Who are the Daft Punk members? Former Kraftwerk member Wolfgang Flür deceived into false collaboration with an imposter

An ex-member of the German electronic band, Kraftwerk, Wolfgang Flür, shared his interaction with an imposter who pretended to be Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter. On March 28, 2025, Flür released his third solo album, Times. According to Billboard, the album includes collaborations with artists like Boris Blank from Yello and Peter Hook from New Order.

Moreover, one of the standout features is a track with Thomas Bangalter, credited as Thomas Vangarde. In an interview with Line Noise in February 2025, Flür revealed that the partnership came about after Bangalter reached out to him on social media for a signed copy of his Magazine 1 album. Daft Punk comprised the music duo Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo.

After the album was released, Daft Punk’s archivist, Luke Perez, shared a blog stating how the collaboration between Flür and Bangalter was all a “hoax.” Luke Perez pointed out that Peter Duggal, Wolfgang Flür’s music partner, had tweeted about the developments from the collaboration with Thomas Bangalter.

However, he found it strange that the former Kraftwerk member claimed Bangalter contacted him on Facebook, as Daft Punk fans believed Bangalter didn’t have an account there. Perez also noticed that Duggal’s original tweet had been deleted, which made him more suspicious.

He considered the possibility that Bangalter had initially been approached for a collaboration but ultimately declined, or that a project was in progress but wasn’t meant to be publicly discussed yet.

While the idea that someone else might have messaged Flür did cross his mind, he assumed any collaboration would happen in person. At the time, he leaned toward believing that the project had simply fallen through.

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The alleged Daft Punk imposter said he was inspired by Kraftwerk

In the Line Noise interview, Flür shared that Bangalter expressed admiration, saying the album was incredible, and requested a signed copy as part of his collection. He also credited Kraftwerk for inspiring his robotic stage presence with helmets. Flür recalled:

“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.’”

According to the Kraftwerk member, Bangalter mentioned that he was also a fan of space and already had an idea that might work. He asked for two days to find it, saying he wouldn’t create something new but had something in mind that could fit.

When he sent it over, it didn’t quite match the musical key at first, but adjustments were made to the key and tempo. Eventually, it worked perfectly in the middle section alongside Peter Hook’s bass line. Flür recalled:

“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.’”

While updating his Thomas Bangalter discography, Luke Perez checked the official YouTube uploads of the tracks for writing and production credits. He was surprised to find only "Thomas Vangarde" credited, instead of the real name.

A search on Spotify showed the same results, with a separate artist profile created for Thomas Vangarde. Perez suspected this meant Bangalter wouldn’t receive royalties since his official artist profile wasn’t linked to the tracks.

Flür was a part of Kraftwerk from 1973 to 1987.