Original SALIVA singer Josey Scott has returned to the studio to record some new solo music as well as reworked versions of several of the band’s classic songs.
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).
On Friday (April 22), Scott shared an Instagram video of him in the studio recording what appears to be a new version of the SALIVA classic “Your Disease”, and he included the following message: “After ten long years, of hibernation, and truly learning, & experiencing, what is most important in life, after learning how to be a good husband, and a good father, after raising my children, and being of service to my community, learning how to truly help my fellow human beings, after experiencing the joy of watching my children be born, and holding them for the first time, and after my family and I, going through the absolute most horrific tragedy I could have ever known, or imagined, losing my precious son Cody to covid in May of 2021, after learning that the most important asset in this life is not money, or fame, but time, after learning all these precious, hard, and heartbreaking life lessons, I feel it is finally time for me to come back to my love of creating music. I’m so excited to give you guys a little taste of what I’ve been up to in the studio, and I will see you all soon on the road.”
In October 2019, Scott announced that he was returning to SALIVA, explaining at the time that he wanted to get together with his former bandmates and “write a badass record.” Less than a year and a half later, in March 2021, SALIVA guitarist Wayne Swinny poured cold water on those plans, saying that the reunion with the singer “never really got off the ground.”
Last month, it was announced that SALIVA will reunite with 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 set is expected to feature both Josey and Bobby performing tracks from their respective eras of the band.
SALIVA‘s reunion with Scott at Blue Ridge was originally announced on March 18 by festival 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.” Less than two weeks later, 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!”
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.”
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”.
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