POD

When talking with P.O.D. vocalist Sonny Sandoval, it's easy to hear how thankful he is for everything his band has been able to accomplish just by listening to his voice. Speaking softly and slowly, he sounded at peace with everything around him when he told Recoil about the long process P.O.D. went through in making their sixth full-length album, Testify (due out Jan. 24) via phone from their tour stop in Pennsylvania last month. Yet he still sounded like the powerful, commanding singer/rapper of songs like "Alive," "Youth of the Nation" and "Will You" beneath his relaxed demeanor. The follow-up to 2003's Payable on Death, Testify took well over a year in the making and features the range of styles P.O.D. has become known for over their 14-year career. Having sold over seven million records since breaking through in the mainstream with their Sept. 11, 2001, release Satellite, P.O.D.'s fusion of rap, rock, metal and reggae has reached and inspired people from all walks of life while remaining honest and open about the band's Christian faith. In some ways, then, Sandoval has made testifying his whole career and continues to do so, for his fans and for himself, on their new record for this new year.

Recoil: I understand you had a chance to visit with some wounded troops in D.C. What was that like and how inspirational was it for you to talk to them about their experiences?
Sonny Sandoval: You know, man, we knew we were going down there but I don't think we were really quite prepared. I thought we might meet with some guys and talk some stories, but as soon as we got there they took us straight into the head trauma unit and to be honest with you when I walked in I almost walked out. It was tough, man. We were meeting with them. Their wives were there, their mothers, girlfriends, and then you look on the wall and you see pictures of their kids and you see pictures of them and they look like heroes. They are heroes. The first dude we saw, he had half his head missing and he was trying to stay up to look at us and stuff and at that point there's nothing you can say except thank you. But even that, it seems empty. Talking to the wives all we could say is that we are going to pray for you guys and continue what these guys were all about. It was tough. I'm not going to lie. Like I said, our band assistant and tour manager were going to walk around with us through the rooms, but after that first one they both walked out and went to hang out outside in the cafeteria because they knew it was going to be tough. It lightened up towards the end. We got a chance to meet with some guys with just some flesh wounds, and they just wanted to tell their story. It was cool. Young guys and older guys who had been in the service for twenty years. Just heroes.

R: Now did some of them talk about being fans of your music or how some of your songs, especially "Alive," have a huge significance for many of the troops?
SS: A lot of guys [did]. They were like, 'Yeah, man, everybody in Iraq, we listen to your stuff in the morning while were doing stuff and just know that they love you out there.' We're like, 'That's good to hear, man.' On this tour alone, we've been doing meet and greets pretty much every show and signings after the set and having guys coming up and saying, 'Yeah, I just got back from Iraq and I used your music to keep me pumped and to lift up my spirits.' When we hear that kind of stuff that means more than, 'You guys rock!' So it's good to hear that after a show.

R: The Warriors Vol. 2 EP you guys released last November also seems to be all about keeping things really grounded with your fans, before your new album Testify comes out this month.
SS: It's definitely something special. It's a limited release. It was like a word of mouth type of thing, just for the hardcore kids that have been down with us, especially since we've been saying that the record's going to be coming out and we hadn't put anything out. So we thought let's take them through the process of the demo versions of a couple new songs. Just something special, especially since we did this a while back, too. We've been doing some one-off shows and playing some songs off of that and people have been responding really well to it.

R: It also sounds like your way of bringing things back around full circle, since the first Warriors EP was released right before you made your move to a major label and now with this one it's letting fans in on this record that you've spent a long time on.
SS: For sure, man. Again, in a lot of ways it's an inside look to the record. The two demo songs that are on there have some things changing around on the real versions, on the record versions. You can kind of see the difference and go step by step through the process.

R: Turning to the new album, Testify, the first thing I have to ask about is how did having guitarist Jason Truby tour with the band change how you all play together since he first came in for the recording of the last album, 2003's Payable On Death?
SS: Yeah, I think a lot has changed. We've just had a chance to grow in our relationship with each other. The last record we never even played live together. For him, too, just coming into the storm of things, it was like, 'Okay, do a record, hurry up!' He was like, 'Wait a minute! I was digging ditches last week!' [Laughs.] 'Now I've got to write The Matrix [Reloaded) song ["Sleeping Awake"] and do all of this!' So this time we took off a lot of the stress. We tucked ourselves away in Palm Springs for a minute and had a chance to jam. We had twenty-two songs mixed and recorded and mastered and we fought for thirteen songs to make the record, so we've still got nine songs that were good, but I think for the record it was just the thirteen songs that we felt, from beginning to end, had all the different flavors which makes for a good record.

R: You mentioned how you went off to Palm Springs to start writing and that was over a year ago. Did you think you'd need this much time to work on the album?
SS: It was just how things went. When we jumped into Palm Springs around October and November of 2004 we thought we were just going to record out of the house we were in. We didn't even want to go to the studio, just bring equipment in and record out of this house. Anyway, there were a bunch of budget problems and things weren't working right. We had a friend of ours, an engineer from Knoxville, Tenn., Travis Wyrick come in and we thought we were going to do demo versions and then go back into a real studio around January or February. So then we were doing that and going to plan, but we just weren't catching the vibe there so we just ended up recording drum tracks and then went back to San Diego. So when we finally recorded vocals we were already two months deep into it and were thinking things weren't really progressing; everything sounds a lot like the demo work that we had done. So at that point we had a meeting with [producer] Glen Ballard and basically just showed him our stuff and just said, 'Hey, if you'd be interested in taking a look at it and seeing what we can do…' So we just brought him out to a recording session and then we spent about five weeks overdubbing stuff and putting stuff together. It was a cool process and we were trying to find a release date and everybody's records are coming out at the end of the year, so we just kept working and when the right time is, the right time is.

R: I read on your web site how you actually sat down every night with Glen Ballard and had dinner together. How close was that whole experience?
SS: He's such a cool spirit, man. He's just an old hippie. The guy's track record is amazing. One hundred and fifty million records he's [sold]. The first day we were at his studio. He's got this old house, I guess he used to live there years ago, and he just turned one side of it into a studio where he does a lot of overdubs and writing songs. Anyways, we set the schedule, he said, 'You guys can come in around two o'clock' and pretty much we'd work and then around eight o'clock we'd have dinner and pretty much we'd stay until two or three in the morning sometimes. We had no idea. We'd just come down to eat and his assistant had set up this beautiful Italian dinner and we sat around as a family and he just said, 'Hey, this is the way I like to do it here, I hope you guys don't object.' And we're like, 'No way.' [Laughs] It was nice. It was like home. Every night we got the chance to get away from the music and the studio and sit down as people, as friends and have a great dinner, have some wine, listen to some music and just have conversation. It was beautiful, man.

R: You've got two collaborations with Hasidic Jewish reggae rapper Matisyahu on the new album. How did that come about and what was it like working together with him?
SS: I've been a fan of his for a while, just on the underground scene. But mainly it was his faith and his religious beliefs that I thought how cool would that be to bring him into something that we're doing and do a reggae cut. We got a hold of him and at the time no one… within the last six months this guy is just getting huge. Six months ago nobody knew who this guy was and we brought him because of his faith and his religion. That's why we brought him in. We brought him in because of his faith and his religion and we thought this is cool, people know us as Christians and we bring in this Hasidic Jew and we're going to do reggae music. That's awesome. We were thinking that that should speak volumes because it is about music, but yet we spent time with him and formed a brotherhood with him and had a real spiritual time hanging out with him and it was awesome.

R: When you are writing new songs how much do you speak from your own personal experiences and how much do you try to imagine the situations many of your fans, such as some of our soldiers heading off to Iraq, listening to your new song "Goodbye For Now" and taking their own meaning from it?
SS: I always know where I'm coming from and my point of view, but I do try to leave it open so anybody from any race, culture or religion can say, 'Man, I can relate to that song. That's what that song means to me.' That's how it should be. When I look into a painting I'm not going to see what my buddy next to me sees or someone that's different from me is going to see something that's different and that's the beauty of it. You're supposed to take something for yourself out of it. I think we've always been open and done that in our music. Whether I'm talking about a love of a friend or a family member or if I'm talking about that love of God, you have to use it how it fits in your life.

R: A lot of people in the music industry would have never thought that a band as open about their faith as you are would make it as far as you have and have as many secular fans as you have. How many boundaries in the music industry do you think you've broken down for other artists who are equally open about their faith?
SS: That's something that from the beginning that we just said this is who we are, we've done by ourselves for six years; we'll continue to do this by ourselves. We weren't talking about compromising our beliefs and our faith. If anything it was more or less, don't use our beliefs and our faith for marketing and second of all don't pigeonhole us so no one who doesn't maybe believe the same will ever give our music a chance. Then on the other end of the spectrum, the secular side, people think that just because we're Christians every single Christian in the world has bought our record and that's ridiculous. [Laughs.] Everybody has their taste in music. This is rock music. If you don't like rock music, you don't buy rock music. There isn't going to be somebody who's going to say, 'I hear those guys are Christian, I'm going to go support them.' That's ridiculous. They buy what they want to listen to, what they like to hear. Our biggest thing is just that somebody that's into Slayer, Sepultura or Metallica, they're not going to say, 'Ah, that's that Christian rock band.' No, it's not. We're a rock band. We've sold seven million records, we've proven ourselves, we've been around fourteen years, we don't have to prove ourselves anymore. This is music, if you take something from it, cool, if you want to headbang and go do your own thing, so be it.

January 2006