Daft Punk’s short-lived relationship with ecstasy came to a screeching halt on April 5, 1994, the electronic musical duo tell Rolling Stone. “I did ecstasy for one year, from early 1993 to early 1994,” says bandmate Thomas Bangalter. “The last time I did ecstasy was the day Kurt Cobain died.” But it was his own near-death experience while rolling on E in Scotland that compelled Bangalter to put down the party drug. “We were at a party in Glasgow when I heard [of Cobain’s death],” he recalls. “Then we were going to an afterparty and I almost got hit by a truck.” Daft Punk’s other half, Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo, managed to pull his bandmate out of the pathway of the vehicle just in the nick of time—even though he was under the E-influence himself. “That was the first night I tried ecstasy,” says De Homem-Christo. “And also the last.” Despite this frightening experience, Bangalter says MDMA’s worst side effect was that it distorted his musical tastes: “The problem was that I was liking any music I’d hear, any crap—I had no critical judgment.” They seem to have made a full recovery—musically at least: The duo’s new album, Random Access Memories, debuted at the top of the Billboard chart today.
