Saliva Singer Bobby Amaru Shares What It Was Like Replacing Josey Scott

Saliva became a modern rock success story in the early 2000s on the back of several charting radio hits including “Always,” “Ladies And Gentlemen,” “Click Click Boom” and “Your Disease,” among others. The band’s former frontman Josey Scott left the group in 2011 and was replaced by singer Bobby Amaru.

Scott nearly rejoined the group in 2022, and despite a guest appearance on stage with his former band, ended up branching out with his own version of the band, Josey Scott’s Saliva.

Amaru recently did an interview with Youngstown Studio, and he talked about the challenges of replacing Scott. When famous replacement singers Tim “Ripper” Owens (Judas Priest) and Blaze Bayley (Iron Maiden) were referenced, Amaru joked: “I don’t wanna throw him under the bus, but (Josey Scott) is no Bruce Dickinson and he’s no Rob Halford. So let me get that outta the way. He thinks he is, but he’s not. Those dudes (Dickinson and Halford) are extremely hard to replace. I like Ripper. I like that (first) record they did. ‘Jugulator’ was an awesome record.”

Amaru continued: “I think no matter what. Any band. … Van Halen (had) David Lee Roth but then they get Sammy Hagar. People hated it, even though it was good. The label was like, ‘Just write great f*cking songs, and we’re not gonna lose.’ And that’s what they did. They wrote great f*cking songs man, so that’s why it worked. Then it’s like ‘Ok cool, this isn’t working out, now we’re gonna go get Gary Cherone. Now fans are like, ‘Wait a second. Hold on. Now you’re throwing us for a loop.’ And it doesn’t work the same. I think sometimes it works or it doesn’t.”

Amaru said of coming into Saliva: “I never tried to be (Josey). I never wanted to be him. I think when I came in, I just wanted to be myself and do what I could do. I like writing songs, I like working in the studio and being on stage. I’m a die hard musician at heart, and that was the approach. It doesn’t always work when you take the approach of, ‘I’ve gotta be like this so people will like me.’ People are gonna like you or hate you either way. Me coming into the band, that was all it was. Let’s keep it alive and have some fun.”

Amaru also said that fan reaction to his arrival was mixed at first. “It was super mixed at first, and I get it,” he said. “Most of the negative stuff I felt like never really came from people who had seen the band. I think it just came from that approach of ‘It’s not the same,’ or ‘It’ll never be the same.’ But they’re right. It never will be the same. I think fans get so invested in the catalog of these bands and songs that they forget it’s a business. It is a business at the end of the day. The show must go on. It’s no disrespect to what Saliva was before at all. I’ve never disrespected that one bit.”

Amaru continued: “But when you come into something and the other person quits and basically abandons and leaves everyone high and dry, they just disappear for a decade … and you start hearing all these crazy stories about how it was in the band. There was part of me at first that was like, ‘Do I even want to do this? This is like scary kind of stuff.’ People would come up to me at shows and tell me stories that would make you want to run. But I stuck through it. That’s not me and I’m not that. There was almost like a black cloud over the Saliva name. But you fight through it and overcome. I don’t want to talk crap about anybody or the past, but those were challenges for me. I had no idea about all of these kinds of things. (But) on top of people nitpicking what you’re doing or how you should be, I just stuck to my guns and said ‘I’m gonna do things the way I wanna do them.’”

Amaru’s full interview can be viewed below.