Pod Christian Rage Agains the Machine
The Story Behind The Song: P.O.D.'s Youth Of The Nation
P.O.D.'s Sonny Sandoval was on his mode to go coffee when he heard the sirens and saw the police helicopters a couple of blocks abroad. It was March v, 2001, and Sandoval and his bandmates had been holed up in a studio in their native San Diego, writing songs for the follow-up to 1999's one thousand thousand-selling quantum album The Fundamental Elements Of Southtown. But the mayhem that greeted the band as they headed out for a caffeine fix suggested something was happening on their doorstep – and it wasn't good.
"So nosotros get back to the studio, turn on the TV, and nosotros see the news that there's been a shooting at a school literally 2 blocks away," says Sandoval. "We just sat there, glued to the TV: 'What the hell is going on?'"
The grim news unfolded: a xv-year-onetime boy, Charles Andrew Williams, had gone on a shooting spree at the nearby Santana High School, killing two fellow students and wounding thirteen other people before being apprehended by police. Information technology was the latest in a depressingly long line of school shootings, the most notorious of which had taken identify at Columbine Loftier Schoolhouse in Colorado 2 years earlier, in which 15 people died.
"Here we were, stuck in the studio, feeling helpless," says Sandoval. "This is our urban center, we're heartbroken. But and then nosotros thought, 'We're musicians, nosotros're a writing a record, we gotta make a song near it.'"
The track that came out of the tragedy, Youth Of The Nation, gave P.O.D. their biggest hit and nu metal one of its most enduring anthems. This atmospheric nonetheless urgent vocal held a mirror up to American society, asking only what was driving a generation of teenagers to commit harm to themselves and others. Just the hope at its cadre inadvertently provided a blink of positivity to a state left shellshocked by the 9/11 terror attacks.
Positivity is what set P.O.D. apart from the nu metal and rap-stone pack - a product of their Christian faith. "We never claimed to exist a 'Christian ring'," says Sandoval, who embraced faith at 18 after his mother was diagnosed with cancer. "But when I establish my faith in Jesus, it was a real experience. For me, it was a example of, 'I desire to share this', and music was the universal way to do it."
P.O.D.'s first anthology, 1994's Snuff The Punk, came out the aforementioned yr as Korn's debut, and Sandoval's band were soon shoehorned into the burgeoning nu metal movement alongside them. "We got lumped in with Body Count, considering we're from the hood and we're a band of color," says the singer. "Then we got lumped in with Rage Against The Machine. And so when the nu metal thing came along, we were just, similar, [shrugging] 'OK, absurd.'"
The success of The Fundamental Elements Of Southtown meant P.O.D. had the wind in their sails when it came to the follow-upwards. They were already deep into the writing process when the Santana Loftier School shooting took place. It couldn't help merely stir memories of the Columbine killings two years before. In the wake of that before tragedy, they had been invited to Colorado to play what Sandoval calls a "show of healing" organised by students who had survived the massacre. Yet here they were once again, history repeating itself in the same senseless fashion.
They sabbatum in the studio in San Diego, watching the news in atheism. "We were going, 'What's happening with this craziness? What'southward incorrect with the kids today, with the youth of the nation?'" says Sandoval.
Every bit they talked, guitarist Marcos Curiel began strumming sombre chords. "We but started to jam," says Sandoval. "Just to go out what we were feeling." A vocal claw came to the singer: 'We are, we are… the youth of the nation.'
The band began putting meat on the bones of the song, christened Youth Of The Nation afterward that massive hook, every bit they decamped to Los Angeles to work on parent anthology Satellite with producer Howard Benson. They knew how they wanted information technology to audio: heavy but atmospheric, with big timpani drums beating out a martial rhythm. Sandoval'southward lyrics came late in the process. "The guys hadn't even heard them when I went in and did information technology," he says. "Information technology was, similar, 'Dude, this is a powerful story. We knew we were onto something."
The song's kickoff verse echoed the Santana and Columbine school shootings, telling the story of a like tragedy through the eyes of a teenage killer's victim. But information technology shifted the camera to focus on the other problems afflicting the same generation: depression, bullying, anxiety – all viewed with sympathy and without judgment. The introduction of a children'due south choir near the end of the vocal kicked information technology alls to another emotional level.
The original plan was to use P.O.D. fans to sing on the track. A group of kids were actually in the studio ready to tape their parts when the band's attorney chosen, saying that the band could land in hot water for contravening spousal relationship rules and California labour laws. Howard Benson quickly put in a call to a choir director named Bobby Page, who swiftly gathered five boys and five girls to sing on the track.
"We threw a petty barbecue, we played them the song, explained it, and they just sang information technology," says Sandoval, who was reduced to tears during the performance. "It was a beautiful moment. We've run into adults on the road and they've gone, 'Hey man, I was one of the kids in that choir!'"
The first single from Satellite, uplifting mosh pit anthem Alive, hit No.2 on Usa Alternative Radio when it was released in July 2001, ramping up expectation. The album itself was scheduled for release on September 11, 2001. "We had stickers and beach balls maxim, 'P.O.D.'s Satellite… ix/11,'" recalls Sonny. "We played [starmaking MTV show] TRL four days earlier in Bombardment Park, not far from the Twin Towers."
P.O.D were back in California when the planes struck the World Trade Eye on the forenoon of September xi. They were supposed to play a release show in Hollywood that evening, but the gig was pulled in the wake of the attacks. "Everything but stopped," says Sonny. "Our record didn't matter at that point. Information technology was merely nearly beingness there for each other, and being there for the world if we needed to be."
Exactly a week later the 9/11 attacks, Satellite entered the Billboard charts at No.6. Music gave people something to cling to amid the waves of grief and chaos, but P.O.D. offered something more than blind patriotism or raw rage. "Big fourth dimension," says Sonny. "We're this band from Southtown, Californian, saying, 'Homo, I am so happy to exist alive, I am grateful for every single breath I take.'"
That aura of positivity hadn't faded by the time Youth Of The Nation was released equally a single that November. Information technology may accept been inspired past an entirely different tragedy, but the opening lines could accept been written about 9/eleven: 'Last day of the residuum of my life/I wish I would've known cos I didn't kiss my momma goodbye.'
Nevertheless, the video made the song'southward field of study clear. A mini-movie featuring a group of disaffected teens taking a literal and symbolic road trip across America that starts in bleak black-and-white and ends in hopeful color was cutting in with footage of the ring performing in front of a wall covered in high schoolhouse yearbook photos. "They were random photos we pulled out of an old yearbook," says Sonny. "We had to mistiness and rip the photos for because of copyright, merely it gave it a more eerie feeling. We were saying, 'There's no colour, there's no race, there'southward no religion… these are you lot people, they're man beings, they could be your kids."
Youth Of The Nation reached No.28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and gave them a Top 40 hit in the UK. The song would exist nominated for a Grammy for All-time Hard Rock Functioning in 2003 (it lost out to Foo Fighters' All My Life). More impressively, information technology received the popular-civilisation equivalent of a papal blessing when it was spoofed by Weird Al Yankovic equally office of his 2003 single Angry White Boy Polka – ane of the biggest compliments any band tin receive. "Come up on, it'southward Weird Al," laughs Sonny. "That'due south so cool."
Today, Youth Of The Nation is P.O.D.'s virtually streamed song and the i they've played live more whatever other. "We played some huge festival and all these younger bands were watching united states – Underoath, Of Mice And Men, Nosotros Came As Romans," says Sandoval. "When we finished, they went, 'Dude, when you play that song anywhere in the globe, does it go off similar that?' And we were, like, 'You know what? Information technology does.'"
But while the vocal'south touch on hasn't abated, neither have the events that inspired it. Astoundingly, there take been more than 120 carve up fatal school shootings in the Us since 2000, with more than 300 people killed in total.
"I await into the eyes of young people and there's still a disconnect – there's tragedy, at that place'due south hurt," says Sandoval. "For me existence a man of faith, I believe there's a disconnect between people and God. But that'southward the message of a song like Youth Of The Nation: we're here, nosotros believe in each other, we're gonna brand it."
Source: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-the-song-pods-youth-of-the-nation
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