P.O.D. Interview: Sonny Sandoval Talks ‘Veritas’ and More
P.O.D. interview – Author Anne Erickson, Photo via K Baldes
P.O.D. are on their 11th studio album, “Veritas,” which sees the band delivering a straight-ahead hard rock sound with, of course, some rap-rock for good measure. Watch our exclusive P.O.D. interview below, featuring an on-camera discussion between lead vocalist Sonny Sandoval and Audio Ink Radio’s Anne Erickson.
P.O.D. Interview: Sonny Sandoval
P.O.D.’s brand has been built on nu-metal with an uplifting message, something the genre of nu-metal isn’t always about. The band’s faith-based songs, such as “Alive” and “Youth of the Nation,” hope for a better tomorrow. While P.O.D. are band made up of Christians, they’ve never been a band to shove that down fans’ throats, so they appeal far and wide.
P.O.D. vocalist Sonny Sandoval sat down with Anne Erickson of Audio Ink Radio to talk about “Veritas” and the band’s legacy. P.O.D. have actually been a band since the early 1990s, so they’ve been together for more than 30 years.
In our P.O.D. interview, Sandoval discusses how the new record is very straight-ahead rock.
“It’s very hearty,” Sandoval says. “It’s rock ‘n’ roll all the way through, whereas because we love so many musical genres, we’re always messing around with stuff, and I think this is the record that we needed right now. I think it’s one of the best records we’ve ever done. I couldn’t be more happy with it.”
While Sandoval and the members of P.O.D. have never denied their Christian faith, they also don’t like to be pigeonholed as a Christian rock band.
When asked how the band has been able to appeal to both Christian and non-Christian bands over the years, Sandoval says it’s complicated.
“We never wanted to be put in a box because of our faith, because that’s not fair, and we’ve earned it. But, I think we still, even today, 32 years later, I still feel like I have a chip on my shoulder. I still feel like we’re always trying to prove ourselves. When we started in the underground and the hardcore scene, everybody was about something. We weren’t categorized or we weren’t even made to feel looked down upon because of (our) belief. That’s just what you did. You grabbed the mic, and you screamed what you believed. I think once we got into the mainstream and then even the metal scene, it’s more like, everyone wants to keep it rock and roll. They want to keep it sex, drugs and rock and roll and a certain lyrical concept, all these different things. But, if we were in a reggae band or a hip-hop band or R&B, no one would say, ‘Hey. That’s that Christian band.’ But for some reason, because we’re in metal, it’s like, “Oh. I’m not quite sure about that.”
Sandoval says aside from P.O.D., he has an entire solo album of reggae music ready to go.
“I had started a whole reggae album by myself when I was home (during the pandemic), because you couldn’t go anywhere, so I just did it at home. I teamed up with a lot of different producers just online. I’d just see there stuff and be like, hey, send me some tracks. So, I had planned to release that actually two years ago now, but then because our label and everybody was like, ‘We really need a P.O.D. record,’ all that stuff got put on the backburner. But, I’ve always been a reggae music fan. I love reggae music. I think the scene is probably bigger now than ever. There are tours all around the world now for reggae music. So, I think once we’re finished with this record and it starts to wind down, I’m going to release either an EP or full record, and I would just love to play shows locally and maybe jump on tour with some reggae bands, because I just love doing it.”
Watch my full P.O.D. interview with Sonny Sandoval via the YouTube player above and listen via the Audio Ink Radio podcast on Apple Podcasts here and Spotify here. You can also watch my previous P.O.D. interview from 2001, where we talk about the 20th anniversary of their seminal “Satellite” album. Find more on P.O.D. on their official website.
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