'Think big, be big'

At the Rose Bowl in October, the Black Eyed Peas got a chance to see the world from U2's vantage point. As it turns out, the pop group enjoyed the view.

On Tuesday, the Peas announced a massive 100-city world tour that will kick off on February 4.

Inspired partly by U2, the group will greet its fans with a splashy show featuring elaborate lighting, stage effects, numerous wardrobe changes and a newfound interest in spectacle.

It's an interesting move considering that the recording industry is imploding, the economy (and the concert ticket-buying public) is still suffering the effects of a recession and the leader of the Peas, will.i.am, is not far removed from a solo-career outing that he himself calls "a huge flop".

Still, the group seems to have a new motto: "Think big, be big."

"How do you get to the U2 level? Right now that's what we're looking at," said will.i.am. "We gotten this far — we survived. Most of the people that were our peers, they're gone or way back there now. We lapped them. In the music industry there's a depression, there's a drought. And we have proved that we can survive and lead the way, even in this climate. And the only way to go now is up, to U2.

"A lot of times, we've toured and we're always grinding, grinding, grinding and really, there's no production at all, it's just energy and connecting with the audience," will.i.am said. "Now we want more and we want to do more."

"When people see this show," Fergie said, "they will see us going for spectacle and showing what we can do. This is where we're going as a group."

Backstage inspiration

It was at rehearsals for the November 22 American Music Awards ceremony that will.i.am and the other three Peas, Fergie, Taboo and apl.de.ap, sat down to talk about the upcoming tour and why the Rose Bowl show turned out to be such a defining moment for the band.

"That was our hometown crowd, it meant a lot to us," said apl.de.ap, noting that all four of the Peas grew up in Los Angeles.

But what the Peas saw of U2 backstage meant even more. "They've managed to stay friends," Taboo said, "all these years and with all that business success and they've overcome all these obstacles together."

The Peas have had to overcome some hurdles of their own in recent years. The band has been together since 1995, although Fergie was a late arrival, turning the trio into a quartet when she joined up during the recording sessions for the 2003 album Elephunk. It was then that the group went from earthy, backpack hip-hop to shimmer and shake hits.

But tensions mounted after Fergie's first solo album, The Dutchess, became one of 2006's best-selling releases. A year later, will.i.am released Songs About Girls and waited for a similar bit of career lighting, but it never hit.

Consistently popular

The Peas are not viewed as an especially risky outfit, however, and will.i.am's definition of seeing what people want (he goes to trendy parties and spins new songs before they become singles) will sound like play-it-safe market research to some who are skeptical about the group.

Skeptics aside, the Peas remain one of the most consistently popular acts in contemporary pop. The band has sold 9.4 million albums in the US; its latest album, The E.N.D., released in June, has continued the group's run, even as its sound shifted into a more electro-hop sector.

"This album was made for the clubs," Fergie said.

More than that, will.i.am said it was constructed with the club turntable as a starting point; he would play new beats as a disc jockey at parties and clubs and the material that was embraced most by the crowd would be the foundation of the group's next recording session.

The E.N.D. and its ubiquitous summer single, Boom Boom Pow, were poised to earn the band plenty of attention yesterday, when the Recording Academy was expected to announce its 2010 Grammy Award nominations. The Peas were set to perform at the Grammy Nominations Concert — Live at Club Nokia.

Even with the rehearsals for the upcoming tour on the horizon, the members still have plenty of individual ventures. Fergie is in the new film Nine, the Rob Marshall-directed adaptation of the famed Broadway production; apl.de.ap is starting his own music label with an early emphasis on new talent from his native Philippines; Taboo has just launched his own line of sneakers, and will.i.am proudly described his ramping efforts in regard to his I Am scholarship fund.

But the group said everything must take a back seat to the Peas as a unified team.

"Our main thing is this big show," said Taboo, "and the big show is the Black Eyed Peas. Right now we are all coming together for the most important things. The Peas, the Peas tour and doing what's right to keep getting better. And bigger."