Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Saliva

After disappearing from the scene for two years after their 2004 album Survival of the Sickest, Saliva returned in a big way in early 2007. Their single “Ladies and Gentlemen” from their new album, Blood Stained Love Story, has been heard everywhere from the WWE to the NFL Network to ESPN Radio to NASCAR to the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And, of course, it’s been a staple on rock radio all year long. Overall, Blood Stained Love Story shows a more mature, introspective side of a band known for its rock n’ roll lifestyle. They’ve come a long way from the days of “Click Click Boom.” Frontman Josey Scott recently called in from the road to talk to Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki about the smash hit single, the new album, the band’s 2003 tour with KISS and Aerosmith, and their longstanding relationship with World Wrestling Entertainment.

Live-Metal.net: Congratulations on the success of the new album. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” particularly, has just been everywhere. Does the band get a say in where and how the song is used?

Josey Scott: Yeah. We’ve had an amazing reaction to it. It was totally premeditated on our part. We wrote that song for sports and video games and movie trailers, as well as for our fans.

When you’re writing a song like that, do you get a feeling like you know it’s gonna be a big song for you?

Yeah, sometimes you just know. We give all of our songs the attention that a band would give or an artist would give a single, but when you get done with a batch of 15 or 20 songs, usually the one that’s gonna lead sticks out like a sore thumb. “Ladies and Gentlemen” certainly did that.

Before doing this album, the band took a little bit of a break and there was a longer gap than usual between albums. What was the reason for that?

I was doing a television series in Hollywood. It was Aaron Spelling’s last television series he would ever do. It was called Wanted. It was on TNT. I played one of the cops on the show. And I had a little cameo in Hustle & Flow. We were only meaning to take a year off, but it turned into two because we had so much going on. The other guys had projects that they were working on, as well as me.

When you guys regrouped, you had been away for a while, so did it feel like there was pressure to come back with a strong album after that break?

They always try to put pressure on you, but, you know, like Pacino says in The Devil’s Advocate, when he’s playing the devil, he says, “When I squeeze some people, they focus.” I think that, myself especially, I’ve always done my best work when I’ve been pressured or backed into a corner, so we kind of relish the pressure.

The new album takes the band in a different direction than Survival of the Sickest did. Was that something you set out to do at the start or did it kind of just come about through the process?

A little bit of both, I think. I knew that this album was gonna be very introspective and sort of internal, if you will. We had a lot to write about. We had marriages, divorces, births, deaths, cheating wives and cheating husbands, lawsuits—all the trimmings and trappings of a modern rock band, a modern, partying, hellraising rock band. [laughs] We had all the things that go along with that, so we had plenty to write about.

I think each album you guys have done has had a distinct sound and identity. Is that important to you, to not repeat yourselves?

Absolutely. I think there’s a core ingredient that the fans are looking for, which is that quintessential Saliva sound that has a bounce and has that dirty South sound to it. But we try to throw them a curveball with each record.

You worked with [producer] Bob Marlette again on this album. Why did you decide to go back to him and what does he add to the sound?

He’s like the sixth member of the band. He’s our Obi-Wan Kenobi of rock n’ roll. He’s always brought out the best in us and we’ve always brought out the best in him. I just figured if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I wanted to go back to him. He’s like a father to me.

Blood Stained Love Story is a striking title. It really grabs your attention. What’s the meaning, the inspiration behind that title?

I found it in a Christian magazine. One time, I was reading this article that this lady had written about Jesus and at the end of the article, she said, “What a beautiful love story stained in blood.” And I was like, “Wow, that’s kind of cool.” And I was like, “Blood stained love story. That’s kind of cool.” For us personally, it has the obvious spiritual meaning and then, secondly, it has the yin and the yang of the tornado of stuff that was going on in our lives, from the “blood stained” part being the deaths and divorces, lawsuits and all the bullshit that we were going through, and then the “love story” was I had just gotten married, I had just had a beautiful son on St. Patrick’s Day and just a lot of wonderful things that happened at the same time. It was just sort of introspective of life.

It’s about waiting on something to get better. It seems like the world is a lot of times, depending on your view, it seems like the world’s going down the toilet sometimes. It’s a song that asks why. Why are we here and what’s our purpose? What’s gonna happen when all this shit hits the fan? What’s gonna happen to us? It’s a song that hopes for something better. It’s a just a song that hopes for something greater than ourselves to protect us and take us home.

In the past, Saliva seemed like—and you kind of mentioned it a little bit already—it seemed like a band that kind of embraced the whole rock star lifestyle. The new album is—I don’t know if “mature” is the right word, but has that changed a little bit for you?

Sure, sure. I think everybody who gets submersed in this lifestyle has to go through their party and hellraising stage. I call it the “near death experience.” Luckily, I came out of the other end of it, like you said, with a lot of growth and a lot of knowledge, experience and a bit of maturity. I wanted that to shine through in this record.

Oh, man, that was a rock n’ roll dream come true. It’s two of our favorite bands of all time. We kind of threw our name in the hat not really thinking we would get it at all. And then it came down to us and Billy Idol. Gene Simmons’ son, Nick Simmons, who I will definitely be giving a big kiss to for this, said, “Dad, you’ve gotta get Saliva.” After his son said that, then we got to play.

Did you get a chance to get hang out and get to know those guys in both of those bands?

Yeah, I did. I got to spend a lot of time with Gene and Paul [Stanley], especially, and got to hang out with Steven [Tyler] a little bit, had dinner with him and got to pick his brain a little bit. They’re all my idols.

Saliva has worked with the WWE a lot over the years. How did that get started and what was it like when you performed at WrestleMania [WrestleMania X8 in 2002]?

WrestleMania was crazy. It was at the SkyDome up in Toronto and it was sold out. You have a viewing audience there of about 90,000 people and on the pay-per-view on the TV version, you have about 90 million people watching. So it was incredible. The WWE relationship came along because their music director, Jim Johnston, is an amazing musician and he had always been the guy that wrote the wrestlers’ intros and he was basically doing it by hisself out of his own studio. He would just play guitar tracks and drum tracks and he was basically doing this stuff hisself. And he became very interested in Saliva’s music and challenged us to write a couple songs for different entertainers and we just took the bull by the horns, as usual. It’s developed into a badass relationship.

Over the last decade, the band has accomplished a lot. What goals do you have left?

I think I’d like to continue to tour like a KISS or an Aerosmith. I think what I learned from them is that as long as you continue to put out albums that, like you said, continue to grow and take steps forward and begin to the show the true nature of the band and whatnot—I think that my goal over the next 10 to 20 years is to continue to write great songs and continue to tour, support our fans and hopefully have our fans support us, and one of these days, you know, I told the guys, we’ll just go out there and play all our hits and that’ll be it.