Saliva Reunion With Josey Scott ‘Never Really Got Off the Ground’
Saliva’s recent announcement of a re-recorded EP of Every Six Seconds songs with current vocalist Bobby Amaru likely tipped a few people off, but during a chat with Detroit’s Meltdown on WRIF, Wayne Swinny confirmed that the proposed reunion with original singer Josey Scott is not happening.
In October 2019, Scott revealed the news that he was planning to reunite with the band on tour in 2020 and had envisioned a new album also following their initial dates. But in March of last year it was revealed that Amaru would still be front-and-center when the band returned to the road, though Scott insisted he still had plans to return.
When asked about the current state of those reunion discussions, which also would have seen original guitarist Chris D’Abaldo in the mix, Swinny revealed, “We were part of the conversation. After Josey made his announcement, there was a few text messages going on. I did talk to Chris one time. But the problem is, we kind of already have a Saliva. The problem with doing the reunion show is what do I do? Pull the bus over and say, ‘All right, Bobby, Brad, hop out, man, to the hotel room for a couple of [months].’ It just didn’t make sense on the business end.”
He continued, “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.”
According to Swinny, Amaru encouraged him to investigate the possibilities with the reunion, but as the guitarist states, “There was no business plan put together. It was one of those — it seemed like a spur of the moment idea, but it didn’t happen. It ain’t gonna happen.”
He continued, “If you wanna do something, do it. 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.”
Swinny adds that while there was some positive fan response to the idea of Scott’s return, things just never came together and he felt like the current band shouldn’t take a break when things just hadn’t jelled on the reunion front.
But that doesn’t mean the group won’t honor the past. As previously stated, the current lineup just re-recorded six songs from the Every Six Seconds album to mark their breakout record’s 20th anniversary. Dubbed Every Twenty Years, the set is due May 7 and is available for pre-order here.