"We wanted to separate the private side from the public side," explained Thomas. "The thing is, we were a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. We didn't want to play that game, we didn't want to be recognized in the streets."

That's why they always wore masks when they were photographed. "That's right. Everyone accepted us with the masks, which makes us so happy. We think that music is the most personal thing we can give. The rest is just about people taking themselves too seriously, which is quite annoying sometimes."

But, as you may have noticed, I've included a photo of them here without masks, which means that they're not so worried about it these days... But they really used to take it seriously. I was fortunate enough to see them live at the V97 Festival in Leeds, England, and a photographer went up to the bottleneck between the stage and the audience, pulled out his camera and started taking pictures while they were playing, but Man Christo started gesturing with his hand and asking him to stop taking pictures, perhaps because they were without their masks. The photographer was a bit put out and left with his tail between his legs.

(EDIT 2024: Daft Punk's debut album, Homework, is definitely an electronic music classic. Too bad the band became so commercial after that album... They never managed to make music as good as that album again. But they still made a name for themselves in electronica, being a reference point for many producers and electronic groups after them. They also influenced other groups to wear masks in live performances, such as Cyberpunkers, a duo from Milan who only perform wearing masks, and their sound clearly has a lot of Daft Punk influences.)