The wide net of heavy metal music encircles a lot of different bands,
united only by the sheer volume and force of their rock 'n' roll. Not
everyone knows exactly what to do with that power, though.
Any monkey can get up and scream and blare; the trick is to use the
powers of this force wisely. It is possible to knock people over by what
you say and how you say it, not only by stacking Marshall amps and
cranking them to 11.

This is P.O.D.'s stealth weapon. They actually employ the decibels and
the guitar barrage to accomplish something, to say something. They even
try to say something positive.

Whereas a few years ago most rockers would have snickered at the idea
of Christian boys in heavy metal, P.O.D. has snickered all the way to
the bank. The band's latest release, "Satellite," debuted in the Top 10
and has remained there for five weeks.

Recently, we caught up with P.O.D. guitarist Marcos to chat about why
the band is striking louder chords with American youth, how they finally
got to collaborate with two heroes and just how music connects with the
masses.

Thomas Conner: So where were you on Sept. 11?

Marcos: Man, our record dropped on that day. We'd been working all
summer long really hard trying to get it finished up, and the record
company pushed the release date to Sept. 11. It was supposed to be Aug.
28. We were actually in New York City a couple of days prior to (the
attacks). We did a show for (MTV's) "TRL" in Battery Park. A friend of
mine there said, "Man, have you ever seen the towers up close?" I looked
up, and they're huge. Next thing I know it's a couple of days later, I'm
at home in California and people are calling me up, "Are you still in
New York?" We canceled everything that week. Music just didn't seem to
matter. We wanted to concentrate on praying for the people who were lost
and those who were hurting.

TC: How did your record do that first week?

M: Well, we were wondering at the time because we didn't care but we
did, you know? It did OK, we got into the Top 10. Ever since then,
people have been coming up to me and saying, "You don't even know how
relevant this record is to the times now." We obviously didn't plan it
like that, but we're glad people are being touched by it. We went
platinum in a month. Last time, it took us two years of hard touring to
go platinum.

TC: What in this new batch of songs do you think is hitting a chord
with people?

M: The first single, "Alive," gets straight to the point: it says that
at one point or another every human being has taken life for granted. We
forget about being alive. We worry about all these little things like
it's the end of the world, when we should just be happy we're alive.
That seems to have struck a chord with everybody. Another song,
"Ghetto," is about believing in love no matter if you're from the other
side of the world or from a place like America. We all relate to one
area, and that's love. The lyric basically says let's agree to disagree.
We get caught up in this -- my country's better than yours, my gang's
better than yours, all this pride -- and it's like, man, chill out.

TC: "Youth of the Nation" may be the most poignant musical
consideration of school violence yet recorded. That must have some
overtones now, too.

M: It's the same thing -- I'm a punk rock Gothic person and you're a
holy kid and I'm not. We focus on all the wrong aspects of each other.
We wanted to write a song after doing some of these Columbine (High
School) benefit shows. We'd been thinking about it and about our
feelings about all that when something happened. We were writing the
record in a secluded place in East San Diego, in Santee, out in the
boonies. While we were there, another shooting happened right there at
Santana High School in Santee. This other kid went ballistic and started
shooting people. We never tackle big issues, but we said to each other,
"We need to address this 'cause no one else is." Suddenly these eerie
guitar notes came out, and the song came together. Each verse addresses
a different kid. We're all youth of the nation.

TC: You probably have a lot of contact with kids on the road, don't
you?

M: We're one of few bands from what I hear that actually spends time
with kids after the shows. When we get the chance, we'll just go hang.
We're not trying to be philosophers or counselors, but we can talk to
them, you know? Sometimes a kid just wants an ear to talk to. When I was
growing up, you couldn't get near the bands. A lot of rock stars have
their heads in the clouds and don't come down to earth.

TC: I know each of you is Christian and that those personal convictions
inform much of your music. I was surprised, I must admit, by the
numerous references to Jah (the Rastafarian name for God) on this album.
What's up?

M: Jah is just another term. When you study the books, it didn't even
originate through reggae music, they just use it a lot. Most of us have
been influenced by reggae, though not necessarily Rastafarianism. A lot
of times, they're just singing a Psalm, and it's always positive.
Always.

TC: You worked with reggae legend Eek-a-Mouse on one track,
"Ridiculous." Tell us about that experience. I met him at a reggae
festival here; he's nuts.

M: He's definitely a character. Did you know he was in the movie "New
Jack City"? He's this thin, sickly Rasta guy who gets shot in the end.
Now he's lifting weights and he's huge. He says, "Don't call me Eek-a-
Mouse anymore. Call me Eek-a- Rat." We met him a couple of years ago.
This song's been written for a while, and we demoed it for him back
then. This time around, we decided to invite him back in. He blew us
away because he still knew the song and he did it right off the top of
his head.

TC: There's another great collaboration here -- HR from Bad Brains on
"Without Jah, Nothin'." Bad Brains is your favorite band, isn't it?

M: Yes, we're big-time Bad Brains fans. We did a show with HR's reggae
band in '93 or '94. He was jaded on the punk stuff and wasn't doing
anything heavy. For this song, we tried to get him or the singer from At
the Drive-In. HR said he'd do it, and he showed up one day to listen to
it. Then he says, "Let's do it right now." We were like, "Right now?" We
just had drums down with a scratch guitar, but we realized if we didn't
use him right then he'd never be back. So we went into the studio and
cut it in about one-and-a-half tracks.

TC: Last time we spoke, you said that on your next album you wanted to
pack more emotion into the music. Do you think you succeeded?

M: I think so. I write a lot of riffs and progressions, and I'm always
trying to figure out what connects to people. The stuff that's managed
to connect before has been the free-spirited rock 'n' roll stuff --
Hendrix, Zeppelin, Santana -- and I wanted to try to reach that on this
record. We answered all the questions on the last record; people know
what we're about. So this time we tried to connect with everyone, not
just one type of person, and I think it worked. We knew (lead singer)
Sonny could sing. On the last album he was mainly rapping and screaming;
this time we said he'd sing more, and he was down with it. He's the one
that came up with "Alive." It was a song called "Beautiful" before that
because he thought the chords were beautiful. He had the lyrical idea
and we laid it on top. It's still beautiful, and it's been making people
go, "Wow, that's cool."

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Thomas Conner, World entertainment writer, can be reached at 581-8473 or via e-mail at thomas.conner@tulsaworld.com.