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Relaxing in the "TRL" lounge, Sandoval wears a brown knit hat decorated with thin red, yellow and green stripes over his knotted dreadlocks. Later, when he tests the microphone level, he speaks with a Jamaican accent. The singer's Rastaman vibrations echo throughout Payable on Death.
"Execute the Sounds" starts with a reggae vocal and features the lyrics "Jah know, I man stay true/ You know, Jah know the real who and who." And in the chorus of "Freedom Fighters," Sandoval sings, "Freedom fighters, ignite Jah." P.O.D. drive the message home with a bobbing reggae passage halfway through the tune. Wuv says he and Sandoval were listening to reggae long before they discovered the good book, and they've found natural parallels between the two.
"I think Rasta and Christianity have come very close together except, you know, obviously the different beliefs of the second coming of Christ and who Christ was," Sandoval explains. "You listen to Marley's tracks and a lot of old-school reggae music, and 95 percent of that is straight scripture. They're telling old Bible hymns and stories about Moses and Noah and Elijah. And now I realize that whenever I've had fights or troubles, I've always looked for peace first. And it's because of a lot of the reggae that I'm listening to is about choosing to accept peace and love rather than hate. So I figured why not incorporate more of that style in our music."
While Sandoval seeks solace and inspiration from the relaxing cadences and messages of unity in reggae, he doesn't partake in the recreational activities of the culture. He may have a beer or two from time to time, but weed is no longer part of his diet. "Man, I smoked enough weed back in the day to last me a lifetime," he says with a laugh. "But you know, when I said I wanted to be a Christian and make sacrifices in my life, that smoking weed was one of the most important things to me in this world. And I had to make that sacrifice to prove to myself I was for real."
Of course, walking the straight line isn't always easy. Sandoval may be a cross-carrying, dreadlock-bedecked peacenik, but threaten one of his bandmates and sometimes it's hard to turn the other cheek.
"You can get in my face all you want and I can turn the other cheek, but the moment you get in one of my bros' faces you're gonna have to tear me off with some vice grips," he warns. "Some people are jealous or they just want to mess with you and they'll go, 'Oh, there are those Christian guys,' and they think they can taunt us and mock us all they want. Then suddenly they're lying on the floor. My faith makes me want to love you rather than hate you, but you know, there's a limit."
 P.O.D.'s Sonny Sandoval runs through Payable on Death track by track
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Photo: Amy V. Cooper
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