For the Black Eyed Peas, the party is still on

As inconceivable as it seems now, Black Eyed Peas leader Will.i.am says that he was "scared" when the group released its latest album, "The E.N.D.," in June, 2009.

"It's kind of like being a professional surfer and all the freaking oceans dried up: 'Let's go surfing!' 'Riiiiight,'" explains the songwriter/musician/producer, who co-founded the Peas in 1995. "That's the equivalent of musicians putting out records with no record stores out there anymore.

"["The E.N.D."] just exploded without the traditional record industry," he says, "which was great. But we couldn't be sure that would happen. It was scary."

The Peas' fifth studio album is, in fact, the "Boom Boom Pow" heard 'round the world. The 15-song set debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and topped charts in seven other countries. Its first two singles, "Boom Boom Pow" and the party anthem "I Gotta Feeling," spent 26 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, and the Peas scooped up three Grammy Awards, including Best Pop Vocal Album.

Clearly "The E.N.D." lived up to its titular acronym: "The Energy Never Dies."

"We just made an album for the time," explains the 34-year-old Will.i.am, who began life as William Adams, "and the time right now is club life. To say, 'Hey, let's make a radio record,' that's dangerous right now. The only place music actually lives is in clubs. So we made this work out of the clubs."

Singer Stacy Ferguson, aka Fergie, feels that the album's sound "just represents a new energy" for the Peas, even though the group's previous releases - including hits such as "Let's Get Retarded" (2003), "Where Is the Love?" (2003), "My Humps" (2005), and "Pump It" (2005) - were also dance-floor favorites.

"Going out to the clubs, that really inspired a lot of this album," she says. "We were more inspired by the new and the fresh and pushing things forward, and we decided to go with our guts."

The success of "The E.N.D." is particularly gratifying for the band members because it comes after several years during which most of the Peas' musical activity took place outside the pod, leading to rumors of the group's demise.

The band had taken off after Fergie joined in 2003, with the albums "Elephunk" (2003) and "Monkey Business" (2005) both multiplatinum hits that turned the quartet into international stars and Will.i.am into an in-demand, go-to producer in the pop world.

After "Monkey Business," however, the group's members took advantage of their higher profile to work on their own. Fergie released the triple-platinum solo album "The Dutchess" (2006), married actor Josh Duhamel, and appeared in the film musical "Nine" (2009). Will.i.am released his own solo album, "Songs about Girls" (2007), and helmed songs by Chris Brown, Mariah Carey, Diddy, Fergie, Michael Jackson, John Legend, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, U2, and Usher, among others. He also launched an online social network called Dipdive and created "Yes We Can" (2008), a viral video for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The group's other members, Apl.de.ap and Taboo - born Jaime Gomez and Allan Lindo respectively - also pursued solo musical and acting projects.

The net result of all this outside work was a perception that the Peas were no more, which Fergie says was never the case.

"I think that other people were talking about it, not us," she says. "It was just people speculating, and you have to expect some of that in this day and age. But we're friends first, so for us it was never a question of doing another album. It was just a matter of when it made sense."

Ideas for "The E.N.D." actually began surfacing in 2006, and the group even had a working title, "Evolution," which had to be changed when R&B singer Ciara chose that title for her 2006 album. "From Roots to Fruits" was also considered before the quartet embraced "The E.N.D.," but after touring to support "Monkey Business," Will.i.am says, the quartet was burned out and needed to take its time getting ready for another group outing.

By September, 2008, things were kicking into gear, however. With Fergie in London filming Nine, the other Peas came to her, brimming with ideas. More than 60 songs came out of their sessions at Metropolis Studios, where the Peas took up residence in several different rooms.

"It was really cool, kind of like a musical factory," Fergie recalls. "You'd spend hours in one room doing one song and, when your ears kind of burned out on it, you'd go into another room where people were working on a different song and there's a whole new, fresh vibe and you'd have fresh ears for that. It felt comfortable and it was great and it was good vibes.

"On this album I got to completely explore different parts of my voice, different characters," she adds. "I was channeling early Madonna on 'Meet Me Halfway,' because the word 'borderline' was in there and it took me back to when I was 10 or 11 years old and going to the 'Like a Virgin' tour. And in 'Out of My Head' I was kind of channeling Millie Jackson. I got to be all over the place."

And it wasn't only work for the Peas, who popped into London nightclubs both to dance and to do a little market research for their new material.

"Will and Apl would be DJing and we'd just have a lot of fun and chill with each other," Fergie says. "I feel on this album the same excitement that I felt in the beginning, with 'Elephunk,' when I was just joining the band. It feels so new and fresh and fun. That's what it is - it's fun again.

"That energy comes from time spent away and time spent doing things and then coming back and realizing how much we like being together and being this group."

Nowhere was that spirit embodied more, she says, than in "I Gotta Feeling," "The E.N.D.'s" ebullient second single that took on additional lives at sporting events, on television commercials, and even, according to Will.i.am, on Oprah Winfrey's personal cell phone.

"This is the song dedicated to all those people with 9-to-5 jobs who are just wanting to get to Friday," Fergie says. "It's like an army of people wanting to have a good time."

And that they did, says Will.i.am, who turned all of "The E.N.D.'s" material loose for DJs around the world to remix and share online.

"No matter where you went, what country you were in, you heard 'I Gotta Feeling,'" he says. "Eight, 10 different versions of it in one night. That's crazy. But we made that kind of record. We wanted people to do their own thing with the songs, not just listen to our thing and go, 'Yeah, that's cool.' "

The Peas' commitment to "The E.N.D." remains strong. The group has hit the road with a high-tech stage show, which Will.i.am. calls "some futuristic partying on stage," supplemented by some serious sub-woofer action - "just bass in yo' face," he says. The trek is scheduled to last well into 2011, but Will.i.am says that the next batch of Peas music may come sooner rather than later, most likely while the group is still on the road.

"We've got some tricks up our sleeves for something as early as June," says Will.i.am, who also has collaborated with the Who and Slash for a remix of the Who's 1965 classic "My Generation" to benefit Haitian relief efforts. "I can't say what it is yet, though. I just don't want the group to get mad at me. I'd rather say it as a group, because that's what we are.

"But the future is here, let me tell you that."