Usually upbeat, Pharrell Williams of N.E.R.D. [ tickets ] is a little low. Despite tabloid reports of chronic womanizing, Williams admits he has no life outside the studio.

Ideas race through his head so quickly that he has to immediately lay them down and work his magic for his band N.E.R.D., or his Grammy-winning production team, The Neptunes.

"I'm kind of miserable right now because I've been on the road [with Black Eyed Peas [ tickets ]] for, what, three weeks, and my studio bus is delinquent in being finished," Williams sighed. "So my brain is bursting inside me. Ideas are leaking all over the place. You come on the bus I'm on now, and you might slip on one.

"I'm dying right now. Dying, dying, dying."

The complaint is one of the few times that you'll hear Williams say anything negative--not that he has much to be upset about. N.E.R.D.'s latest album, "Fly or Die," sold more than 120,000 copies the week of its March 23 release, allowing it to debut at No. 6 on The Billboard 200 albums chart, No. 3 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and No. 1 on the Alternative Rock Albums chart.

Vocalist Williams, along with multi-instrumentalist Chad Hugo and rapper/lifelong friend rapper Shay Haley, played all the instruments on the album. The result is a musically schizophrenic collection that runs the gamut from The Beatles to jazz-funk.

Music fans almost need a scorecard to keep track of Williams' and Hugo's projects. The two maintain The Neptunes, the uber-production team behind a montage of hits by the likes of Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears. It also produced the compilation album "The Neptunes Presents: Clones," which cemented Williams' position as a falsetto-voiced, able frontman on the hit "Frontin'". Williams also appears as a sidekick of sorts on a number of artists' singles.

Williams spoke to liveDaily.com about "Fly or Die," the songwriting process with N.E.R.D., and his inspirations.

liveDaily: When your studio bus is finished, what will you begin working on?

Pharrell Williams: I got a lot of things, I got some crazy Nelly s--- coming. I got a lot of s--- coming. You know me, man; I don't like to talk about what I'm going to do. I'll discuss what I've done. I'll be optimistic about what I'm doing at the moment, but, what I'm going to do, I like for it to come to pass first.

Congratulations on your Grammy for The Neptunes. It was a long-time coming.

Thank you, baby.

Why do you think it took so long for them to recognize you? Was it kind of frustrating?

I don't know. It was frustrating. I'm very thankful that I got considered. The year I got considered was the year that I won. I'm very thankful. That doesn't happen all the time. I'm not complaining at all.

So tell me about the process behind "Fly or Die."

It pretty much was just heart and soul. We just chased the feeling in the studio. We molded it, sculpted it and polished it and put it out there. It's a virtual statue. It starts with a feeling, and you just go in and chase it--whether it's lyrically, melodically or musically, whatever. I don't think about stuff like that.

What was the inspiration behind "Fly or Die"?

I'm a student. There's no real way [we do anything]. I'll never say I do it this way or I do it that way because I'm always learning new ways of doing it.

How long did it take you to finish the album?

Six months. That's long for us. We were really busy doing other things.

You must be a master in time-management skills.

Nah, I literally don't do anything else.

What's the most important thing you've learned as a musician/producer.

The importance of learning more and more and more. It never stops.

What are some of the techniques that you use to learn?

I listen to a lot of things. I listen to a lot of music. I read a lot.

What was the last thing you read?

"The Da Vinci Code" (by Dan Brown). It's incredible.

What are you listening to these days?

There's a lot of things I listen to. I hate to spew out names. A lot of people do that to sound smart. "[I'm a fan of] John Coltrane's wife Alice Coltrane. I bet you didn't know she was gifted. I have all her albums. I know them all like the back of my hand." I don't want to be that way. I'm a little reluctant to say what I listen to. But I listen to everything.

All genres?

Yeah. Sure.

Sharing your lyrics with the public is like reading a journal aloud. Is it kind of intimidating or nerve-wracking at times?

Not at all. Nothing's difficult. I'm having a good time. I look at this as a total blessing, you know, and as myself being fortunate to do what I do. I could just be a musician with these great ambitions on a corner somewhere. But I'm not. I'm able to do it and even be compensated for it. You won't hear me complaining.

You have such a positive way of thinking.

I don't think you should think about a lot of things that deal with feelings. I think that feeling is good enough. Thought is just going to complicate things. Being on the road is the lesser of two evils. Is it dying to be heard one day or f---ing being out on the road? When you think about it, how hard is it being on the road when you got your fans who love you? I even got a studio bus. How can I complain?

This is all very new for me, being able to afford things and not ever having to say, "No, you can't have something." Everything's a new day.