So Alive

There's an old adage in the television-news game that goes, "if it bleeds it leads," meaning that the darkest, most evil shit that goes on in the world - murder, rape, robbery, acts of greed, avarice and general violence - are often the biggest stories on the evening news. The same seems to ring true for popular heavy music.
With the recent explosion of nü-metal in the world of popular music, and its subsequent deluge of radio and video hits, it seems hard rock has increasingly become an outlet almost strictly for angry expression; a powerfully negative cathartic explosion of goth-, rap-, metal- and punk-influenced cliché rock that seems to speak chiefly to young American men. P.O.D. first hit this national scene in 1999, with their debut major label release, Fundamental Elements of Southtown, and it initially seemed that this San Diego quartet - Sonny (vocals), Marcos (guitar), Traa (bass) and Wuv (drums)-was a follower of the nü-metal pack. It didn't take long, however, for people to realize that these guys were singing about something different than angst-ridden psychoses and faux street-cred.
P.O.D. reminded people that hard rock can, and should, be peppered not with hatred but with love - love for the music and love for the people who listen to it. It was, arguably, the punch of positivity that pushed P.O.D. over the top, and the group's recent sophomore major label effort, Satellite (Atlantic) is dripping with that same positive aesthetic. The album's first single and video, "Alive," is catching major airplay on both MTV and major-market radio, which is further proof that fans want to hear music that lifts them up rather than brings them down. With 10 years together as a band and a positive outlook based in decidedly un-fundamentalist spirituality, it seems that the P.O.D. star is just starting to rise. P.O.D. bass player Traa recently spoke with the Synthesis, taking time to explain the difference between the band's two major label releases, and discuss the group's spirituality.

This is your second major label release, and while sophomore albums after big debuts are stereotypically duds, you guys have done really well with Satellite.
Yeah, and I think a lot of it has to do with time, and where P.O.D. was at the time we did the first major label album, Fundamental Elements of Southtown. It was done under stressful situations; we were all still working regular jobs a little bit and we didn't have as much time in the studio, so although we put as much as we could into that album, we still weren't as relaxed as we were on this album. Because of the success of Fundamental, Satellite got the confidence from the record label that we needed, and in turn that gave us more time and freedom than we had before. So we went into the studio with a different mindset - a lot more relaxed than we were last time, and we had more time, man, just to sit down and write stuff that we really like. And you know, we've been playing with each other for so long that we know what we want to write, but on Fundamental we had songs that didn't make the album 'cause we just didn't have time to work on them.

How much of the material on Satellite is left over from the last batch of songs?
Nothing. We didn't bring anything over from the last album. Musically, I think it's important for us to move forward. The way we were thinking when we wrote and recorded Fundamental was not the way we were thinking when we wrote and recorded Satellite. If we would have brought anything over from those previous sessions it just wouldn't have been fresh enough. It would have been like reheating some leftovers.

In a hard rock world full of angry nü-metal bands, P.O.D. has managed to build a following by singing about positivity.
I think a lot of that is rooted in our spirituality, being Christian and stuff like that. We've never been the kind of band that's gonna try and shove our beliefs down anybody's throat, our spiritual relationship with God is personal, with the four of us. And yeah, there are people who meet us at that, and there are people who meet us at just the positivity point of it. And by every and all means, [spirituality] inspires everything that we think and write about, [such as] our positive lyrics and the way we treat people and act around people. We call that negative music 'whiney rock,' which means it's just loud people whining. I just don't understand bands that sell millions of records and they got a $14 million mansion and 17 cars - what is there to be upset about? There's nothing to be upset about, these guys should be happy because they don't have anything to be upset about. I think a lot of our mentality has a lot to do with where we come from - you know, the streets don't whine. You deal with your situations like a man [and] you press on, and that's just how we are.

You mentioned your spirituality, but there isn't much in your lyrics that is overtly Christian. Are you artistically affected by the negative sides of life as well?
Yeah, we are, but the thing about us [is] that we've always seen it, and that trips people out, man. We weren't raised in the church, you know, we didn't go to youth group and all that other stuff, so when we get out into the world now and we see people doing stuff, they're not doing anything I haven't already done. I'm not shocked by it when I see somebody do a line of coke or smoke some weed - it just don't impress me, I've been there, done that. I look at it like, well, that's where some people are at right now. I was there 10, 15 years ago. It's a shame that some people reach 28 years old and they ain't gettin' it. They should be done with it, but that's their gig.

This album seems to contain more hook-oriented songwriting.
A lot of that is maturity of us being a band together. If you were to listen to our older albums, man, we were doing like Led Zeppelin-type stuff - seven minutes long, a few different changed up in 'em-those were our younger days and we were just jammin'. But once you get into the business, you start to realize that any band that's smart is able to take the good stuff and mix it into your style so that it's not too processed. We took the good things out of what we learned and thought, you know, songs do need hooks. People need something in the music to latch on to, and that was the approach that we took this time, but we stayed P.O.D. by being true to what we do and what we love. It's a learning, growing process, and I think any great band has to be able to grow. You can't stay the same, man, 'cause if you do, your fans are gonna grow up and you're gonna stay stuck, 40-years-old with long hair and tight pants.

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