NOTHING is the title of the 4th studio album from Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and Shae Haley – collectively, the three musicians-slash-producers-slash-singers-slash-songwriters known as N*E*R*D. (No-one Ever Really Dies). Formed as a concept band in their hometown of Virginia Beach, in 2000, N*E*R*D stands – defiantly – ten years later as a group of musicians who have worked tirelessly to carve out and conquer a new space in an otherwise nebulous musical world. Amazingly, this was not the album you were intended to hear. Early in 2010, Pharrell, Chad and Shae sat in their Miami recording studio listening to roughly 20 songs, recorded over the previous year, that they believed would form their newest album. Previous LPs, like their critically-acclaimed, highly-influential IN SEARCH OF, and its follow-ups, FLY OR DIE and SEEING SOUNDS, had explored the diasporas of the rock ‘n roll sound. They tenaciously, passionately created a musical space that subscribed to no boundaries or set of rules; and in that, created a loyal and dedicated following of fans that came from a myriad of backgrounds. In many ways, the group could have easily gotten away with releasing just about anything and it had a very good shot at finding some success. But N*E*R*D is not a group that feels comfortable with just getting by. “It didn’t feel right. Sitting there and listening to it, it was definitely a new sound, an experimental sound. With a little bit more work, we’d have had something that the average person probably would’ve been just as happy with,” says the group’s vocalist and co-songwriter, Shae of the first sessions. “But we would *know*. Our core fans would *know*. It wouldn’t be us.” “People are concerned with war and the world. People are still dealing with their issues even if we think thing have changed,” explains Pharrell. “And when we looked back on those 20 records, they weren’t really saying what we wanted to say. They weren’t good enough.” And so N*E*R*D scrapped all 20 of those songs and decided to start over. They went back to NOTHING http://n-e-r-d.com/about/