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#19 - P.O.D. by Will K. Shilling |
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P.O.D. may have come to rock the party all night long, but they certainly didn't do it the easy way. Mixing an unfashionable Christian message with an underground, D.I.Y. ethos, this rap-rock quartet from San Ysidro trudged in semi-obscurity for seven years before exploding to massive popularity in 2000. Their fourth release and major-label debut, The Fundamental Elements of Southtown, recently went platinum; perhaps more impressively, their single, "Rock the Party," became only the third rock video ever to hit No. 1 on MTV's Total Request Live. Formed in 1992 by guitarist Marcos Curiel and drummer Wuv, P.O.D. (which stands for Payable On Death) was an experiment in family values from the start. Curiel's and Wuv's parents were church friends; and Wuv's cousin, Sonny Sandoval, who hung around their early gigs to keep Wuv out of trouble, was recruited as the group's vocalist. Though fans have come to know him as a charismatic, hard-rock "minister" of sorts, Sandoval -- whose mother had recently died of cancer -- was actually quite shy and introverted at first. "I still remember when Wuv said to me, 'Yeah, my cousin's in a rap group,'" Curiel says. "I was like, 'Dude, Sonny never talks to anybody -- how does he get out in front of an audience?!' Our first show with Sonny was like a scene from The Doors. He had his back turned to the crowd the whole time. It was hilarious." Shortly thereafter, the band solidified their lineup with the addition of bassist Traa, a Cleveland transplant reared on the sounds of James Brown, George Benson, and slap-bass innovator, Larry Graham. Blending hip-hop's "Keep It Real" credo with metal's aggro riffs, P.O.D. gradually amassed an all-ages, cult following -- and not just in Southtown (defined by Curiel as "anywhere from downtown San Diego to the border"), but in skateparks, coffeehouses, colleges, and youth centers all over the country. Eventually, this following would evolve into a national affiliation of street teams known as Warrior crews -- whom the band credit for much of their surprising success. "I'll spend hours talking after a show," says Sandoval on the group's Website. "The style of music we play -- it's an important part of life for a lot of kids. The way they feel this music, that's the way they're living life: hardcore." 
P.O.D. didn't wait for the major labels to come calling. In 1993,
they formed Rescue Records, on which they produced four discs before signing
with Atlantic in 1998. Their Atlantic debut, The Fundamental Elements
of Southtown, was easily the biggest selling rock album to come out
of San Diego since blink-182's Enema of the State. Since Southtown's
1999 release, the band has toured with hardcore icons Primus and Cypress
Hill as well as with Ozzfest, graced the cover of magazines, played at
MTV's Spring Break and on TRL, and watched their record go platinum.
However, despite winning four awards at the 2000 San Diego Music Awards, including Song and Album of the Year, San Diego fans have been much slower than their national counterparts to respond to the band's appeal. Jason Riggs, co-host of the local-music showcase on 91X, Loudspeaker, testifies to how hard P.O.D. has worked to win the love of local fans. "I can remember when I first started doing my local music show at KCR in 1992 and P.O.D was around back then. It seemed like they played a show pretty much every single day somewhere in San Diego -- but they never really had a well-produced, full-blown album, so it was hard to play them. . . despite all of the requests. "But those guys worked their butts off. There's nothing more rewarding than seeing an original local band work their butts off, not compromise their sound or their beliefs, and achieve so much success. They truly deserve it." -------------------------------------------------- |