P.O.D. Guitarist MARCOS CURIEL Discusses Differences Between American And European Audiences

Pozzo Live conducted an interview with P.O.D. guitarist Marcos Curiel prior to the band's November 17 concert at Le Forum in Vauréal, France. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the response to P.O.D.'s latest studio album, "Circles":

Marcos: "It's been a good response. A lot of people that like the 'Satellite' album like the 'Circles' album. They think that it has some familiarity, and we didn't do it because of that. We're selfish; we like to write music that we like first. When you're in an industry where you have people, executives with ties and suits, corporations, 'This is what's going on right now. This is what's hot. You guys need to do this,' we've always been the band that's, like, 'Nah. We do what we like. We do what we want to hear because we're the ones who have to go play it around the world.' Why would you write music that you hate? Like, 'I hate this song, man.' Everything that you hear we love because we wrote it from our heart and soul. Whether people like it, hate it, love it, that's awesome, but, we're glad that you like it, but we have to like it first."

On whether P.O.D. has started work on the follow-up to "Circles":

Marcos: "It's only been a year. We're always writing new music. I wouldn't say that we've started focusing on writing a new album quite yet because there's a lot of markets that we haven't hit touring-wise. We made a conscious decision as a band to be a worldwide band, not just 'We're just going to play in America and that's it.' We play Latin America, we play Europe, we'll play Australia, we'll play Asia, and that's because we have fans all over the world and we got to feed them. They're like seeds. You got to put some water on them, put some sunlight, let 'em grow. You put your best foot forward when you record new music and you want everyone to hear it. Like tonight, we'll play six or seven new songs. We're not a cover band. We're not going to sit and come and just play the stuff off of our records. We're going to play some new material because we're proud of it."

On the differences between American and European audiences:

Marcos: "Here's the thing: America is very [claps hands, wipes shoulder] done, gone. They go by fads real quick with all types of music, hip-hop, and you know, you have your loyal fans, we have our loyal fans in the U.S, but it's always about the next new thing. Where around the world, if fans love a band, they like love a band. That's the difference. America can be a little pretentious, but the fans that we have, thank god, they've all been really good to us. It just seems a little more enthusiastic. You'll have a line, a sold-out crowd in America, but everyone is more like a friend now, 'Hey, Marcos!' You go to South America, it's like you're THE BEATLES. Like, 'What the…?' [People are grabbing] my hat and it's, like, 'Hey man!' It's funny, but, dude, people are fanatics in different ways and I think western civilization with America, people got a little spoiled. They're just used to 'It's another band…' It's hard to get excited for anything. I think over here in Europe, for us, at least, people really appreciate a band continuing with the same band members and continuing to see us grow as musicians. I would like to think some bands they grow and they change members and the sound changes and they kind of went like…I don't know. I feel that we've been pretty consistent at staying true to our roots with regards to our culture, where we're from, our style and I think that's helped us a lot."

P.O.D.'s tenth studio album, "Circles", was released in November 2018 via Mascot.