A recent appearance on ‘The Jesea Lee Show‘ found P.O.D. vocalist Sonny Sandoval discussing a variety of topics, including his thoughts on the nü-metal genre and the status of his own band’s eleventh studio album, which will arrive in 2024.
While already established regionally prior, P.O.D. skyrocketed to fame with the release of their major label debut, 2001’s nü-metal-laden “Satellite“. That record went on to achieve 3x multi-platinum status, firmly establishing their career in the process.
Looking back at the era, Sandoval revealed his frontrunner for the breakout nü-metal track: Limp Bizkit‘s 1999 hit single “Nookie“. He commented of that:
“When I think of like the TRL hype, and then I think of the visual and the crazy side of it, I still remember, and again, I didn’t know what nü-metal was, we didn’t call it that. But I remember seeing the Limp Bizkit ‘Nookie‘ video for the first time. And it didn’t matter whether I was a Limp Bizkit fan or not.
When I saw that, I said, this is freaking huge. It encompasses everything. It encompassed rock and roll, rebellion, sex. It had everything. It was just visually stunning. I’m not saying that defines nü-metal or classifies it, but I remember thinking that whatever this is going on, it’s going to crossover to the pop world and all that stuff.
Cause even though Korn was popular at the time, I never saw them as pop. They were still dark and mysterious. Limp Bizkit wasn’t mysterious. They threw everything out there and said, I don’t care what you think. And if you like me or not, and that’s what rock and roll was supposed to be anyway. I don’t care what you think.
And that is probably what sparked most of those bands that came out after that just were horrible and decided to go from whatever music they were into at the time to now, oh, I wanna be in a nü-metal band.”
Sanodval also weighed in on the downfall of the genre that followed in the early 2000s:
“Once bands came in and kind of started to mimic it I think that’s when it got oversaturated with guys that it wasn’t their lifestyle, you know? I mean was it wasn’t their culture. When you get bands from like whatever you know Timbuktu and all of a sudden they’re acting like they’re from the streets.
They’re looking like they’re from the streets and they’re trying to rap, it’s not quite there, but it was, it became a genre. What happens when it becomes popular? People start to get it. And I think, you know, people got over it after awhile. I think it kind of came and went and people threw it away because of the artists that were doing it or trying to copy it instead of looking to the authenticity of it.”
As for the next studio offering from P.O.D., the record has been recorded, mixed and mastered with plans to have several singles from it begin arriving over the coming months. You can watch Sandoval talk about all that, while also touch upon working with Katy Perry early on, his faith and more below:
Comments