SALIVA will reunite with its original singer Josey Scott for a one-off appearance at this year’s Blue Ridge Rock Festival, set to take place September 8-11 at the Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Virginia.
The reunion was originally announced on March 18 by Blue Ridge organizers via Twitter. They wrote: “It is Happening. For years it is has been highly rumored and demanded, now it finally takes place this September.”
Earlier today (Wednesday, March 30), Scott shared the announcement on Twitter for the first time and included a simple two-word comment: “LETS GO!!!!!!” When one fan asked him, “Are u serious???”, he responded: “Yes!”
Scott left SALIVA at the end of 2011 after 15 years with the group, reportedly to pursue a solo Christian music career. He was quickly replaced by Bobby Amaru, who can be heard on SALIVA‘s last four releases: “In It To Win It” (2013), “Rise Up” (2014), “Love, Lies & Therapy” (2016) and “10 Lives” (2018).
Scott broke the news of his return to SALIVA in October 2019 during an appearance on “The Morning Dump”, a podcast hosted by “The Big Mad Morning Show” in Tulsa, Oklahoma. At the time, Josey said that he wanted to get together with SALIVA and “write a badass record.”
In March 2021, SALIVA guitarist Wayne Swinny addressed Scott‘s status with the band during an interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station. Asked if there are still plans for Josey to reunite with SALIVA for a possible album and/or a tour, Wayne said: “There was preliminary discussions, but it never really got off the ground. We just basically had to make plans and keep this train rolling, so to speak. It didn’t make sense to me to stop what we were doing. ‘Cause this unit, we’ve been together, it’s been almost 10 years now, with Bobby in the band. Brad came along shortly after that. We’re tight. We get along. It’s a well-oiled machine. We’ve got a great crew, a great bus driver. It would throw a monkey wrench into the actual SALIVA.”
Last December, Josey took to his Twitter to write: “I want 2 apologize 2 my fans because I thought I was gonna reunite w/certain people & make u new music, & that fell through, but, I believe everything happens for a reason. There are no coincidences. A blessing in disguise. Now it’s just u, & me, how intimate is that? #SV2022”.
When Swinny spoke to WRIF about SALIVA‘s failed reunion with Scott, he said that even though there were some initial discussions about Josey‘s return to the group, there was no follow-up to ensure that the plan was executed.
“If you wanna do something, do it,” Wayne said. “But you can’t just talk about it and have it magically happen. There’s work, there’s planning, there’s stuff that goes into it, and none of that stuff was done early enough to pull it off.
“Yeah, there was some fan response, saying, ‘Wow, yeah, that might be cool.’ But it didn’t get enough steam to take off,” he explained. “All the preliminary stuff kind of got set up, and it just didn’t jell.
“It just didn’t make sense to stop what we [the current lineup of SALIVA] were doing and do that, because you’ve got momentum, we’ve got a groove going, the band’s tight live. I didn’t feel like we should give that up or give that a rest.”
SALIVA released six albums with Scott and tasted platinum success and a Grammy nomination for its first big hit, “Your Disease”.
Last May, SALIVA celebrated the 20th anniversary of its breakthrough major label debut, “Every Six Seconds”, with a special project called “Every Twenty Years”, an EP of classic songs re-recorded with Amaru.
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Tagged: Alternative Music, music blog