San Diego’s own P.O.D. are practically a household name. We all grew up listening to them, and regardless of what genre you tend to identify yourself with, you all still sing along to “Alive” and “Youth of the Nation.” Bringing forth a powerful force of a more uplifting nature, P.O.D. has consistently showed us that one’s beliefs can be expressed in a way that can be both palatable, well-received, and delivered via the kickass vehicle of rock.
P.O.D. delivers a message, and with the release of their latest album The Awakening, we are witness to a band with a noble and true cause, but also a band with smart and current intentions. Bringing in producer Howard Benson and guest vocalists such as Maria Brink and Lou Koller, P.O.D. is keeping the momentum of a well-seasoned band with a contemporary mind-set.
We were fortunate to have been able to engage in a phenomenal conversation with P.O.D. drummer and founding member, Wuv Bernardo!
Your ninth album released and you’ve had MANY sold out shows and your first single “This Goes Out to You” was in the Top 15. That is impressive to say the least. What about this album do you feel is connecting so intensely with fans?
You know what I think? Nowadays, for us, it’s always about getting about getting in front of the kids. During the early 90’s, the way we did it then is the way we do it now. We get out on tour, we look at people that lover our music in the eye. We play small clubs, big shows or whatever shows become available to us, we don’t pass up. For us it’s really about getting out there. The people who search for us will find us. The music industry different than it was when we did our Satellite record. That record was everywhere. You could find it and buy it anywhere. Nowadays there is so much out there online. The important thing for us to do, is get out in front of the kids and play and talk to the fans, and do it grassroots style like we have always done for 23 years.
Absolutely, do you think that’s the difference in today is that you have to connect a little bit more with your audience than you did before?
I think there a different ways you can connect. As far as social media, you know some bands that say that’s how they connect with their fans. They will pop something on Instagram, or throw something on Twitter, and say “We are staying connected!” For us, you know, it’s a combination of all those things: doing the new school with the technology and the social media and being a throwback and getting out there and doing it. We’ve been touring 22+ years. We’ve been a band for almost 24 years. We’re kind of old school in the way we do things. We get out there and we play, because we enjoy it and we love sharing what inspires us with them. That inspires us to keep on going. It’s always a circle going around.
And you mentioned the music industry, it’s changed, but it’s also growing. What makes you stay in it, what makes you stay part of the game?
It’s just exactly what I said, from the beginning in was never about money, it was never about fame, it was never about any of those things. It was about four guys loving to play music, starting in the garage at my house when I was in high school, and seeing people respond to the things we would say. For us, we’ve always tried to be a positive type of band and spread positive more than the negative side of things, which you know, rock and roll is more known for: You got to be hard, you got to be evil, all these little gimmicks that bands use to market themselves. We were always kind of the reggae rock band of our genre. We always took that positive role. Those are the things that inspire us. When we go out and we play shows in front of the kids, and they tell us their stories of how they were going to kill themselves, or were cutting themselves. When they head songs like “Beautiful” on the radio, they stopped and started listening to the lyrics. Those are the things that inspire us and keeps us motivated to stay on the road. Obviously we are older, we got kids, I got two of my kids on the road with me right now on the bus!
Oh wow!
He is my drumtech now that he graduated. Sonny brings his son. He’s been on tour with us for the last five years. We do things differently now. We bring our families on the road all the time, so we have that energy and strength to keep it going. All those little things help to tie it all together for us.
Does this making your mind your Ps and Qs? You got to be a role model for him!
Of course! Yes, but that’s an every day struggle too. You live and you learn. When we were younger we wanted to party nonstop and have a good time. That’s all good, but things are different now. We still have our little bit of fun in both worlds. It’s nice to be able to travel the world with the kids.
And they get that experience certain setting…
Yeah, it’s cool, so you have different motivation and different goal to share.
Have you had any interesting fan encounters or experiences that moved you?
Yeah! Every day, I swear, every day I have a different encounter with somebody. We played a festival called Guitars under the Stars, in the middle of Oregon, somewhere. We had fans there that were fans since they were kids, and now they are older and have their own families come up to you. You can tell the sincerity in their voice about how much your band has meant to them, and they just start to tell their stories. Sometimes you get overwhelmed. It gets emotional because you realize that the words you say and the music you play, touch people’s lives. I told him, that if it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t even be doing this anymore. We need fans like that, friends like that to encourage us and tell us their stories, because that is what keeps us motivated. It’s important.
You released the “This Goes Out To You” video, the tribute to Southtown, around a month ago. It was shot on location and is a tribute to your hometown community and culture. Tell me about your feelings during that shoot.
It was it cool, it was a little bit different shoot that we did this time because we actually were on tour and Gavin, the guy who shot the video, flew out for a couple of days and shot us live back East, and then, he went back home (he is little San Diego). He just all the different spots in our neighbourhood around San Diego which was cool. We weren’t there for that, but when we came back for a little break on the tour, I met up with him and yeah, it was kind of just shooting around San Diego (our home town). We were all born and raised and are from San Diego. We definitely have this pride about us, especially the part of San Diego we are from (San Diego is a beautiful city, everybody knows that), we are from the south, near the border with Tijuana Mexico. It’s another whole another eclectic part of the city. You know what I mean? As far as the diversity and pride and the way things are ran down there. That’s what P.O.D. is from. We just wanted to kind of put that out there, in our way, to recognize our city and our part of the city, to let them know that they were the ones who helped to create and mould who P.O.D. is, and how our style was created. It is important for us to be prideful about those things.
P.O.D. – This Goes Out To You
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How do you feel growing up in within that culture has impacted you as a man and a musician today?
You know, it has it impacted me in every aspect of life, as far being a man, standing my ground, and not backing down, and having pride in where I come from no matter what. These are the things that we carry on into our band. That’s the way we hold the badge of honour for our band, not with a prideful attitude, but as a musical attitude. When we grew up there weren’t very many rock bands playing in our area. It was more hip-hop and mariachi music, quinceaneras, and going down to Tijuana all the time. So we listed to a lot of mariachi music, and banda music, cumbia, and stuff like that. When we started getting into rock and roll, we started adding all those different types of flavors into our style of music, a lot of reggae, stuff like that. That helped mould our musical style as well.
I think I’d like to go to a heavy metal quinceanera. That would be fun.
(laughs) Yeah, yeah, you aren’t going to find one in TJ, but we can definitely mix it up for you. If you asked us to play, we could do that.
Alright, I have to find a 15 year old that really wants to have that kind of party that would really be into metal too. Kind of hard to find one!
Few and far between, for sure!
You are currently on tour now, about 2 weeks in. We caught some amazing pics of your recently out in Oregon. What has the touring life taught you that you’ve been able to bring back and apply to everyday life?
So much. So much! I mean, we were just driving through the mountains this morning (we were like 7,000 feet up) and I came out to the front to where the bus driver was driving and was like, “Oh my God, this is absolutely beautiful!” The gratitude and appreciation you get from travelling! We’ve travelled the world 20 times over. You name it, we’ve been there. We’ve done it real nice, you know? During our early years we didn’t really have that appreciation because we were too busy wrapped up in our own thing, being young and learning how to deal with selling millions of records and playing big venues. Those are things you don’t get a play book for. Those are things you have to learn on your own. Every individual has their own set of tools they’ve been given to deal with those things. Some take it better, some take it worse. As a band, the gratitude and the appreciation you get from looking outside and feeling a beautiful thing that you get to see all the time. Being in this industry is humbling, number one, but it gives you a thankful heart. It’s something that we apply and try to bring to our kids and our families everyday day when we are back home. We get to go home in a couple of days; we will be home for six days and then we are out for another month and half. That’s a little bit of time we get to be home, so we got to be thankful. We got to take advantage of every opportunity all the time. I could go on and on. We learn everything from this.
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POD – Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre – Sept 10th – Photographer: Terry White
Where have you travelled with your family that you feel has been the greatest learning experience for them?
Sonny and I are cousins. Our moms are sisters, and our dads are cousins, so we are related on both sides of the family. We share grandmother, we call her Noni, she is full Italian. We took our whole family to Italy a few years back and we stayed there for a month. I don’t think there has been any other place that has topped that. We had our grandmother back in her home town to see her brothers and sisters, and we got to meet the whole family in this little village there in Italy for the first time. We brought all our kids and my sister her kids and nieces and nephews and everything. That would probably be the number one spot for me: bringing my kids and whole family to Italy.
I see you joining up with ICP on October. How did that happen? You guys like closet Juggalos?
You know what? To tell you the truth, it was a shock! They gave us a call and wanted to pair up with us. Years back we played right before them on the Juggalo Fest. We were even wondering, “This is weird! That they wanted us to play.” We got received well by the Juggalos, and we were like, “Man! This is cool!” You know what I mean? It’s just a different style of music, different style of fan base, but at the same time, the appreciation was there, and the respect was there. So, when they gave us the call, to do the tour, we are like, “Man! This is going to be different, something we’ve never done before.” It’s a different genre of music, but we are definitely excited to take on the challenge, and we appreciate them giving us the offer and we wanted to do something different. Sometimes it gets a little tiresome doing the same rock tour. How many times can we go out with these same bands with the same style. Let’s change it up! This was intriguing.
Right.
This was nice for us to switch it up, and for us, a chance to get in front of a whole different type of fan base and see if the proof is in the pudding. If we can win their fans over, and if our fans can enjoy them, we will see! It hasn’t been tested before, I guess we are gonna find out real soon, right?
Absolutely! Halloween is upon us and would you mind telling us one of your fondest Halloween memories?
Oh! You know what! It’s cool! Years back, I think maybe like 2000 or maybe 1999, we played in Boston for radio show, and we had a some time in between shows, so our radio rep from Atlantic Records, his name is Lou Rizzo, took us to Salem on Halloween night.
Oh nice!
YEAH! We did like big! We did whole witch thing and these people were out and we got to see Halloween at a 1000%! Halloween on crack! It was nice.
Overblown Halloween on crack!
This year we are doing, with ICP in Detroit on Devil’s Night. Detroit is their home town. That’s going to be nice! We are kicking it off doing Rob Zombies’ show October 3rd in Chicago.
That’s going to be scary! That’s going to be crazy!
Connect with P.O.D. (click icons):
http://www.payableondeathshop.com/collections/the-awakening/products/the-awakening-digital-download
Check out the Tour Dates Below!
DATE CITY VENUE
October 3 Odeum Expo Center
– Rob Zombie Halloween (w/ICP) Chicago, IL
October 4 Agora Ballroom (w/ICP) Cleveland, OH
October 5 Water Street Music Hall (w/ICP) Rochester, NY
October 7 The Electric Factory (w/ICP) Philadelphia, PA
October 9 Tremont Music Hall (w/ICP) Charlotte, NC
October 10 Music Vault (w/ICP) Hardeeville, SC
October 11 Beach Blvd Concert Hall (w/ICP) Jacksonville, FL
October 12 The Orpheum (w/ICP) Tampa, FL
October 14 Vinyl Music Hall (w/ICP) Pensacola, FL
October 16 Clicks* Tyler, TX
October 17 Buzzfest* –
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion Houston, TX
October 18 Southside Ballroom (w/ICP) Dallas, TX
October 21 The Observatory (w/ICP) Santa Ana, CA
October 22 Northside Park Theater (w/ICP) San Diego, CA
October 24 Aftershock Festival* Discovery Park, Sacramento, CA
October 25 The Complex (w/ICP) Salt Lake City, UT
October 27 The Cotillion (w/ICP) Wichita, KS
October 30 Newport Music Hall (w/ICP) Columbus, OH
October 31 The Fillmore (w/ICP) Detroit, MI
* P.O.D. solo dates
** Islander to support
(w/ICP) – Dates with Insane Clown Posse
