Contrary to what you might think, there’s money to be made in the tribute band circuit. While you may scoff at the wannabes dressing up as KISS and Queen and taking the stages at RSLs week in, week out, some of them are making serious bank paying tribute to their favourite bands.
But while most tribute acts are doing the rounds imitating classic stars from the ’60s and ’70s — your Beatles, your Stones, and of course, KISS — two crafty lads from Dublin, Ireland named Eugene and James are making a killing imitating a more recent superstar duo – Daft Punk.
“We went to this bar in Dublin that has really good Guinness and we sat down talking shit for the night about how we could make some money, because we were both on the dole. And then as you do in a pub after eight pints of Guinness, we just had a brainwave,” recounts Eugene.
“You got the helmets from America and I got the equipment,” James adds. “We just took a chance, booked a venue… put a bit of money into it and just chanced it to see what would happen,” says Eugene. “We were doing it more to have a bit of a craic really.”
Daft As Punk, as they call themselves, may have started off as a harebrained monkey-making scheme, but James and Eugene have since been tapped for corporate gigs, festival appearances, and recently had their first London show, which was attended by a camera crew from Ministry of Sound.
“It is just a bit of fun,” Eugene explains. “People think, ‘Oh, these guys are just chancers.’ We were chancers, but the whole idea was Daft Punk don’t play live anymore… I’m a Daft Punk fan, I love going to see Daft Punk and they don’t fucking play live anymore.”
Indeed, the French house duo haven’t toured since 2010 following the release of Human After All, and they haven’t shown any indication that they intend to tour the best-selling Random Access Memories, which they released two years ago.
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“It’s so annoying. They just make appearances, they walk on stage and walk off, fuck that,” says Eugene. “[Fans] come and see us for ten quid and it’s like seeing Daft Punk. Well, our Pyramid isn’t as big as theirs.”
“Our pyramid is about a fifth of the size of theirs,” Eugene concedes, “but we don’t have hundreds of thousands of euros. We’re just doing it for the fun of it.” You can meet James and Eugene in the clip below, and hear the tale of a wild corporate gig that saw people mistaking them for the real Daft Punk.
