The Pistola Press

N.E.R.D play Temple University’s Spring Fling concert tonight with Girl Talk. Tickets for the show are still available. They’re 10 dollars for students and 20 dollars for non-students. Shae Haley of N.E.R.D phoned in last week to talk about their new album, Grizzly Bear, and more. Interview below.

The Pistola : So where are you right now?

Shay Haley: In LA. Finishing up the album.

The Pistola: Nice. How’s that going? How’s the west coast?

SH: The weather is beautiful and the album is pretty insane. It’s just great, everything’s perfect.

The Pistola: How long have you guys been working on the record?

SH: We’ve been working on this album for, I would say, about a year and half now. We tried out some punk pop sounds. We went in a punk pop direction. We explored adding members to the band, just trying to walk down every avenue to find a new direction and different sounds.

The Pistola: How’d adding new members and such go?

SH: It was fun. It was a learning process. Musically, we explored a lot of new musical directions. We tried a lot of things that necessarily didn’t fit the band, but… (his phone loses service. I get a call back a minute later). My fault Colin, my phone service went out.

So we added a member to the band; we toured with him for a good six months and for whatever reason it didn’t work out. Now we went back to the original setting, which is Chad(Hugo), Pharrell(Williams) and myself. We all did our research and found dope directions that we can all gel together to continue the N.E.R.D move.

The Pistola: You three go way back. How long have you known eachother for?

SH: It’s been over 15 years.

The Pistola: Are they (Hugo and Pharrell) kind of like having brothers in a sense? Do you guys ever fight over something?

SH: Yeah, we definitely bump heads sometimes. It’s healthy for the relationship. When you’re dealing with three different strong personalities, a lot of times we’re pretty much on the same wavelength in terms of creativity is concerned. Then there’s times where somebody will just come out with an idea that just doesn’t make sense for the movement. We have healthy debates and figure out a better plan that makes sense for the group. We’re trying that extreme idea and see how it works.

The Pistola: Do you guys write together or do you individually bring ideas to the table?

SH: It varies. Chad might come with an idea or P or myself. You know, it all varies, but we all work collectively together. P and Chad are definitely the maestros musically behind it but I’m forever going through the crates and the archives, always searching for new sounds and directions that we can go in. So we can be ahead of the curve.  N.E.R.D doesn’t necessarily have to fit with what’s going on; we like to push the envelope and do new things.

The Pistola: So at your upcoming shows, are you going to play any new material or stick to your old stuff?

SH: I think it’s time for the N.E.R.D fans and the other who are coming to see N.E.R.D who aren’t necessarily familiar with the N.E.R.D sound or the previous albums. They’ll get a taste of what this new album is going to be about. It’s pretty great. We’re known for making intense music. So we’re going to continue that.

The Pistola: Are Pharrell and Hugo taking on producer roles again for the new record?

SH: Yeah, Chad and Pharrell primarily produced this whole record. We worked with some outside producers. Those particular songs, we haven’t decided yet who make the album. That’s still up for discussion. We haven’t put together the sequence of the album just yet  Until we mix and master and press, it’s still yet to be determined what’s going to make album and what’s not.

The Pistola: When do you think it’s going to drop?

SH: Right now, it’s tentatively dropping on June 15^th.

The Pistola: Very cool. That’s not too far away.

SH: Nope, that’s right around the corner.

The Pistola: After the album drops, are you guys going to hit the road for a while?

SH: Absolutely, of course, we’re on the road now. We’ve been doing college shows on the weekends and sporadically throughout the week. We’re gonna go hard though in June. Start hitting the festivals and getting our promo tour on for the album release. You know, all that good shit. All those beautiful things with the promoting process.

The Pistola: So I got a few short questions for you. Just say whatever comes to your mind first… Imagine you had to curate your own festival, what three artists or bands would you have play?

SH: Grizzly Bear, Audio Bullys and Kanye(West).

The Pistola: Grizzly Bear? The guys who live in Brooklyn?

SH:Yeah. To be honest, I’m not sure where they’re from. I was introduced to them by Youtube, I’m a Youtube fanatic when it comes to finding dope indie bands who haven’t necessarily got the proper attention that they deserve.

The Pistola: Yeah, they put out a pretty sweet record(Veckatimest) last year.

SH: Yeah, I haven’t done my homework yet but they make some insane music.

The Pistola: So have you had any crazy fan encounters?

SH: No, not really. I try to lay pretty low key.

The Pistola: I guess it’s probably better that way…

SH: Well, to each his own. Some people get in it for the attention and love then there’s those who just get in it for the love(laughs).

The Pistola: When’s the last time you performed?

SH: We performed last Saturday at Duke University right before the national championship game.

The Pistola: That was probably pretty crazy.

SH: Oh, yeah that was pretty fucking insane.

The Pistola: What’s the last new artist or band that just blew you away when you listened to them?

SH: This band I discovered called Mansions On The Moon. You gotta check them out, they’re pretty dope.

The Pistola: You’ve been in the music business for quite a while. If you had to name one thing, what’s the coolest thing that music has brought you?

SH: I guess just being in a position to take care of my family and a lot of my friends.