| WORLDPOP.com Interview by Lucy Beer (copied from site on August 17, 2001) Everybody wants a piece of the Neptunes' magic. This production powerhouse has created hits for the likes of Jay-Z, Kelis, Ludacris, ODB, Mystikal and even the Backstreet Boys. But the guys behind the sounds are about to step out of their own shadow with their album, In Search Of..., under the name NERD (No-one Ever Really Dies). One third of the group, Chad Hugo, took time out to explain more... Worldpop/dance: As the Neptunes you guys have a very distinctive sound. How do you make sure that it stays fresh and unique and doesn't become repetitive? Chad: Well, we're switching it up now. The stuff that's coming out, you may be able to tell that it's a Neptune track, but we're gonna switch up the sound. When we first started out we were trying to get our sound noticed. We wanted people to know right off the top, that it was a Neptunes song. But the stuff that's coming out, we're experimenting a little bit more. Are there any other artists you'd like to work with? I want to do a lot of different stuff. A lot more rock, a lot more pop. I've always wanted to get up with Michael Jackson. I would love to work with Stevie Wonder. I would love to do some stuff with Madonna. There's probably some international stars out there that I may not know about that I'd like to work with. Have you had any particularly memorable experiences working with anyone? ODB must have been interesting to work with... People always ask that about ODB. He's just a nutty guy. We didn't know what to expect because he'd be real chill one second, real polite, [and then] the next thing you know he'll go on some vocal rampage, like [rasping a la ODB] 'Hook me up in the vocal booth... what the fuck's going on. Someone better hook me up.' He'll sing one line and then that's it and he'll say 'OK. Take 30 minutes. Let me write the next line.' The first single is Lapdance which has a subtext comparing politicians to strippers. Can you elaborate on the idea behind the song? I'm glad you noticed because a lot of people weren't really receptive to that at first. Guys would say 'Yeah man, that's cool I wanna get my lapdance.' Pharrell [Williams, his Neptune partner] wrote the song. It's just an optical illusion and we do that in a lot of our songs on the album. There are double meanings. The Lapdance song - people may think of it as a strip club-type song with a rock edgy feel to it and we want them to feel that way; that was the whole purpose of doing the song like that. You can't be too preachy. It's not like we want to go and make a whole bunch of world songs, songs for the children. If we do, it might be subliminal. We might make something that bangs real hard in the club one day, but at the end of the day, it'll probably turn out to be some 'we are the world' type of thing!!! We just like to play with people. You made your reputation producing as the Neptunes. Have you always had your eyes on being artists and using your position as the Neptunes as leverage? Yes. That's kind of how people have been receptive to us. They've been going on the strength of the Neptunes and fortunately they're trusting us on the hits we've put out in the past. Although our album has nothing to do with that stuff, they're checking for the Neptunes. But this is just the first step. We'll venture out into different things. How did growing up in Virginia affect you? Well, Virginia never had a big music scene. It gave us the opportunity to zone out in what we do. But we've always kept in tune with what we thought was hot and what was going on outside of Virginia. We always thought of the bigger picture. [But] this is our element. We're just gonna stay in Virginia and keep cranking out shit. http://www2.worldpop.com/dance/cif.cfm?dir=dance&url=interviewfeature.cfm¶m=slot%3D2 |