No One Ever Really Dies

Hip-hop fans have been familiar with the work of the producers / songwriters Neptunes for years now. This production duo - Pherrell Williams and Chad Hugo - has manned the boards on remixes and written tunes for nearly everyone, including *Nsync, Limp Bizkit, Jay-Z, No Doubt, Garbage, Babyface, Busta Rhymes, Moby, Ben Harper, Perry Ferrell, Kid Rock, P. Diddy and just about anyone else who's on the MTV hit-maker roll-call.
Before Williams and Hugo were among the most sought-after and highest-paid producers in the music industry, however, they were two-thirds of the group N*E*R*D*, a project born out of high school friendship and shared musical history with the third member of the group, Shay. Together, the three released the N*E*R*D* debut album, In Search Of…, a rousing presentation of dynamic music that finds its foundation in hip-hop, but strays liberally into other territories, including rock, R&B and even a little country. The philosophy behind the music, says the group, is a reflection of the three's philosophy on life - that everything is an extension of everything else, and that, as the band name acronymically points out, No One Ever Really Dies. N.E.R.D.'s third-man Shay was recently kind enough to speak with the Synthesis and better explain where this forward-thinking triumvirate is coming from.

You guys have been friends for a long time. Have you always been making music together or did Pherrell and Chad, as the Neptunes, approach you to work with them?
Initially, we got discovered as a band, but people didn't understand the whole N*E*R*D* concept and it was just a hassle to get people into it, so the Neptunes as producers decided to branch off for a while just to establish some solid ground and work with outside artists, which those love to do anyway. So once they were embraced by people, we all decided to get back to working on this N.E.R.D. project.

Why name the group No One Ever Really Dies?
Well, Pherrell thought of N*E*R*D* and Chad, Pherrell and I wanted some type of meaning behind it. We're different guys, man, we're all nerds, quirky in our own ways, so that name really expresses how we feel and our outlook on the world. You know, your flesh might deteriorate, but your spirit lives on forever.

And the album title, In Search Of…?
In search of what ever you're missin' - and everyone is searching for something. You might be searching for a woman if you're single, you might be searching for happiness, you might be searching for a million fucking dollars man - it's whatever you're looking for in life. And we like to think that this is one answer, in music form, for whatever you're searching for. If you appreciate good music then you will love In Search Of…

The official release of In Search Of… is actually the second release of the album. What happened the first time around?
The first release was a little constricted, musical[ly] speaking. The N*E*R*D* heads, the fans or the people who love the music - that limited release is their little collector's item. But we wanted to add a different and more varied element to the music, like you have both sides of the music - the synthesized version and the live version - and when you put the two of them together, you have a menagerie in a sense, a musical menagerie. I like both releases for different reasons, but on the new version, all the music is played live, and that gave us more freedom as vocalists, working with live instrumentation as opposed to us screaming over a DAT loop.

Both band name and album title denote a life's philosophy, but the music sure is a lot of fun, and it's not necessarily a hip-hop record.
Oh yeah, it's all in fun man, it's all in how you feel, you know what I'm saying? We came up listening to everything, so we try not to limit ourselves, we try to do whatever we feel and it's become something that comes from the heart. We appreciate good music - music is music, man - and being from Virginia, where it's a lot less segregated when it comes to music, when we went to school, it wasn't just hip-hop for us. It was hip-hop and the rock greats like AC/DC, Metallica and all that heavy metal. Then we had like, the more laid-back stuff like Joni Mitchell and the kind of music that, you know, your parents schooled you too. Plus you had the country and blues music. And it was cool 'cause there was all those types of music and people - we went to a real diverse school - so it wasn't hard to be open minded towards everything, especially music.

The norm these days is to find a niche and stick with one style - whatever sells.
That's just stuck in one slot, man, and we're so not like that. And that's cool because we're all different as artists and people in our own ways, but when it comes to music it's like we all think alike, it all just meshes together, man, and that's a beautiful thing.

Is N*E*R*D*'s goal to smash that one-slot mentality?
Naww… I mean, we would love to, man, but that's definitely a task. We do what we feel and try to put out music that we feel from the heart, and we just hope the world embraces it. Ultimately, we would love to change the world, we would love to open the eyes of the people who don't know about the history of music, but in the meantime, we're happy making music together.

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