The Dapper Chaps' Daft Punk Medley has been years in the making with Mighty Happy Crew members recording and working both remotely and in-person over the course of that time. It began with a jam session in 2017, where producer Tyler Coffin brought his rig of synthesizers, MIDI buttons, and a laptop to drummer Kenny Roe's house. The song "Doin' It Right" turned out to be a lot of fun to jam on, and so a bud of an idea was formed.
When Ben Farac heard that they had played around with that song, he too was eager to contribute his talents to the mix. From there, Tyler took the ideas and started piecing together a formal arrangement, which inevitably led to a mash-up of sorts using other Daft Punk songs as well. Tyler and Kenny got the drums recorded with the musical arrangement, and then Ben came down to the basement studio to lay down vocals and a plethora of majestic harmonies.
At that point, we initially thought that was all, and that it was close to finished. This turned out to be far from the case. As more MHC musicians heard it, they were excited to also partake in making it just a bit more interesting and fun musically. Carolee Beck lent additional angelic vocals, Patrick Coffin strummed his trusty guitar, and Mark Avery tickled his wholesome keys - all at completely different times to many different stages of the evolution of the song. Everyone then recorded their parts on video so that it could all be put together and released as a medley.
All of this happened as a sort of backburner project between other projects. Things inevitably got busier for everyone, and the song and video got pushed further down to the to-do list. And on top of it all, Ben battled and triumphantly defeated a rare form of cancer.
But eventually, we beat on, continuing work and getting close to finally finishing the song and video. To spice up the video, Joshua and Tyler Coffin even decided to take on some practical effects in the form of miniatures, creating a tiny drive-in theater to actually project our video into. Josh even ventured into VFX as well, creating a hauntingly realistic TV floating in space. After some setbacks in plenty of areas, we finally landed on February 22 as a planned release date of the Daft Punk medley - the anniversary of the last Dapper Chaps mash-up, Smooth Criminal (released February 22, 2019).
In what can be considered one of the most unbelievable sheer coincidences in recent memory, Daft Punk released their video, Epilogue, on February 22, 2021, marking the end of their 28 year musical career. This surprise announcement came as an especially unexpected one, as no one had heard anything from them for quite some time, let alone the fact that we intended to release a video commemorating several pieces of their work later that day! As such, the song and video took something of a more bittersweet vibe in light of the news.
At any rate, the inspiration that Daft Punk gave us and countless other people can't be understated, and we hope that our work can be a source of joy and entertainment as well as a celebration and sign of the utmost respect to true legends of the musical universe.
Dapper Chaps is a band under the Mighty Happy Crew record label.
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