With the release of P.O.D.'s major label debut, "Fundamental Elements of Southtown," the San Diego group catapulted into the upper reaches of the charts, as its blend of hardcore, metal and hip-hop caught on with audiences in a platinum kind of way.

In recording its latest LP, "Satellite," P.O.D. (short for Payable on Death) kept it simple, opting to work with producer Howard Benson (Motorhead, Sepultura) a second time and writing songs that emerged from jam sessions.

P.O.D. singer Sonny Sandoval talked about the new album, working with H.R. of Bad Brains and reggae legend Eek-A-Mouse and what it's like to be pigeonholed as a Christian rock band.

How’s the tour going?

Sonny Sandoval: It’s great. Despite what’s going on in the world, everybody’s coming out. Everyone knows all the lyrics to the new songs and the set is flowing. It’s been good, man. We’ve been tripping out. We still kept it intimate, we’re doing theaters and clubs. We’ve got a video screen behind us, and we’re trying to keep it as simple as possible. We don’t want a big production right now; we don’t want to do anything flashy and showy. We want the new songs and the new record to speak for [themselves].

How did you write songs for this record?

We just came home and picked up new instruments and started jamming like we always do. We had a couple of months to write songs, and it would be like, "Hey, remember the songs we used to jam in soundchecks, remember that riff that kinda went like this?" "Yeah, I think so."

Sometimes you remember riffs here and there, but mostly it’s working with a couple ideas. Some days you can finish two songs and some days--if you’re not really feeling it--you just keep jamming.

You worked with producer Howard Benson again. What does he bring out of the band?

I think we learned a lot with Howard last time. He was first producer we ever had. We did our stuff indie all those years, so when he came in, we gave him a lot of freedom and open minds. He’d tell us, "Hey, I don’t like this" or "I like that a lot." He showed us how to write a song. "I love this part," or "I don’t think this fits together well." "Should we try this?"

He speaks his mind, [and] whether we go with it or don’t, it’s always good to have his input. I think he challenged me a lot more, too. It was like, "Hey, let’s add some harmonies." And I was like, "Yeah, let’s try it." At the end of the day, he’d mix them together and it’d be like, "Wow, this isn’t too bad." As far as me though, my comfort with Howard is on a whole other level. I feel very comfortable with him.

In what ways did you try to push yourself vocally on this record?

For me, I don’t consider myself a singer, flat-out. We tried different stuff, and it sounded good, it sounded OK. With vocal hooks like "Alive," that was never intended to be the lead vocal. That was [supposed to be] more like a harmony. Howard brought that up in the mix and he was like, "I like the way this sounds a lot better." It was like, "Wow, it does sound good." For me, they’re high--I’m sitting there like, "I don’t want to sing that high." And he’s like, "Try it for me man, just try it." I was like, "We can try it, but I’m not feeling it," you know. And we go in there and we’d do it and he was like, "You did it, let’s put it in," and it sounded alright and I was like, "Cool."

"Youth of the Nation" was written earlier this year, around the time of the shootings at Santana High School in Santee, Calif. Did you guys have any trepidation about trying to write a song about that?

It’s always kind of been in the back of our minds. We had done some benefits for Columbine [High School] when all that stuff happened, and we thought about kids and what our youth is going through. We don’t try to address issues. We’re not political, we don’t want to get religious on people, we just want to make music that feels good to us.

But we were less than a mile [from where the Santee shootings took place], and it was on the outskirts of our hometown. We passed all the police cars on the way to the studio, not knowing what was going on. We had actually written the song that day, and it wasn’t until that night that we found out what happened. So it had an eerie quality to it. And the kids choir on top of that added that innocence vibe. We got into the studio with the music and started laying it down, we had the chorus and it sounded more like an anthem. It is a dark song and the music is kind of eerie, so we wanted to bring that innocence to it. We didn’t want to leave it dark and hopeless.

You worked with Eek-A-Mouse on "Ridiculous" and H.R. of Bad Brains on "Without Jah, Nothin'." Were those songs written with them in mind?

We had done "Ridiculous" as a demo a couple years ago in San Diego and we contacted [Eek-A-Mouse] to see if he wanted to do something with the song, hoping that he would do it. He came down and did it, and we never really did much with it, because, like I said, it was just a demo, we’d been touring for the last album. We got a hold of him again, he came up to L.A., laid it down and he did it.

And [with] "Without Jah, Nothin," we’d written the song but never in our wildest dreams were we thinking that H.R. would do it. We knew we wanted to get a guest appearance on it, but getting H.R. was a dream come true. He happened to be in L.A., he came down and did it all freestyle.

As a band what do you feel a guest can add?

For us, it was more of an honor on our part. It was a respect thing with someone like H.R., who is a legend of his own style of music of his own time. For us it wasn’t like, ‘Hey, let’s get H.R. and Eek-A-Mouse so we can sell records.’ These are people we grew up to, and hopefully people who buy P.O.D. will say, ‘What’s up with that? Those guys are dope,’ and they’ll find a whole new world they’ve never even experienced.

Most thirteen-, fourteen-year-olds don’t know who Bad Brains are or Eek-A-Mouse, so hopefully by researching and doing some homework they can learn this is what we’re into, what we were listening to. And it will show them a whole new side of who P.O.D. is, and introduce them to a new generation. For this record, we could have gone after the most popular band out there, but we don’t want to do that. Everyone else is doing it, and it’s ridiculous.

What was it like working with them? Did you give them carte blanche?

When we first did the demo with Eek-A-Mouse, he was all over the place. He's a firecracker, and at first we didn’t want to step over him. But then ... we let him know what song was about, the words. Then after a while, we started guiding him a little bit, like, "Hey dude, we don’t need you to sing this part. This is what we like." He comes up with so many sounds, and we were like, "This is the sound from you we like the best." If not, he’ll just go all over the track. So we just kind of structured him, and I think he respected that and he was like, "Thank you guys for guiding me and giving me a chance to do this."

With H.R., we never expected him to do it. We invited him to the studio just hoping he would say yes. I asked him, "Hey, let us know when you can make it, if you want to do it, please come back and do it," and he was like, "I’m it ready to do it now." All we had were drum tracks and rough guitars. He was like, "What’s the song about?" and I was like, "I haven’t written the lyrics yet. This what the song’s called." So he was like, "Let me do it." He went into the vocal booth, did like five takes, and we kept the best one. It doesn’t get more punk rock than that.

There’s a tendency in the press to describe you as a Christian rock band. Do you feel that's an unfair characterization? For instance, I saw an article today that referred to you as spiritual rap-rockers.

"Rap-rockers"--even that sounds hokey. So Christian rap-rockers, that sounds even more cheesy. But whatever. We don’t put ourselves in a box, we never have. When was Buddhist rap created? When was Krishna hardcore invented? There’s no such thing. I don’t know who created the title, but for us, we make rock 'n' roll music. We play music that we want to and [that] sounds good to us, and hopefully someone likes it.

But by the same token, we’re not ashamed in what we believe in. I’ll die for what I believe in. I’m open to talk to anybody about it, but I’m not going to be religious. I’m not here to force feed anyone any kind of false religion. I just happen to make music, you happen to hear what’s on my mind rather than if I was a plumber. If I was a plumber, would you label me a Christian plumber?

Why do you think people focus on that?

I’m clueless. When kids come out and say they’re quote-unquote "Christians"--"It’s so good to see a Christian band make it out there in the real world,"--it’s like, well, "Cool, I can go with that, I understand what you’re talking about." But then if you have journalists or some interviewers or DJs, they say it with kind of disrespect or a smart remark: "So, you guys are a Christian band, right?" You know what I mean? It’s like they’re giving the message that, "Hey, if anybody out there is not Christian, then these guys aren’t for you, because they’re Christian, so they don’t make music for you." It’s like, we make music for everybody.

And at the same time, even a band like U2, people tried to close them in to a box in their early years, and they broke out of it. So, if we have to make moves to break out of that, it’s cool. Now, U2 is one of the baddest bands in the friggin’ world. They have a spiritual background, and they’re one of the baddest rock bands that ever lived.

With P.O.D., it’s undeniable. Everyone knows we’re Christian. Now listen to the dang record and tell me what you think.