft Punk have spoken out for the first time in depth about their work on the soundtrack for Tron: Legacy.

Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s score is one of the most hyped recording projects of 2010, and will finally see an official release on December 6, 11 days prior to the movie hitting cinemas. The duo are cover stars of the new December 2010 issue of Dazed & Confused, wherein they talk extensively to Rod Stanley about their past, present and future undertakings.

“This project is by far the most challenging and complex thing we have ever been involved with,” declares Thomas of their Tron: Legacy soundtrack. “Coming from our background of making electronic music in a small bedroom, and ending up having our music performed by a 90-piece orchestra, with some of the best musicians in the world…We are lucky to have had the opportunity to experience some powerful moments artistically over the years, but recording this orchestra was a very intense experience.”


“This project is by far the most challenging and complex thing we have ever been involved with.”



Much of the interview is concerned with Daft Punk’s foregrounding of orchestral, rather than electronic, elements in the score. Guy-Manuel suggests that there is a baroque quality to much of Daft Punk’s music, and he hopes that the arrangements on Tron: Legacy will encourage their fans to explore classical music.

“The soul and emotion of [classical music] is so powerful that to like it is so easy – it’s just people think you need to be educated. I thought that myself for a long time, until I had listened to so many kinds of music, that one day I just tried it. But it’s not about learning…It’s about learning that it’s just there.”

Thomas stresses the timelessness of orchestral instruments relative to electronic tools. “A cello was there 400 years ago and will still be here in 400 years. But synthesizers that were invented 20 years ago will probably be gone in the next 20. Synths are a very low level of artificial intelligence. Whereas you have a Stradivarius that will live for a thousand years. In the past, we have worked with clashing genres like disco and heavy metal, and here we would do it with film scores…this idea of the ultimate retro-futurism.”

“We knew from the start that there was no way we were going to do this film score with two synthesizers and a drum machine,” he adds, having cited Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann, John Carpenter, Vangelis and Maurice Jarre as inspirations.


“There’s more latitude to experiment with an orchestra than an 808 drum machine and synth.”


So is it right to assume that they find dance music less appealing than they once did?

“For us, yes,” says Thomas. “We are definitely excited by music, but just trying to constantly experiment. And sometimes that means going with other art forms, because you think there’s more latitude to experiment with an orchestra than an 808 drum machine and synth.”

Has Tron: Legacy usurped the original Tron movie in the duo’s imagination? Not according to Guy-Manuel. “Tron left a strong imprint as a kid. I was eight, he was seven. Maybe I only saw it two or three times in my entire life, but the feel of it is strong even now, that I think the imprint of the first one will not be erased by the new one. It has a real visionary quality to it.”

“Tron has a real visionary quality to it.”



“As soon as  we saw the filmmaker was not trying to copy the first [Tron movie],” says Thomas, “But expand it after almost 30 years, we thought it was interesting. Then we questioned ourselves as to whether or not it was something we could actually do.”

“The most pressure we feel is always from ourselves, even in a project like this. I think that is why we took so much time before we jumped on board, so we could guarantee our freedom and room for experimentation in this environment – it’s a dream factory. Hollywood is at the corner of imagination and industry.”

Read the full interview – and check the accompanying 3D photo-shoot – in the new issue of Dazed & Confused, out now.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 18th, 2010 at 11:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • daftworld
  • Peter

    I think the comment on cellos being timeless is silly – it’s more a question of if you want to play with a set of complex systems or build one from nothing. synths are exciting because they’re molecular. enjoyed bangalter’s work for enter the void though so this could be pretty good.

  • Anonymous

    Yeah I bet you know a lot more about music and composition than daft punk. Can’t wait to hear your epic new blockbuster score.

  • http://campdonuts.wordpress.com/ Ghen

    I don’t recall him saying he knows more than Bangalter, but who knows, maybe he does…

  • Anonymous

    Good thing you don’t have to “recall” anything, you can use your own two eyes and read what he said.

  • Guest

    Um, did you read what he said about WHY classical instruments are timeless? If you want to insist that such a commonly-held belief among many types of musicians is “silly”, I could say your comment about synths being molecular, as if it is a quality unique to them, is just as silly. A symphony can be very “molecular” and complex depending on the will of a conductor and his chosen instrumentations. On top of the varying complexity, a symphony is also more dynamic. Not only is a symphony musically molecular, (at this point I believe your usage of the adjective to be uninformed if not downright incorrect) it’s far more organic and “alive” in the musical sense than a synth will ever be, which is why the appeal is timeless and the instruments have changed very little over the centuries, whereas synths’ featuresets and interfaces change every year. The melding of the ever-changing synths and timeless, traditional symphony is a good thing – each one is the best at what it does and they don’t sound terrible when combined, but to say that a cello or violin or some other instrument which has existed for hundreds of years (literally, some of Strad’s instruments are approaching 350, and then of course there are other makers) and continues to sound beautiful in the right hands is silly to think of as timelessly appealing in a sense far greater than any single “this-years-model, assembly-line” synth could ever be… is just moronic. Bangalter understands the importance of the distinction between classical instruments and synths far more than you ever will, based on your short-sighted comment that doesn’t even make any sense. “A question of if you want to play with a set of complex systems or build one from nothing”…. a symphony can be, and often is, a result of both. In fact, given the human element in symphonies, a synth is thin on expression and intellectually juvenile compared to working with a symphony.

    This is all coming from someone who very much enjoys electronic music.
    I can’t stand having overly extreme subjectivists like you in the same demographic as me.

  • Marc

    I can’t believe that they don’t credit Joseph Trapanese (ORCHESTRATOR and MUSIC ARRANGER) in this interview. Mind you, I love the music and creativity of Daft Punk, but scoring music for a film is equal parts creative ideas and orchestration (putting the write notes on sheet music for the right instruments)…imo. Trapanese did a wonderful job bringing the duo’s music to life! The electronic music in TL is clearly all DP. The orchestral music is clearly done by a talented orchestrator, and his name is so buried down the credits that it is disgusting.

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