Throwback Thursday – P.O.D. ‘Youth of the Nation’ (2001)

"Youth of the Nation" was the second single off of P.O.D.'s album Satellite.

The band was inspired to write this song while making their album because a school shooting happened blocks from the recording studio. Santana High School suffered a terrible tragedy on March 5, 2001 when a student with a gun killed two and wounded thirteen.

Guitarist Marcos Curiel said in an interview in 2008, "We were rehearsing and writing Satellite a couple of blocks away from the school. One day on the way to the studio, there were all these helicopters and cars speeding by. We really didn’t know what was going on. When we got to the studio, this guy had the news on, and he was like, ‘This kid just went and started blasting fools.’ So we started jamming, and that rhythm just naturally came out then Wuv [Bernardo, drummer] put that drumbeat on it, and the song was born."

According to Wikipedia:

While Satellite contained numerous hit songs, "Youth of the Nation" was the band's only No. 1 hit on the Modern Rock chart and reached No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 6 on the Mainstream Rock chart.

 

The music video features a pre-famous Joel David Moore, that you may recognize from Dodgeball and Avatar.