Sonny Sandoval
My grandmother and mother were from Italy, so I was raised Catholic. That kind of just meant going to church on Easter and Christmas. I saw a radical transformation in my family when they started going to a Christian church. I watched them fall in love with God.Collection: Easter
We are all negative people, born negative people, so we concentrate on the good things in life, and that's what makes us smile.Collection: Smile
I know God is watching out for me, and he's saying, 'OK, son, watch your step now. You can be in these places, but just be careful. Keep your guard up.'
Jah, for me, is just short for Jehovah. It's a short name for God.
I love the nation of Israel. I love Jewish people. My King was Jewish, and I embrace that.
We don't need a resume to come to God. It's not our good deeds. We come broken, and we need a savior.
I'm a man of faith.
Kanye West deceives many and will lead many people astray.
God is love.
Payable On Death is actually a banking term, when someone passes on, what someone leaves behind. We related that to Jesus on the cross, and by his death, our sins are paid, the debt is paid. We have salvation if we want it. We got tired of saying Payable On Death, so we went to P.O.D.
We will not go out there and make negative music for selfish gain.
I could have continued to get into trouble, but I wanted to do something positive with myself - and music is the best way.
There is... a greater sense of divine purpose when we're playing at all-Christian rock shows. In clubs or bars, we know that the audience primarily came to see a show, so we try not to get preachy and instead let the music do most of the talking.
We grew up on hip-hop, metal, and hard core, which... reflect a certain amount of the chaos and confusion that are part of daily life.
We're not a typical Christian band. We've got dreadlocks and tattoos.
We're going out there whether it's Satan's personal party or not. We're going to sing our hearts out, and we're going to worship God, no matter where we are.
At first, we were militant about our faith, really in people's faces. We used to say, 'I don't care if they kick us off the stage - I'm gonna tell them about Jesus!' But what good did that do? They never invited us back to the club.
Kids come up to us all the time and say, 'Hey, I'm not a Christian, but what you guys are doing is cool.' Or they say, 'Man, there's something different going on when you guys play.' I believe that's the Spirit of God touching who God intends to touch, whether it's just one person or 50,000 people.
I went through those times in my life where I started to get bitter and angry, and you're like, 'Why am I even a Christian? I don't like any of these people that call themselves Christians.' That's when I had to go spend time with God, and He had to remind me I'm walking with Him and not these people.
I'm a laid-back, shy kinda dude, and it wasn't until when I was 19 that my life kind of changed.
I was born into hip hop and reggae, and then I started listening to more hardcore and punk bands like Bad Brains and the Suicidal Tendencies; they opened up a whole new world for me. They had something to say, and I could relate to them.
I'm a daddy first; I'm a husband, and I'm a lover of God and people.
We were always just a hardcore band that came out and said what we believed in, but we also talked about the streets and the stuff that we were into and the struggles and everything we were going through. Once people found out we were Christian, it was always, 'Is that Christian music?'
I'm a born-again Christian - if everybody can agree what that means. I believe in Jesus. I believe that He died for my sins.
I'm trying to make sure that for myself and for my family, I'm staying as close to the heart of God that I possibly can.
I listen to a lot of old-school worship music.
I remember hearing, back in the day, so-and-so got a deal, and bands are spending the money. Some of them live in the old days, where money is coming in and budgets are endless, but bands have to pay that back. Some bands just don't realize that.
All we know how to do is write music and love God.
It's always been my heart that God would save people through this crazy music somehow, someway, His way.
It's religion that killed our King, you know what I'm saying - that religious idea that has distorted the love of God, and now the world doesn't want it. They don't want religion. They want Jesus in their heart. They want Him. They just don't want the religion.
It is the power of God that keeps us rolling on. It's real good. When you know it to be real and true, that's when you have to share it with whoever will listen.
I'm the dirtiest of the dirty. I mess up all the time. I suck as a Christian. I can't stand religion. But I love Jesus, and I'm trying.
Even before the mainstream knew about P.O.D., we were going for several years underground. For me, those were the times where it really was about the music and really about the fan base.
My hope for young bands, honestly, is that they do it because they love it, they do it because it's real.
Some bands sound like one song the whole album through. We've been all over the place because we are punk, hardcore, rock n' roll, metal, reggae - and I think sometimes it might be too much diversity, and kids are lost.
Whoever is in charge of the artist will always have the upper hand. They act like it's the artists' world, but it's the other way around, so they're going to do whatever they want to do.
If you look at these bands like The Beatles, they did something that was new for that time, whether it was shocking or just a new direction that they were going.
When you become a Christian, all of a sudden you start to live on this rapture mentality, like tomorrow the world's going to end. You live in that frenzy. We come from the streets, so the mentality was like, 'Yo, dude, what's up? You're not going to tell me I'm not down with God. What's up!'
At every Ozzfest show, there's horns and devils somewhere; there's some kind of darkness somewhere. But the thing is, this is a stage, homey, and those fools are entertainers. And you know what, it shows! It's fake.
I'm really not the biggest metal fan as it is. I'm more of a hard-street-punk kind of kid, but I also loved hip hop and reggae music, so we have always sort of refused a street style that is something that we are used to. Something that makes us comfortable and sounds good to us.
You got to look the part. You have to look like all the successful rock bands look. This is what they do. That's never been us. You know, it's a hard game to play: at the end of the day, we are just a rock band and have so many different cultures of music that we have grown up on, because we are fans of all different kinds of music.
I was never growing up saying, 'Dude, I want to sing in a band.'
I love rap, and I love the angst of hardcore music and punk rock.
I became a Christian when I was 19, and it wasn't like I was raised with the church.
We're all confused and have problems and struggles.
Christian bookstores have banned our records, but we don't need them.
We were never Christian enough for the Christian world, but were always way too Christian for the rock world.
With rock n' roll and touring comes a lot of good and bad decisions. These guys who are 21, they're out there, and they're not indestructible. The history of rock n' roll tells us, and so a lot of these guys are on this road to destruction.
P.O.D. kind of built that brand name. We came out and have been open about our faith. We've always been a positive band in a world that's pretty crazy and wild.
I think we've connected with our fan base on more than just a rock n' roll level. We really do care about our fans who come out. We have love for people, and we're just trying to spread that good message.