The Thomas Bangalter Hoax Saga

Thomas Bangalter photographed by Jean Picon

Wolfgang Flür photographed by Tom Steinseifer

For the past 2 years it has been reported that Thomas Bangalter (½ of Daft Punk) had collaborated with Wolfgang Flür (ex-Kraftwerk) & Peter Duggal on some music. As a result, Daft Punk & Kraftwerk fans have eagerly awaited Flür’s newest album Times in anticipation for this collaboration. However, just two days after the album released it has been announced by someone close to Daft Punk's team that Bangalter did not actually collaborate with Flür, leaving many puzzled as to how this could be the case. In this article I will chronologically explore how this hoax fell through the cracks and got this far before being brought to light. For context, I run a Daft Punk fan account on Twitter and have been closely reporting on any and all news regarding this collaboration since it originated in early 2023 so I am uniquely positioned to recount this saga and will be linking to many of my own tweets as reference material.

​Written by: Luke Perez aka "Wub" aka The Daft Punk Historian

February 23rd, 2023: Producer / composer Peter Duggal (music partner of Wolfgang Flür) tweets “Cool things emerging from the collaboration with Thomas Bangalter (Daft Punk)… #electropop” along with an image from Blitzed Magazine Issue 7 wherein Flür & Duggal describe getting a Facebook message from Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk:

Wolfgang Flür: “And I had a Facebook message from a guy called Thomas Bangalter…He said some very nice words about the Magazine 1 album which he heard on, I don’t know, iTunes or anywhere else. I asked Peter who is that guy he writes so nicely. He said ‘don’t you know Thomas Bangalter? He is from France, one of the boys of Daft Punk’, oh not anymore because they have exploded their projects in the desert you know. I asked him if he wants to join us, so we have engaged him for a collaboration.”

Peter Duggal: “And you’re the first person we’ve mentioned that to”

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February 24th, 2023: I trepidatiously share this tweet making sure to include a disclaimer that this collaboration was merely a possibility, knowing that there was a chance it was not true or that it would not pan out like many other rumors. It was also a bit odd that Flür claims to have been contacted by Bangalter on Facebook since (to the Daft Punk communities knowledge) Bangalter did not have a Facebook account.

March 4th, 2023: I notice that the original tweet by Duggal had been deleted which only heightened my suspicions. I thought perhaps they had "engaged him for a collaboration" as the article says but that the answer turned out to be a no, or that perhaps a collaboration WAS under way but they realized they should not publicize this information yet. The thought that perhaps it was not actually Bangalter who messaged Flür did cross my mind but I assumed that if they really were going to collaborate, that it would be in-person and there would be no need to doubt the validity of their claims. At the time though, I was more leaning towards the possibility that the collaboration had simply fell through.

January 13th, 2024: In an interview with Blick, Flür mentions that he has an album releasing September, 2024 and that Thomas Bangalter (among other prominent music figures) will be featured on it. I take this as confirmation that it really was Thomas Bangalter who messaged him and I assume they had gotten together in the studio and collaborated. At a glance, everything seems official; Wolfgang Flür (ex-Kraftwerk) has an upcoming album featuring Thomas Bangalter (ex-Daft Punk). I report this news to the Daft Punk community the next day (January 14th, 2024) and in the following days many other prominent electronic music news outlets (EDM.com, DJ Mag, MusicTech, We Rave You) pick up on the story. At this point I have little reason to believe that the collaboration is some sort of hoax.

October 9th, 2024: The announced release date of September, 2024 passes and we haven't heard a word from Flür's camp so people start to wonder what had happened. Had the collaboration fell through? What was up with this delay? Thankfully on October 9th, 2024 Duggal gave an update via his Instagram Story. He posted an excerpt from Computer Music magazine April, 2024 wherein the magazine parrots the information revealed earlier in the year. Duggal simply added "March 2025..." implying that the album had been pushed back. This seemed like a normal delay and again only confirmed to me that Thomas Bangalter really had collaborated with them so all still seemed well.

January 3rd, 2025: The official release date of March 28th, 2025 is revealed and pre-order links for vinyl and CD editions of the album are listed via the Cherry Red Records website. Also included on the website was the official tracklist which revealed additional artists that collaborated on the album and what tracks they were a part of. Most notably, two tracks featured Thomas........ Vangarde??? I was puzzled by this text. Thomas Bangalter's father Daniel Bangalter had used the surname "Vangarde" in the past but purely as a stage name in order to maintain some level of anonymity in case he got famous as a musician.

​"Surely this was some kind of mistake made by an intern?" I thought to myself. I sometimes have to remind myself that most people don't know a lot about the members of Daft Punk due to their career-long mission to obfuscate their personal lives. So I figured some intern was researching Thomas and somehow thought his real surname was Vangarde due to his father using the stage name Daniel Vangarde in the past. I was a bit suspicious of this but I figured it was most likely some kind of clerical mistake and moved on.

February 9th, 2025: Wolfgang Flür does an interview on the Line Noise Podcast with prominent Daft Punk journalist Ben Cardew. "Surely Ben will get more details about the Bangalter collaboration..." I tell myself. And sure enough he did! Flür finally explained exactly how the collaboration went down and it was...not what I assumed had happened:

“He sent me a message on the social media. He had just heard the Magazine 1 album and he was furious about it,” Flür explains. “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]?’”
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​After the signed record had arrived chez Bangalter, Flür suggested a collab. “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.

​“So it was a bit of a technical problem. But for this I have my wonderful Peter Duggal, my partner in England. He is the technician of us. I'm more the visionary. And I have the themes, I have the melodies and the lyrics. And Peter is a splendid technician. He can do everything I need and if I have some ideas, they could be so crazy. He said, ‘Give me, give me a day or two and we'll find that.’”

This story was a far cry from what I (and many others) assumed had happened. I thought Bangalter would have gone to Flür's studio or vice versa and they would have done everything in person as Bangalter always seems to do. The tracklist also seemed to suggest this considering Peter Hook was featured on the same two tracks as Thomas. I figured they are on the same two tracks because they must have been in the studio together. At this point I was increasingly aware of the possibility that a random person could have messaged Flür posing as Thomas Bangalter but I assumed that the news of this collaboration had been so widespread and for so long (2 years at this point) that surely someone would have put the kibosh on it if it were not actually Bangalter. I trudged on, giving them the benefit of the doubt. SURELY this was all above board. SURELY they had vetted that it was actually Thomas Bangalter.

March 26th, 2025: Two days until the album releases. More interviews are rolling in and more weird things keep coming up. Specifically in an interview with music journalist Evan Toth, Flür seems to imply that Thomas Bangalter is now going by Thomas Vangarde:

​"Did I know Thomas Bangalter (now Thomas Vangarde) before? No."

He also speculates that it may have been Instagram Messenger that Thomas used to contact him. The shift in the story from Facebook to Instagram is a bit interesting because in the past year and a half Thomas has created an official account, however, at the time Flür was contacted he did not have one. Still trying to give them the benefit of the doubt I figure Flür is just old and can't quite remember what app was used and that Thomas must have used a private account.

March 28th, 2025: Release day finally comes and I give the two Bangalter tracks a listen...I am less than impressed. At this point I'm really starting to doubt that Thomas Bangalter actually worked on this, even if it was just a small portion sent over the internet crudely integrated into two tracks. I am also still perplexed why he is credited as Thomas Vangarde. Red flags are being raised but I'm not sure how something like this could have gotten so far had it actually not been Bangalter. This is being mentioned in interviews and being pressed on vinyl and making headlines...surely it has to actually be Bangalter.

March 30th, 2025: Two days later I am updating my Thomas Bangalter discography spreadsheet for my Daft Punk fan-site (which you are currently on). I get to the portion of the spreadsheet where I need to list the specific credits attributed to Thomas. So I find the official auto-generated uploads of the tracks on YouTube which list the full writing and production credits appropriately. Despite "Thomas Vangarde" being in the title of the tracks I am still expecting to see "Thomas Bangalter" in the credits given that is his real name which appears in the credits of other projects but I am shocked to see that it also credits Thomas Vangarde. I check on Spotify and it's the same. There is even an entirely new artist profile created for Thomas Vangarde which I suspect means that Bangalter is in no way going to receive money for this since his actual artist profile is not connected to the tracks.

​At this point I am incredibly suspicious and need to say something. I fire off a tweet about how suspicious this all is and that "Given the weird circumstances of how the collab even happened I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some random person tricked Wolfgang into thinking he was talking to Thomas Bangalter."

​Coincidentally, immediately after I tweet this I see that just minutes earlier it had been confirmed by someone close to Daft Punk's team that Thomas Bangalter indeed had no involvement with the tracks:

"Recently a "Thomas Vangarde" was credited on Wolfgang Flür (of Kraftwerk)'s latest album and it was assumed this was an alias of Thomas Bangalter (of Daft Punk). This is misleading!! Thomas Vangarde is NOT Thomas Bangalter and Thomas of DP was not involved with the latest album. Apologies for the misleading news!"
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​​​Sodasprouts aka Artie runs the official Daft Punk Discord and is in frequent contact with Daft Punk's team so when they post a PSA like this on the official Daft Punk Discord, rest assured it is something directly from the Daft Punk team.

In the end it appears some random person posing as Thomas Bangalter contacted Wolfgang Flür praising his work and asking for a signed album. Wolfgang Flür found their messages flattering and showed them to his music partner Peter Duggal who had to tell him who Thomas Bangalter even was. They both believed it was the real Thomas Bangalter contacting them and asked him to collaborate on a space themed track they were currently working on. The fake Thomas Bangalter (for some reason) said yes to this proposition and claimed to already have an idea they could use but said he needed a day or two to find it and that he must not play something new. This was likely an excuse for the fake Bangalter to throw something together which could pass as a Bangalter rough draft. This audio was sent to Flür and was integrated into two tracks. I'm assuming the fake Bangalter must have convinced Flür's camp that he was now going by Thomas Vangarde in some sort of effort to cover their tracks. Bizarrely, it seems no one in the real Thomas Bangalter's sphere found out about this or brought this up to him until after the tracks released despite over two years of this being known about. It's equally bizarre that at no point did Cherry Red Records (or any other involved party) verify this bold claim that Thomas Bangalter was involved. This news is still breaking as I'm writing this so I'm curious to see what the fallout will be...

Update as of April 1st, 2025 (no this is not an April Fools prank): Artie (the person who runs the official Daft Punk Discord and is in contact with Daft Punk's team) clarified some information on the Daft Punk subreddit:

• Yes, this is accurate. I work under the direction of Daft Punk to run their Discord and they explicitly confirmed that Thomas Bangalter was not involved on this album. They do not know who “Thomas Vangarde” is; Thomas does not use that alias.
• For those wondering why Team TBang didn’t do anything sooner: Cherry Red Records, the label responsible for this release, had already been notified of the mistake prior to now and to the album printing. For some reason, they did not (and as of the writing of this post, still haven’t) communicated with Wolfgang. It should not have been pressed and released advertising “ex-Daft Punk.”
• Legal teams are aware, working this out and making sure Wolfgang is aware. Please extend him grace and courtesy; it’s not his fault that oversight failed here! Just because the media is being unkind about the mistake doesn’t mean fans have to be. Please do not harass him about the mistake or tell him to feel embarrassed. And please still listen to the rest of Times!!

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Addendum: ​I have seen several news outlets report that I am the one who uncovered this hoax but this is false. I did not uncover the truth OR contact anyone on Daft Punk's team. I merely posted about my suspicions and it so happened that the news of it indeed being a hoax broke simultaneously. After the news broke I wrote this article as quick as possible because I knew this story was going to get picked up by news outlets and that they would likely be confused about how this played out.
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