Former Saliva Singer Josey Scott On Bobby Amaru: “He Did Everything He Could Possibly Do But Become Me”

Former Saliva singer Josey Scott is continuing to take aim at the band’s current frontman Bobby Amaru. The two have been involved in a war of words and the animosity has even extended to Scott’s latest singles. With this in mind, Scott blasted Amaru once again, saying “he did everything he could possibly do but become [him].”

Scott said the following about the recent back and forth on the Carr Stereo Podcast With Terrie Carr.

“Well, it’s just heartbreaking. The one word I could put to it is it’s heartbreaking to see something that you created from the ground up, that you were a founding member of, and then to get treated like you are this lowly, disgruntled old employee is just crazy to me. Like Will Ferrell says, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

I don’t know how to explain it. You never know the darkness that lurks in a man’s heart. You don’t know how people are going to react. I heard somebody say the other day, they said, if you wanna see how somebody really is, give them fame and money. And that’s true, because we certainly were given a little bit of fame and money, and we came apart at the end of the runway, like any other plane that was trying to land with no landing gear.

Wayne Swinny, my blessed lead guitar player in SALIVA, who I adored, he was famous before we were famous in Memphis. He was in a band called TNA that was gigantic there in Memphis, along with TORA TORA and ROXY BLUE back in the late ’80s, early ’90s. And I’d always dreamed of being a band with him. And to be able to take that journey with Wayne Swinny from the beginning was just so magical. And then to watch it sort of be whittled down to just him there in what I call the last days of Wayne’s life and the last days of SALIVA. We had talked about doing a reunion tour with Chris Dabaldo, the original [SALIVA guitar player].”

He continued after it was mentioned how reuniting some of Saliva’s original members “got muddied”:

“And not only to have those waters muddied, but to then be blamed for muddying those waters. I was, like, ‘How is this my fault?’ I’m trying to play fair and to do this. I’m trying to actively, with a positive attitude, do this. I think this will be great for the fans, number one that were begging us to do it, begging us to have a reunion of the original members. And to have those waters muddied by somebody who wasn’t even in the picture in the beginning, who was a child — this guy was a child when we were releasing ‘Click Click Boom’. This guy was a kid. He was still trying to kiss a girl and go on a date. He was 15, 16 years old. So to have those waters muddied by that person, it’s just heartbreaking. I keep coming back to that word. And then Wayne called me and said, ‘Well, it doesn’t look like the reunion is gonna happen, so will you come out to Blue Ridge music festival and do the encore with the guys?’ They wanted me to come out and do ‘Always’, ‘Your Disease’ and ‘Click Click Boom’. And I was, like, ‘Yes, Wayne. Of course.’

People go into a burning building to save who they love, and I felt like I wanted to look Wayne in the face one more time and experience being on stage with him one more time by hook or crook — I didn’t care.”

He also shared insight into the discussions he had with Amaru before Blue Ridge:

“It’s funny because even the negotiations for me to come just do three songs, [we went] back and forth with this guy. And then, of course, his management blamed me, said I was a diva and I was demanding all this stuff. That is just totally untrue. It was him that was demanding.

It took me a minute, but I figured out his game. His game is he does these things, then blames you for doing these things. This is my experience with that person. You sort of throw your hands up and go, ‘What’s happening?’ And then they blame you. They go into the press and they go to their little minions and their outlets and they blame you. They say you’re the problem, you’re the one doing the things. And I was just baffled.

You gotta give the kid credit for playing multidimensional chess with this. And I told my wife one time, I said, this guy has his fingers in every pie. Once I looked into it, he was the tour manager, he was the business manager, he was booking shows — he was like the fricking Swiss Army knife of lead singers. He did everything he could possibly do but become me.”

[via Blabbermouth]