Son of Southtown: My Thoughts on A Memoir of a Childhood Hero

Growing up in the early 90s, I witnessed music that forever changed the world. I'm old enough to remember when Nirvana hit the scene and forever changed rock and roll through their dark and gritty Grunge. I also remember when Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg made Hip-Hop mainstream with their first albums.

I came of age when Rock and hip-hop became radio mainstays. It was also the mid-90s when my mom started taking me to church. The world I lived in, which was heavily influenced by Rock and Rap, was the polar opposite of the world I was exposed to on Sundays at church. By 1998, my world of rock and hip-hop had merged into a new genre of music that seemed to appear on the scene out of nowhere.

While the radio waves were filled with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, The Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC, I listened to what would become a new genre of Rock infused with Rap; Nu Metal. When Nu Metal hit the scene, part of my world ceased being either/or and suddenly became both/and. It used to be that I hung out with my friends who were inundated with the East Coast vs. West Coast styles of Hip Hop. Or I hung out with my metalhead friends, fixated on Metallica, Pantera, Nirvana, and Stone Temple Pilots.

Both groups began to merge as new bands like Korn, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, and my favorite, Linkin Park, came onto the scene. What was even more unexpected is that I never believed the culture I lived in and the church culture I was acclimating to would collide. On September 21, 1999, the unexpected happened as P.O.D.'s Fundamental Elements of Southtown was released.

The Great Christian Bonfires: Burning CDs for Christ

I remember going to a church camp in the summer of 2000. As most church camps did at the time, the last night was filled with altar calls inviting us to 'give our lives to Christ.' These tearful services would then transition to a big campfire where newly converted (or those recommitting their lives to Christ) would go to a mic and share how Jesus had changed their hearts over the last week.

A common practice was for kids to show how the power of the gospel had changed them so much that they had broken free from the satanic influence of secular music. As an act of worship or sacrifice, I'm honestly not sure what the act demonstrated; kids would throw all their 'secular' CDs into the fire. Of course, this was always followed by raucous applause from counselors and fellow campers as tears of holy joy flowed down our faces like the wine of Capistrano.

I couldn't help but chuckle as I wrote that last sentence. You can't make this shit up. This was the world of evangelical youth culture at the time. In July, we burned our satan music at the youth camp, and by September, we were digging through our couch cushions looking for change to buy new copies of the CDs we had burned.

Going into my Sophomore year of high school, I was still on my youth camp kick and had been able to stay away from devil music all summer. On the first day of school, I had even burned a few CDs of Christian Worship songs that I was going to give to my friends so they could hear the healing power of the gospel!

This was all good until one of my friends asked to play the CD I gave him in front of our entire Geometry class. I don't know if my friend meant to embarrass me. Once the teacher permitted us to turn on the music, we didn't make it 90 seconds into the first song before all my classmates laughed uncontrollably.

I explicitly remember two guys sitting a few feet away from me banging on their desks in laughter asking, "what is this shit?!" When our teacher noticed the class's hostile reception to the music, he turned it off. To go from Jesus loving white boy music to silence was a hard and awkward transition.

Those few moments of silence felt like an eternity and for the first time I felt how out of touch and cheesy Contemporary Christian Music was in the Rock and Hip Hop world I lived in.

More than twenty years later, I can still feel the sting of this incident. It is easily in the top two most embarrassing moments of my high school life.

The Band Christian Kids Weren't Ashamed Of

But everything changed when P.O.D. (Payable on Death) came on the scene. For the first time, a band of Christians made music that resonated with the Rock and hip-hop world.

The same classmates who laughed at me, and asked what the "shit" I was listening to was, loved P.O.D. There was finally a band that loved Jesus but wrote music your mama and church pastor wouldn't listen to.

As a seventeen-year-old trying to figure out how to navigate living in two worlds, P.O.D. was a bridge. They were Christian without being in-your-face about Christianity. The lead singer of P.O.D. is Sonny Sandoval, who, like me, is ethnically mixed but was raised in a predominantly Latino culture.

He recently published a memoir, Son of Southtown: My Life Between Two Worlds. Out of a sense of nostalgia, I decided to pick up a copy.

The Cringe P.O.D. Once Saved Me From, Son of Southtown Now Makes Me Feel

My sense of nostalgia came with a pause as I held the book at the bookshop. The pause came because I encountered the book while walking through the Christian section. P.O.D. never labeled themselves as a Christian band.

They were adamant that they were Christians with an amazing Nu Metal band. Yet, the leader, a childhood hero of mine, had his memoir in the Christian section of the bookshop. Why? Well, looking at the back of the book I noticed it was published by Baker Publishing Group, one of the largest Christian publication companies. That took some of the excitement out of reading the book.

Overall, the book is ~250 pages and is a quick and easy read. As great as it was to read details about the band and learn about Sonny's personal life, time and again, the book gave me the same cringeworthy feelings the band once saved me from.

Sonny is unashamedly outspoken about his faith, which I totally respect. What cringes me is that, on the one hand, he regularly criticizes church folks for how they judge him and people like him who socially and culturally don't fit a Christian stereotype. Yet, he repeatedly spits out the same dogma that those from within the church, who harshly judged him, hold.

At times, I became frustrated because I couldn't understand how he seemingly cannot connect the judgmentalism he has been a victim of to a specific ideology that is transferred via the dogma he advocates for. For example, at one point, he discusses how he doesn't believe in coincidence because he worships the Creator God and rejects the 'worldly ideology' of evolution.

What's worse, he regularly mentions being nonjudgmental toward those the church deems outsiders while simultaneously saying he does so to demonstrate the truth that we are all sinners and that truth and salvation is only through Jesus. Ironically, the same ideology that led to closed-minded tribalism celebrated through campfire CD burn sessions was the same ideology Sonny advocates for throughout the book.

In my opinion, Sonny is too heavy on making sure people know he's unashamed to be a Christian, though he's also clear he's not like "those" Christians. He also holds back from sharing his more honest or raw feelings. When describing times of deep hurt, we don't get the unfiltered version of his thoughts and feelings. Instead, we are given a very filtered and refined version.

For example, multiple chapters build up to a major split within the band when the original guitarist, Marco Curiel, abruptly quits the band, costing them millions of dollars with their record label. Once Sonny takes us to the climax of the fallout, he ends up skipping over many of the details and instead only shares broad statements. I think both the overt waving of the Christian flag and the filtered versions of major life events result from Baker Publishing being behind the book. Had Sonny gone with a non-Christian publication company, I think he would have had the freedom to speak more honestly and from the heart, which would have improved the book exponentially.

I Don't Question the Authenticity and Intentionality of Sonny's Life

Despite my ideological concerns about the book and the irony that results from said ideology, there was a lot I appreciated. Part of the reason it was so easy for me to pick up on patterns and differences in theological convictions is that Sonny is clearly a transparent human being. He wears his thoughts on his sleeve, which is a breath of fresh air in our highly curated digital lives.

Not only is Sonny a transparent person, but he is also a man of deep conviction. He quickly admits that his life is not the standard of success or righteousness for anyone. He's simply a guy from Southtown (San Diego, CA) who has had the opportunity to live an incredibly unique life because of the career opportunities he has had as the frontman of one of the biggest Nu Metal bands in history.

Walking away from the book, I have a newfound respect for how much Sonny genuinely loves Jesus. In a world where every vice is available at his beck and call, he has prioritized being a good husband, loving father, and faithful friend. All of these traits are worthy of admiration.

This book is good. It's not one of the best memoirs I've ever read, but it did accomplish its goal of taking me down memory lane. It was great to learn more about the life of someone who had a meaningful impact on me during such a tumultuous and impressionable time. I will always cherish what P.O.D. represented to me in the early 2000s. Closing the book, I can appreciate that part of my story. P.O.D. helped shape; however, I understand but respectfully disagree with much at the root of Sonny's Christianity.

Hey friends! I just wanted to share jamesgomez.co is offering a limited-time discount of 30% for all new members who become Authentic Faith Advocates! To take advantage of this discount click on the link or use the code authentic-faith-discount during checkout.