Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
P.O.D. frontman Sonny Sandoval discussed his solo project, Sonny Dread, and the publication of his biography, “Son Of Southtown: My Life Between Two Worlds,” last year in a recent interview with The Joel Martin Mastery Podcast, as per Blabbermouth. Sonny discussed what motivated him to create a book and compose solo music at this stage in his career.
A lot of my peers and friends have been doing it, and people have been encouraging me for years. And then when COVID came around, it really did spark up both the projects. We were at home, and I’m not used to being at home. And when they told us that this pandemic was happening and we were gonna be stuck in our houses for three months, we celebrated. We were, like, ‘This is great. I get to be alone with my wife and my kids.’ There’s nothing else better than that. But then, after a few months, it was, like, ‘Wow, this is getting kind of scary.’ This is what I do for a living. And like I said, I’m blue collar. I’m living check to check. It’s not like I have this crazy savings account that I can just retire whenever I want and music is just a hobby. This is my job. This is how I put my kids through college. This is how I put food on the table. And so when it was a possibility that that was gonna change, it was a little scary.
But it did give me the time to sit down and write a book. Recording my own music gave me a chance to be creative instead of just sitting, waiting for the world to end. And it was something that I got to do. So this record is literally five years old. I was just finally able to release it. That’s why I just did it independently. I wasn’t trying to make a big deal out of it. It was, like, dude, I’ve been sitting on this music for five years. I just wanna play some shows. I could have played shows, but what’s the point if you don’t have anything on Spotify or Apple or your streaming platforms? There’s a process in doing it. So finally it was, like, ‘Let’s just put it out, ’cause I just wanna do some shows.’ And so now I’m in the process of doing that in between P.O.D.’s schedule.
This is Sonny’s reaction when asked about the experience of writing his first book.
It was a great experience. And I think the book is just a fast-forward look from kind of when I was born up until right before COVID. And it’s a fast-paced look. I would need to write 10 more books just to fill in all the details in between, which I hope to do. It was an awesome experience, but it’s just more of an extension of my life outside of what people know me as Sonny, the frontman of P.O.D. There’s so much more depth to what’s going on. And so this just really — it takes a personal look of my ups and downs, my struggles, my faith, why I continue to do what I do, this calling that I feel that God has put in my life. And so this is an extension of that.
It’s been really cool, man. Last year was a busy year, and it’s still busy. I’m still continuing off of that. But I hope to do another book and I definitely will be recording new music, for sure. That’s a given. But it’s the same thing as P.O.D. If people appreciate it and they’re paying attention and they really do see why I’ve been doing this, then that’s all the motivation I need to keep on trying.
