There are a great many reasons to be impressed by musician Daniel Bangalter. If you haven’t heard of him, chances are you’ll recognise some of his work. You may even be familiar with the work of his son, Thomas, who was one half of a small group called Daft Punk. But Bangalter’s famous surname belies the footprint that he, or indeed his Daniel Vangarde moniker, has left on the music industry.
A life-long fan of dance music, Bangalter’s first hit, 1968’s Casatschok, produced by Belgian record producer Jean Kluger saw him choreograph the song’s dance routine. Their work would take an experimental turn in 1971 with the release of Le Monde fabuleux des Yamasuki, a pseudo-Japanese pop record created despite neither Kluger or Bangalter having set foot in Japan. Sung entirely in Japanese by a school choir and introduced by a renowned black-belt Judo master, it became a surprise hit the defies genre entirely.
In 1975 Bangalter founded his own record label, Zagora, which provided an opportunity to create his own work. He would go on to carve a career writing and producing hits for the likes of The Gibson Brothers, La Compagnie Créole and Ottawan – most notably their hit ‘D.I.S.C.O.’ written in response to the infamous Disco Sucks movement of 1979.
Bangalter stepped back from the music industry in the early 90s, eventually relocating to Brazil where he resides to this day. It was only when Because Music approached him with the idea of releasing a compilation of his early work many decades later that Bangalter decided to return to the limelight. The result is ‘The Vaults Of Zagora Records Mastermind (1971-1984)’, a sprawling 20-song compilation that serves as a celebration of a master at work.
While Bangalter never gave interviews during the peak of his career, it was at the suggestion of his equally elusive son that he has decided to give them now in support of an album celebrating his career. Technically, it’s thanks to one half of Daft Punk that Clash has been granted an audience with him and for that we’re enormously grateful.
Paul Weedon caught up with him last month to look back on his career.
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Firstly, thanks for granting us this insight into a piece of musical history, Daniel.
It’s funny that I am considered history today [Laughs]
I mean that with the greatest respect, obviously. I understand that this is one of the first – and indeed last – interviews you’ve ever done and will do in your career.
Yes, I did some interviews in October too – the first in my career. I didn’t do any radio, television. Nothing. It was not my cup of tea.
Did you want the music to speak for itself?
Exactly. At that time, when you were a composer or producer, you’re not in the first row. It’s the artist that’s really visible. As an author it’s something you do. You’re normally not in the light. You are in the light if you are an artist at the same time. Nobody knows the writer composer until they start to be artists themselves.
I’m curious about Zagora as a label. What were your ambitions when you started?
My ambition when I set up the label in 1975 was to be totally independent and free, artistically and financially. I was lucky to have success to get enough money to go on producing and to depend on nobody, not even the banks. The truth is, I was an artist and working on my side, doing what I wanted to do, meeting people, working with artists, but totally out of the business and the industry. I would not have done it without that freedom.
You were an established musician before gravitating towards disco. What was it that interested you most about it as a creative form of expression?
The truth is disco was a period of my production. I always loved dance music when it was not disco. It was ‘dance’. When I was a teenager I used to spend my holidays in Costa Brava, and on the seaside there was a club with live music on the beach. Each time there was a new dance in Paris at the time. I knew the dance and I went to the club to teach it.
My first hit was a dance, Casatschok, in 1968. The production was by Jean Kluger, my partner, but I did the dance and it became a European success. And then I did this thing called Yamasuki. It was a dance, again. It was Japanese, but it’s a complete fantasy. I’ve never been to Japan, yet I did a Japanese record with Japanese lyrics and it was a success. The dance was a summer success in Spain that year, so when I saw the word ‘disco’ in an American magazine, I thought, “What’s that?” I learned that it was dance music, a new rhythm for dance music. And I heard it and I loved it from the beginning. I thought it was very musically sophisticated, with great artists, great singers and fantastic string and brass arrangements. It was brilliant. The songs were really joyful. It was a very primal reaction. You felt the song.
Yamasuki predates your disco work, but it’s remained an important touchstone for a lot of musicians. It’s interesting seeing the ways in which it’s continued to resonate. Has it been strange for you seeing artists like Erykah Badu sample it, for example?
Yes! It’s always strange. It’s funny when I heard it in the second episode of Fargo. You never know what will happen with a piece of music, or a song or a production. The big companies buy publishing catalogues of music today because there are times that something unexpected happens. You see that with the new Netflix thing about the Addams Family. A song from a band from the 80s exploded because of that. It was not a big hit then and it’s a big hit today. This is the magic of music.
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‘D.I.S.C.O.’ has obviously taken on a life of its own. As somebody who was and is politically active, I’m interested to know your views on ‘Disco Sucks’. It was obviously a really awful thing to happen to the genre.When Ottawan put that out, was it very much intended as a reaction to that?
Yes, it was a joke. For me, the joke was to say, a kind of music is finished because you burn the records. Like in Nazi Germany, Goebbels burnt a big fire with books and he thought these books were finished. Goebbels is not here and the books continue to be read. So it’s the same thing. These people made a big fire and they thought they would extinguish a type of music. It’s totally crazy. And it’s true, that I did ‘D.I.S.C.O.’ to show that disco is not finished.
Remix culture is something that has become a huge part of electronic music and dance music. Now that the Zagora vaults have opened again, are you interested in seeing what other artists might do with your work?
I’m always interested. I think it was good to preserve the songs. Normally I didn’t give authorisation for remixes. A few times I gave authorisation when I thought it was good and it was adding something, or it was fun. But if it was just to take a piece of music and use it as a sample, I didn’t give it authorisation. Now it will be a little different because a lot of these songs were not hits. When there is a remix just in order to use the popularity of a song, I prefer to keep my production or song intact, because I want it to be known for what it is. That’s one of the reasons that 30 or 40 years later, it’s still fun today. When you do production on a song, it sticks to a period of time and the emotions that people enjoyed when they heard it for the first time. They were with a girl, or they were at a party or they were at home with their parents, but it’s a piece of time… If it were a remix, it’s not the same as if you hear the original music. When you hear the original music, you go back in time to that moment. It is emotion and this does not disappear. You can be 80 years old and you listen to the music that was playing the first time you slept with a girl. You will remember it like it was yesterday. This has nothing to do with remixes. The remix is forgotten after three months… But since these tracks were not known, if somebody takes them apart and makes something fun with it, I will be interested to listen. I will authorise it if I think it’s fun.
That is exciting. I know you said that you’re not going to be tempted back into production now.
The truth is that I spent a big part of my time in Brazil in a little village on the seaside. There is a little musical bar with pizza and there is a little tropical garden with a little wooden stage by the Rio… Every night there is music and it’s already happened where I’ve seen somebody that I like and I produced some tracks to make it possible for these local artists to have more shows. It’s not even to release the records nationally. It’s just to press a few records or to put it on the internet and to have opportunities.
It would be remiss of me not to mention your son Thomas’ career. Is it fair to say you can hear your influence on his work?
I cannot hear a lot, but people tell me they can [Laughs].
I was listening to ‘Random Access Memories’ again the other day, having been listening to the Zagora compilation and, consciously or not, there’s a lot of you in there. Also, that was technically their only studio record.
You know, a funny thing is that I sent a link to the compilation to a girl that I know in Brazil and she said, “That’s great. I liked it. Are they remixes? Because I heard some work of Daft Punk in your new record.” [Laughs] I said, “No, it’s not remixes. It’s original songs!”
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Well, there you go. It goes to show how timeless it is. Guy-Manuel and Thomas were making music and it sounded like the music that you were making all the way back in the 70s.
Yes, but my son is my son, so he was not into music, really. He came to music very late. He learned piano young, from six to 12 years old. My wife wanted him to play piano and it was very important for him, especially for the rhythm. But otherwise, he rarely went into the studio with me. I had three studios at different times. He was never in the studio. His thing was films. And with Guy-Man, they met and they became friends because of film at school. But he was living in my house, you know? I was doing music. I was listening to music. I was a fan of Stevie Wonder, so when I saw that they did the Grammys, inviting Stevie Wonder to play, I’m sure that that had something to do with his musical education.
I’m sure it filtered through.
And this morning, you know what I was thinking? If he had been into music, Daft Punk would not have existed. He would have been in the studio with me and he would have learned how to produce music and how to do music the normal way. Their originality comes from the fact that they knew nothing. They invented that way to produce music. They produced in his bedroom with a six-track Mackie and no computer. The cables were 50 centimetres long. I had built a studio in the 80s with 23 kilometres of cables and then I never used the studio because the sound was not good. He saw that the length of the cable and the number of cables was not the secret to a good sound. I heard the sound they were making with little equipment. When they did the first two albums, they were listening on a boombox with two little speakers. They did the two first albums on a boombox.
Do you remember the first time they played you some of the earliest Daft Punk tracks?
Yes, I remember. My bedroom was next door to his bedroom. From the very first time, I was fascinated with the rhythm, because I did not understand it. It was not 1-2-3-4. I didn’t know how it worked, and then suddenly you’re surprised because the more important part of the rhythm is not the one you expected. You’re lost with the rhythm. So I noticed that and I liked it. Sometimes, I would enter the room and I’d say, “This is good. What will be the songs?” I did not know it was just instrumental. And when I said that I liked something, I never heard it again. I was a reference. If I liked it, it was not special enough, so they would not work on it anymore. Very rapidly, I started not to comment. For me it was difficult, you know? I was into dance music. I was into producing. And when I said “This is good,” I was the reference to drop it.
On ‘Homework’ you received a thank you credit: “For your precious advice”. What advice did you give them?
The advice I gave them was from my experience. When they did the first recording at home and I thought the sound was great, I said, “The sound in your room is great. Stick with this equipment. Stick with this way of producing.” At that time I knew that there were techno or house artists that had a hit and they’d get money from a record company, get to do proper recording in a studio and the result wouldn’t be as good. In a proper studio, they’re losing the creativity and the low key equipment they had. Thomas and Guy-Manuel have a good ear, and they would never have done production that is no good. The second piece of advice I gave is that they were independent, and they already earned money because they were selling vinyl directly and they didn’t want to lose this independence. I remember talking with Thomas when he decided not to sign with a major, because they didn’t want to have pressure. They didn’t want to have the artistic direction of a record label and they didn’t have to do another album if they didn’t want to.
What did you tell him?
“Listen, write everything down on one side of the page, and on the other side it becomes a request. You will see if a record company agrees. ‘I won’t do another album if I don’t want to.’ Say so. This is one of the requests. You want to go on with your names – Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo – you don’t want to sign your name to the record company. You sign the band, not your name. You will say to the record company, ‘I keep my name and we’re keeping our label. We want to go on producing what we want with our name, and our projects on the label. We sign with you on just the band. Then we rent the music. We don’t sell the music. We produce this music, you can have it for a time and then it goes back to us.’”
It’s amazing that they were in that position.
They could pay for the music because the cost was very low, you know? A little equipment in your bedroom? There’s no cost. They spent much more money with the art cover than with the production of the album on the first album. It was a very sophisticated art cover. They say, “We pay, we give it to you to distribute and then after a time, it goes back to us. The same with publishing. ‘Okay, you are the publisher for 20 years. In 20 years, it goes back to us and you will not have an artistic right to say anything. We will give you a tape and you will distribute it. And the way you distribute the marketing? We decide the marketing. Which one will be the single? We decide. And we want to do the video and produce the video. That will come back to us.’” So the advice I gave him was to take all the things that they didn’t want to happen and write it as a positive thing and they would see if a record company accepted this. They found one that accepted – Virgin Records – and the rest is history.
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Daniel Vangarde – ‘The Vaults Of Zagora Records Mastermind (1971-1984)’ is available now via Because Music.
Words: Paul Weedon // @twotafkap
Photo Credit: Zagora Archive
