N.E.R.D.

About N.E.R.D.

The superstar rock band N.E.R.D. make crazy music just how they want to. The name stands for No One Ever Really Dies, and the band is made up of magic-touch producers The Neptunes (smooth-voiced Pharrell Williams, tech genius Chad Hugo) and their buddy Shae Haley. You'd think The Neptunes would be way busy making hits and beats for everyone from Justin Timberlake to Mystikal but the boys are just too genius for their own good and, in 2001, they dropped the disc In Search Of? To try and distinguish the rock band from their hip hop productions, N.E.R.D. went with a live band, the guitar-pop group Spymob?and minimized their trademark exotic studio production. The album played up the duo's sci-fi fetish and the singles "Rock Star" and "Lapdance" were hits while the entire disc was critically well received. N.E.R.D.'s second disc, Fly Or Die, was heavier on the funky production and also saw the band ditching Spymob and playing all of the instruments themselves. The single "She Wants To Move" sees Pharrell getting funky over a percussive guitar buzz and an irresistible cowbell beat. They teamed up with rocker Lenny Kravitz and Good Charlotte's Joel and Benji Madden and the result was genre bending party rock. These days, The Neptunes are busy in the studio, but Chad and Pharrell have found time to complain about their label, Virgin Management. They stated that the band had "expired," but have since retracted the statement and N.E.R.D. currently claim to be recording a third disc for early 2007.