Southern California rockers P.O.D. didn't achieve overnight success with "Satellite," their quadruple-platinum sophomore release for Atlantic. In reality, it was their eighth album overall.

To many fans, the band seemed new when the anthem "Youth of the Nation" hit radio and MTV, but the group already had a following, having released six independent records before the majors took notice.

Their latest album, "Payable on Death," finds vocalist Sonny Sandoval, bassist Mark "Traa" Daniels, drummer Wuv and new guitarist Jason Truby doling out the familiar mix of funk, reggae and metal that permeated "Satellite" and their major-label debut, "The Fundamental Elements of Southtown." All three albums were produced by Howard Benson (Sepultura, Motorhead, Cold).

Truby replaced guitarist and founding band member Marcos Curiel, who left the group to form Accident Experiment.

P.O.D. formed in 1992 in the border town of San Ysidro (a.k.a. Southtown), and while all of its members are born-again Christians, they've aligned themselves with more secular acts; they've performed with Korn, 50 Cent, and the Doors 21st Century.

The group launches an extensive tour with Linkin Park in January.

liveDaily caught up with the 30-year-old Sandoval to talk about the new album, Curio's departure and Christianity.

liveDaily: What does Jason Truby bring to P.O.D.?

Sonny Sandoval: I don't think it's ever been this easy. Jason brings an excitement into the game for us. Especially after the success of the last record, and touring, the industry, it's nice to have a newbie. Somebody that's brand new and has a whole new fresh perspective. And he just has a hunger to play, to be creative and make music with a band. We've been friends with Jason for a long time, and I'm grateful that I've gotten to re-touch bases with him.

How did he come into the band?

He was in a band called Living Sacrifice. We always admired those guys, and went out on tour with them, local clubs in their part of town in the Midwest. We always said, we struggled together, slept on floors together, packed the vans and motel rooms together--we starved together. We always thought he was an incredible player, and respected him as a man. We're just grateful that he was in a position to help us out.

Your original guitarist, Marcos Curio, left the band early in the year. It seemed like he had other things on his plate.

Yeah, he had another band and everything. We've done our best to hold our composure and be as good about it as we can. It's gotten ugly in places. This other guy told me this morning, "It seemed like you guys were brothers, family." We were. That's the honest to God truth. But I've said this business has a tendency to even corrupt the purest things, you know? And when you let pride an ego get in the way, your basic structure can get mixed up.

I was thinking, man, here comes February [2003], we're going to write the best record of our careers, it's getting better every day--and all of the sudden I find that somebody I believed in and thought was there, wasn't feeling what we'd created for 12 years anymore. All I can say, he fell out of love with what we were doing. I'd always admired Marcos's passion for music. He's brilliant at what he does. I wish him the best. But I've been in this band half my life, it's my heart and soul. You can't force anybody to stay with you, if they don't want to be there.

What's producer Howard Benson like to work with?

I love Howard, he's taught us a lot. It's like, we sit and write the music, and all of a sudden we let fresh ears come in and he gives us his perspective. We'd never had a producer on a record [before we signed with Atlantic]. We did our first record ["Southtown"] on Atlantic, he came in and taught us the basics and the structures of music, where we had just been jamming for hours. I think what he does best in the studio, he allows P.O.D. to be P.O.D. He'll throw his opinions and suggestions at you, and if we take it, we take it. If we don't, we don't. There's no hard feelings.

So much seems to get written about the Christianity angle, but you guys aren't preaching to everybody.

A: We've never denied our faith or anything--that's something that's with us, with or without rock and roll. All of a sudden people were making an issue out of it. If you are genuine and you want to sit down and talk heart-to-heart, and you care, then we could talk about it. I truly love that. But I don't want people to not give the music a chance and go, "Oh, I'm not a Christian," or "I don't believe the same, so I can't listen to it." No, it's rock-and-roll music. We've proven ourselves in the past 12 years, I don't know what else to say.

If anything, it doesn't help. It hinders people from buying the music. You never hear the Beastie Boys as Buddhist hip-hop. They were wild party guys, and all of a sudden they find something that's real and shoot it in there--you never heard, "Oh, now they're Buddhist hip-hop."

We've never used our faith to market anything. I don't know who said there was "rock" and then there's "Christian rock," but I think you should give credit and respect to the people who are singing about what they feel, and not just what everybody wants to hear.

Some quote-unquote "good" Christians even bash you that you actually don't have enough faith. That's pretty harsh.

Sometimes, you can't win. You'll never be good enough, or you'll never live up to somebody else's expectations of what your faith is about. It's sad, man. The bottom line, this is me. I'm the man that makes the decisions in my life, and the next man has to do that for himself.