P.O.D. **

P.O.D., or Payable on Death, is an American Christian Metal band formed in 1992. The band's line-up consists of vocalist Sonny Sandoval, drummer Wuv Bernardo, guitarist Marcos Curiel, and bassist Traa Daniels. Their Christian faith is an important part of their music.

They have released seven studio albums and have sold over 10 million records worldwide. Over the course of their career, the band have also received three Grammy Award nominations, contributed to numerous motion picture soundtracks and toured internationally. With their third studio album, The Fundamental Elements of Southtown, they achieved their initial mainstream success; the album was certified Platinum by the RIAA in 2000. Their following studio album, Satellite, continued the band's success with the hit singles, "Alive" and "Youth of the Nation", pushing it to go triple platinum.

On February 19, 2003, guitarist Marcos Curiel left the band due to his side project, The Accident Experiment and "spiritual differences." However, Marcos argued that he was actually kicked out of the band. Sonny, Wuv and Traa were devastated about Curiel leaving, they considered breaking up the band, but decided to stay together and recruit another guitarist.Curiel was replaced by Jason Truby, former member of Christian metal band Living Sacrifice, and assisted with the recording of "Sleeping Awake", from The Matrix Reloaded soundtrack. In an interview with Yahoo! Music, Sonny stated that Jason is the reason why the group is still together,

“

He did us a favor by helping us out with this song, and then once it was all said and done it kind of confirmed that maybe we should keep doing what we loved... and that's making music. So now he's helping us do that.

”

On November 4, 2003, P.O.D. released their fifth studio album, Payable on Death, which saw the group shift from their well known rapcore sound to a darker, more melodic metal sound. The album was hit with controversy due to its "occult" cover, which led as many as 85% of Christian bookstores across the United States to ban the album.With the help of the album's hit single "Will You" and "Change the World", it went on to sell over 520,000 copies and was certified Gold. Sometime after the tsunami in Asia, many singers, musicians, and actors/actresses, including Sonny and Wuv, participated in the recording of, "Forever in Our Hearts", with all proceeds going to benefit the tsunami relief.

Testify (2006)

P.O.D.'s sixth studio album Testify was slated for a December 2005 release, but was pushed back to January 24, 2006. On November 15, 2005, P.O.D. released The Warriors EP, Volume 2, which featured demos from the upcoming album, to help build up the fans' anticipation for the pending January release. The album's first single, "Goodbye for Now" (with a vocal tag by a then-unknown Katy Perry) went on to become a #1 video on MTV's TRL, along with having a solid radio presence, it also became the band's unprecedented 4th number one video on Total Request Live. The second single off the album, "Lights Out" was a minor hit, but was featured as the "official theme song" to WWE's Survivor Series on November 27, 2005. In another contribution to WWE, they performed fellow San Diego native Rey Mysterio's theme song "Booyaka 619" at WrestleMania 22. To promote their latest album, P.O.D. went on a nationwide tour called the "Warriors Tour 2: Guilty by Association", which began in April, and included the bands Pillar, The Chariot and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster.

P.O.D. leaves Atlantic Records; Marcos returns

On August 11, 2006, P.O.D. announced in their online newsletter that they had left Atlantic Records.The newsletter stated: "P.O.D. have left Atlantic Records. We’ve been proud to be Atlantic Recording Artists, but it’s not the same place anymore. For most of our stay, we were blessed by a staff that was gracious towards our vision, faith, and love of music..... resulting in more than 7 million records sold. It’s time to dream again with a new staff, and we leave with grateful hearts. By the people, FOR the people - P.O.D. - Aug. 2006"

On September 16, 2006, P.O.D. announced that they have teamed up with Rhino Records to release a greatest hits record simply titled, Greatest Hits: The Atlantic Years, which was released on November 21, 2006. They shot a music video for their single "Going In Blind", one of the two new songs they included in the tenth album, and they had meetings with various record labels to begin working on new material for an album they hoped to release in mid 2007.

In a statement made by the band's manager on their MySpace page, it was officially announced, on December 30, 2006, that Jason Truby had left the band. They had said "God worked it out because Jason decided to leave the band the same day Marcos asked to rejoin." Marcos performed with the band for the first time since his departure on the 2006 New Year's Eve episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Marcos was scheduled to appear at this show before returning, which is why he was able to do it literally the day after he was announced as being back in the band.

INO Records, When Angels & Serpents Dance and hiatus (2007–2009)

On May 13, 2007 the band appeared on Carlos Mencia's show on Comedy Central, Mind of Mencia, when Carlos premiered his new music video for the song "Beaner Man". The band played the instruments and screamed the chorus, while Carlos rapped the lyrics and wore dreadlocks in parody of frontman Sonny Sandoval.

On June 1, 2007, at the Rockbox in San Diego, the band performed and revealed a new song entitled "Condescending", along with another new song performed on June 16, 2007, at the Journeys Backyard BBQ tour entitled "Addicted". They also revealed the title of their new album to be When Angels & Serpents Dance.

On August 4, 2007, the band played at Angel Stadium of Anaheim's annual Harvest Crusade where they revealed a new song entitled "I'll Be Ready", originally thought to be entitled "When Babylon Come For I," for a crowd of 42,000.

The album cover was officially revealed on December 10, 2007. The title track was released for free download on their site in January 2008. The first single "Addicted" was released on February 19 and did well on the Mainstream Rock chart peaking at number 30. The album was released on April 8, 2008 entitled When Angels & Serpents Dance. On July 28, 2008, the group played a free public performance at the Orange County Choppers headquarters in Newburgh, NY, with OCC The Band opening. The band also played on August 16, 2008 at the Angel Stadium of Anaheim's annual Harvest Crusade. During September 2008 P.O.D played alongside Redline, Behind Crimson Eyes, Alter Bridge and Disturbed as part of the Music As A Weapon tour 2008 in Australia. In November 2008, P.O.D. started their first tour in South America with five shows in Brazil, one in Chile and one in Colombia. P.O.D. then went on hiatus after touring in South America. This was confirmed when they canceled the 2009 European tour with Filter.

However, in February 2009, Disney announced that P.O.D. would be making an appearance, its first for the year, at 'Disney's Night Of Joy' on September 11–12. P.O.D. performed alongside MercyMe, Newsboys, Flyleaf, Skillet, Jars of Clay, Kutless, Leeland and more. Singer Sandoval said of the event: “In the past year we’ve been blessed to play all around the globe but performing at Disney World excites me most of all.”

On 19 November 2009, P.O.D. played a small set of songs at the benefit concert for Chi Cheng, the bass player for the Deftones. The concert took place in Avalaon, Hollywood.

P.O.D. played an 11-date South America tour, running from March through April 2010.

New album (2010–present)

On December 16, 2009 Wuv posted a video of him and guitarist Marcos Curiel stating that P.O.D. is now in the process of recording their next album due to come out sometime in 2010. In September 2010, Curiel discussed the plans and direction for the new album, saying that the musical style will take the band "back to our roots. A little bit of hip hop, a little bit of punk rock, or reggae". He also added that Howard Benson, who produced the band's The Fundamental Elements of Southtown and Satellite albums, would produce the record and that recording would begin in December. On October 21, 2010 Sonny Sandoval posted a video on the Whosoever's YouTube channel stating that the new record will be released in 2011, and that he will be posting many videos of P.O.D. in the studio to keep the fans updated. On January 9, 2011 a 22-second video of P.O.D. playing an untitled song was posted on YouTube. Sonny updated his Facebook page where he was asked questions by fans of the new album. His response concerning the release was "tryin to make it happen this year" and when asked if any other artists would be featured on the album he responded "we have some artists in mind."

Style and influences

The band's name, Payable on Death (P.O.D.), derives itself from the Christian concept that how an individual lives their life on Earth determines their eternal destination. P.O.D.'s style has evolved over the years, from the rap metal sound on their early albums to the nu metal and Reggae infused alternative metal styles that they're most well known for. Their latest album, When Angels & Serpents Dance, is a combination of Alternative rock, reggae rock and Latin influenced metal with almost none of the rap metal or nu metal sound of their older releases. P.O.D.'s influences include Santana, Bad Brains, Bob Marley, The Police, Metallica, Rage Against the Machine and Black Sabbath.