September 4, 2023 • 42 mins
Bobby Amaru
Take a walk with me as I get to know Bobby Amaru.
In this episode, I sit down with the talented Bobby Amaru from the rock band Saliva. In this exclusive interview, we dive into the band's new music as Bobby shares insights into the band's latest album, Revelation. We discuss their SNAFU tour, and how they've navigated the ever-changing landscape of the record business. Discover the inspiring journey of Bobby writing music sober, and the creative process that has led to some of Saliva's most powerful and meaningful new tracks. We also talk about why he got sober, and the secret to Saliva's staying power. Tune in to this episode for a captivating conversation that offers a unique perspective on the music industry and the personal stories that drive it.
Take a walk with me as I get to know Bobby Amaru.
In this episode, I sit down with the talented Bobby Amaru from the rock band Saliva. In this exclusive interview, we dive into the band's new music as Bobby shares insights into the band's latest album, Revelation. We discuss their SNAFU tour, and how they've navigated the ever-changing landscape of the record business. Discover the inspiring journey of Bobby writing music sober, and the creative process that has led to some of Saliva's most powerful and meaningful new tracks. We also talk about why he got sober, and the secret to Saliva's staying power. Tune in to this episode for a captivating conversation that offers a unique perspective on the music industry and the personal stories that drive it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, what's up. This isBobby Emery from Saliva and you're watching Fascination
Street Podcast. Yeah, yes,that amp was Fey. You'll visual down
the most its rest the street inthe world with my voice d Fascination Street
(00:21):
already no Street Brief, Welcome Backstreetwalkers. This episode is with Bobby Amru,
the singer from the band Saliva.In this episode, we find out where
Bobby was born and raised and whatgot him into the music business. We
talked about how he came to bepart of Saliva and now he's been the
(00:41):
frontman for almost twelve years. Wetalk a little bit about how the band
spent their COVID pandemic times. Theywrote a shitload of songs, recorded a
bunch of albums, a bunch ofcovers, all kinds of things. And
we talk about their new album,Revelation, dropping September eighth, twenty twenty
three, and Bobby lets me playthe newest single from that album, come
(01:03):
Back Stronger, in the episode.If you love Saliva, which you do,
or you wouldn't be listening to this, make sure you check him out
on tour the Snapoo Tour beginning Septembertenth, alongside Drowning Pool at Elita's Way
and any Given Sin. They're playingall over the country. Go check him
out at a place near you.And this is my conversation with the lead
(01:26):
singer of the band Saliva, BobbyAmerum. Be Fascinated, becaind Welcome to
Fascination Street Podcast. Bobby Ameru,how are you doing today? Man?
(01:46):
I'm good man, ladies and gentlemen. This is Bobby Ameru. He is
the lead singer, the front man, if you will, of Saliva.
They have a new album coming outSeptember eighth, called Revelation, and they're
going to be kicking off the SnaffooTour September tenth with Drowning Pool at Elita's
Way in any Given San Bobby,what I like to do is start from
(02:07):
the beginning. Man, were weborn and raised? Where did you grow
up? I was born in Charleston, South Carolina. I probably would still
be there. Who knows where thehell I'd be right now had I stayed
there with my family. But HurricanesHugo hit in nineteen eighty nine and they
destroyed a lot of the city,like where we lived. Our whole area
was destroyed, and my parents waslike, oh, what do we want
(02:30):
to rebuild here or we want tomove. My aunt at the time had
married my uncle who was in theNavy in Jacksonville, and she was like,
you should, guys should come toJacksonville where there are more hurricane watches.
You know. We moved to Floridato run from Andrew and all the
other ones too, But Hugo isprobably why I'm in moved to Florida,
(02:53):
so we moved to be closer tothem. I had cousins that were my
age and stuff too, and soI grew up in Jacksonville, I'd say
ninety nineteen ninety or whatever, livedthere ever since. Man, And at
what point did you decide that musicwas going to be your passion, your
future, your career, your wholelife. Really, I always liked music
(03:15):
at an early age. My parentswere into music. My grandfather was like
a lounge singer kind of style stufflike he loved Sinatra, and my dad
was all into, you know,all the seventies eighties stuff like Priest and
Maiden and a lot of that,you know, and then there was that
whole wave of the MTB and youknow, even the hair stuff like you
know, the Dawkins of the Worldand Motley Crue and you know, so
(03:38):
I was just a kid watching thatstuff on MTV and you know, watching
looks at Kill Video thinking they werelike super heroes, and shit they are.
I just knew that's what I wantedto do, man, you know,
but I was a drummer. Istarted as a drummer, and I
moved on to like guitar, andvocals kind of came last. I never
(03:58):
really knew that I could sing orwhatever. Maybe I still don't know.
I'm still trying here. Yeah.I grew up in Jackson, and music
was always something I wanted to do, and I just kept pursuing it,
and I would play in like neighborhoodfootball and baseball. I didn't play baseball
and stuff like that growing up,but I always wanted to play drums and
(04:18):
dreamed about being in a band andall that stuff early on, and started
putting my first band together in middleschool and from there on just didn't stop.
Now, at a certain point beforeSaliva, your band got signed to
like Electra Records or whatever, andthen something's happened and that partnership kind of
(04:39):
didn't really last or wasn't as fruitfulas everybody had hoped. How did that
not sour you on the whole business? Like, why didn't you just go,
well, fuck this, I'm out. I said that a few times.
But like anything else, you know, in this industry, it's always
somehow managed to find your way toget sucked back into it. It's like
(05:01):
the mafia. Yeah, it's likeas musicians, I don't know what it
is that makes us want to sellour souls so bad to be doing this,
But it's got to be because youlove it. Man. You know,
we wouldn't do it if we didn't, And it's like, what else
are we going to do? Themusic business is something that you've got to
learn it. Man, You've gotto figure it out. It's not for
everybody. It's gonna take you sometime to figure it out for sure,
(05:25):
like it took me a few times. You go through a few record deals
and you figure out, maybe thisisn't like the smartest way to go about
this, you know. And Ithink even with like a band like Saliva,
we had to learn the labels wantyou to be at the mercy of
them. They've always wanted that they'rein the business to sell records. They
don't give a shit how they sellthem. Who's behind the you know,
(05:47):
Milli Vanilli bro. They don't givea shit, you know whatever. They
want to sell records. And ifyou're selling them records, you're in there.
If you're not, you know,they're gonna go find someone else that
is. It makes sense, it'snot gonna wait. So I think as
the downloading and all that stuff startedto happen a lot more and labels were
trying to figure out different ways tomake money, they thought, why don't
(06:10):
we just do like three sixty dealsand take a piece of everything a band's
doing or an artist is doing,you know, So then it starts to
become a situation where the artist ismaking even more or less now, you
know, because the labels now takingthings that they weren't normally taking before.
But they're not able to sell aton of records like they used to,
so they got to figure out away to make money off of you.
(06:32):
I always say, I feel likelabels they only want to sign young people,
right. They don't want to signthe forty year old guy who's been
through like three or four of them, because I fucking know better, right,
average eighteen year old is going Ijust want to be signed. I
just want to go toward the worldand be the biggest rock star on the
planet. That's all they're thinking about. Those are the easiest people to get,
(06:55):
and then you can get them tosign these three sixty deals and basically
make the deal with the devil,you know, to become that big time
rock star that we all dream of. So back in the day, record
labels used to only get like eightyfive percent of record sales yea, and
the artist would get like, youknow, fifteen or whatever. And then
that's you're fifteen percent to split acrossmanagers and agents and everybody. You're getting
(07:21):
negative. You owe them money,you know. So about eleven years ago
or so, you gotta I don'tknow, a text, a phone call.
Hell, it might even have beenan Instagram message, I don't know,
but somebody rung you up and said, hey, Bobby, how would
you like to come sing for Saliva? How did that come about? So?
(07:43):
I had a friend that lived inJacksonville. He was a lighting guy
for a lot of bands like Godsmackand Limp, This Skit and a bunch
of big bands. And he wasalways on tour and gone, and he
had talked about wanting to start aband with me on the side. And
I had been doing a bunch ofmy own shit, my own songs,
and you know, for my ownproject. At the time, I was
doing like TV music, doing Qwork, you know, for some companies,
(08:07):
and pitching songs to like TV,like bar Rescue and like Kardashians and
like those TV shows and stuff.And I was making pretty decent money doing
that, and I was kind ofout of the game, like I didn't
really care to do anything other thanjust my own stuff. And well,
he called me. Jeff did,my buddy that was a lighting guy,
and he said, hey, man, I gave Saliva your number. They're
(08:31):
gonna call you. And I thoughtmaybe they're gonna call me about a drumming
gig or something, you know,not a singing gig. I didn't really
know that that's what it was aboutuntil I got a text message from Paul.
Those guys were notorious for not callingpeople. They were texters. They
would just text. I found thatout years later. But yeah, the
(08:56):
text just said something along the linesof, Hey, this is Paul from
Salivah. Jeff Egg given us yournumber. We heard a bunch of your
stuff. We really like you andlike what you're doing. Would you be
interested in working with us? That'swhat it said. It wasn't even singing
or anything. He said, wouldyou be interested in working with us?
And I was like, yeah,man, you know, sounds good.
(09:16):
Just let me know what you guysneed or whatever. And in my back
of my head, I'm thinking,you know, like, what the hell
happened that Josie? You know,I just didn't really know. And I'd
crossed paths with them before because theguy that did my Electra record, Bob
Marlette, had done several of theirbig records. He's the guy that was
like behind them and the first recordand stuff. So I knew of them.
I had never like actually met themor hung out with them, and
(09:37):
you just never know how it's goingto go. Three of them, Wayne,
Dave, and Paul flew into Jacksonvilleand we started recording. November twenty
eleven was when that call and stuffhappened. So here I am, almost
twelve years later, wondering if Imade the right fucking moods. I'm sure
you did. Here's a question thatis a little bit bizarre, and the
(10:00):
question comes off as genuine as Imean it, when you're joining a band
that has already an established band,there's a risk you can either become the
Sammy Hagar of van Halen or theGary Sharone of van Halen, and God
bless Gary Sharone, that wasn't agood fit. So in your mind,
were you worried that you were goingto be the Gary Sharone of Saliva or
(10:22):
did you already know you were goingto be the Sammy Hagar of Saliva?
Does that make sense the way Iordered that. I think Gary Sharone and
Sammy Hagar are both great. Absolutely. I think anybody that was going to
join that third slot for van Halenwas going to get the raf man,
you know. And then you gottasay, maybe it's van Halen. You
(10:43):
know, maybe it's not any ofthese other cats, but doesn't matter.
As the singer in the front man, you're gonna get the ship. You
know, you're gonna take it.You're gonna give eddievan Halen any shit.
He's eddievan Halen, you know whatI mean. So I think with this
situation is so different though, Likebecause when Sammy Hagar obviously joined van Halen,
it was still the mid eighties andshiit was just booming and like people
(11:05):
were selling millions of records. WarnerBrothers was like, we didn't give a
fuck, man, it's Van Halen. We didn't have any of that.
In fact, the band got dropped, it's well, they had fulfilled their
contract. They had to do onemore record. I think they were going
to get dropped anyway from Island,and that record was just poor sales and
touch. And so when I gotin the band, I just didn't know
(11:26):
what I was getting into. AndI don't really talk about this kind of
stuff either, but when I gotinto the band, I mean, it
was just fucking drama, man,drama from before, like all the previous
ship that I had heard in thestories and stuff. But the three guys
I could tell they really were justhungry for a breath of fresh air,
new energy. They wanted to stillplay music, they wanted to still tour,
(11:48):
you know, they didn't want toquit. They felt like, well,
this is either gonna work or it'snot. And that's the way I
looked at it too. I wasnever trying to come into the band and
be like, yeah, man,I'm gonna go. I can take on
the world and it's going to bethe greatest thing, you know, greatest
show on her. That was nevermy mentality. I looked at it as
this is just a good opportunity togo play with a group of guys that
(12:11):
have been doing this with this brandfor the past decade. At the time,
it was I think it's gonna befun. I'm up for the challenge
to be able to go out anddo my thing and influence my capabilities and
stuff. I mean, I knewthat I love being on stage. I
believed that I could do it,but it's all perceptions still, like what
(12:31):
is the public gonna think? Andluckily the fan was not at a level
like of Van Halen at the time, so there were a few years where
people still didn't know that they hada new singer, you know what I
mean. It wasn't like Doo DooDoom MTV. I'm Kurt Loder, fucking
Saliva, you know, decided topart ways with the guy from the Spider
Man soundtrack and all that stuff.There was none of that. I think
(12:54):
the transition happened very fast. Andyou know, I've always given credit to
Joe's and credit to what they didand achieved in the past, and you
know, I've always had a wholelevel of respect for that, even when
I didn't have to. It's justis what it is. But I always
tried to appreciate the opportunity that Iwas given. But I stepped into it
(13:16):
and I embraced it and I madeit mine, and I think I took
it to a level where it wouldhave never gone. It felt like it,
and these guys would tell you too. It just kept nose diving man
down. And then when I gotinto band, it was like we had
to stop from the bottom and goall the way back up. We're never
going to get to where the bandwas twenty years ago, because you know,
(13:39):
labels didn't mind spending five hundred thousanddollars on music videos and ship and
paying off everybody they needed to fora band to break. It's just not
like that anymore. The times havechanged. So we're just like we figured
out what works for our business,and you have to be content with that.
Just make records and make music thatyou love and think your fans are
(14:00):
gonna love, and you know,try to make new fans along the way.
Also. That's live Like I alwaysfeel like I always have something to
prove live, going out on stageand being able to prove it. I
don't know. Maybe that's that wholelike replacing a singer thing chip on your
shoulder. You always feel like youhave something to prove. Maybe Sammy Hagar
probably felt some of that too.I know, damn well, Gary Sharun
(14:20):
did. But a guy like SammyHagar, he probably felt like, I
can fucking do this. I'm gonnago do this. I'm not gonna be
like David Lee Roth, but I'mgonna do my own thing and I think
it's gonna work. And it did. Yeah, but it doesn't always work.
I definitely agree. There. Heystreet walkers, here's a word from
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(14:48):
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drink responsibly, Go bold. Let'sget back into it. So you're almost
(16:03):
twelve years now with Saliva, andall along the way you have had managers
and distributors and record companies and allthat. But correct me if I'm wrong.
Each experience with those individuals or thoseentities has taken a little bit of
the shine off of that side ofthe business for you guys, so much
(16:25):
so that, if I understand correctly, you guys manage yourselves now, is
that right? Well, we werefor the longest time, you know,
in my twelve years here, we'vehad a couple managers, you know,
a manager as I would call it, like, you know to someone who's
just like, yeah, you're great, man, awesome, Hey, can
you pay me my commissions? ButI gotta admit, like the people that
we have now like working with us, have been awesome and the great and
(16:48):
very patient. I mean, Iwould say just with the way things have
gone the last couple of years,you know, with all the coming back
from the COVID stuff, and likea lot of other bands and a lot
of other businesses in general, youknow, we suffered a lot during the
whole COVID stuff, especially a bandlike us where we only make money from
touring and merch. You know,so we're not selling a ton of records
(17:11):
and a ton of snow streams andstuff like that. Can't live off that.
So touring and merch is where youmake your money. Even the biggest
acts are going to tell you thesame shit. They don't want to spend
their own personal money due they're abusiness. You know, they got a
twenty person crew or whatever and peopleon retainer and shit, you know,
like they want the tours to coverall that. You know, that's why
(17:32):
they go do it. That's howyou keep your houses and you keep your
ship intact. But well, COVIDthing, it was just out of everyone's
hands and we went through it.And thankfully we got out of it,
and we you know a lot ofpeople other people had it worse, I
know, and they got out ofit too, And still dealing with a
lot of that stuff, just withfinancial things, but just got to be
positive and know that there's going tobe better, better outcome. So for
(17:56):
a while, you as the frontman, we're taking on a lot of the
manager roles, like as far astaking the reins of the business. So
when you were saying, like,you know, managers and things like that,
we had gone through a few ofthose. We had gone through a
few different labels, and nothing everreally worked or clicked until we got on
(18:18):
Megaforce, which was essentially just adistribution deal. But Missy has been great
and awesome to work with and dealwith through all these years that we've been
with them, since like twenty seventeenor so. I think I have a
great relationship with her and you know, anything we need or whatever, she's
been very good there and managing theband tour, managing the band, booking
(18:41):
the flights, booking the hotels,you know, handling, you know,
the w nine's all the tax stuffinfo, that's your guy right here.
I do all that stuff. I'vebeen doing all that stuff for still for
years. Yeah, still, well, you kind of had to, like,
you know, you tried the wholebusiness manager thing for a minute,
and then you realize they're taking acommission or they're taking a percentage, and
they're not paying you for like twoor three weeks after your tour, and
(19:04):
then they're like on fucking vacations andship with their families, and you're like,
uh, wait a second, what'sthe point We're not making Metallica money,
man. So I felt like wedidn't need a business manager. We
could something that could handle with aCPPA. It's easy, you know,
you gotta see on top of it. The thing the problem is is most
musicians, dude, have no fuckingbusiness sense when it comes to the music
(19:26):
business. They're just musicians. Youknow. I'm not going to say all
are like that, because a lothave learned and you kind of have to,
especially these days with social media andstuff. You're more hands on your
brand now than ever before. Usedto record labels like, Man, don't
worry, we're gonna handle at allman. We're gonna send you out with
fucking the greatest tour manager. Man, he just did fucking Black Sabbath and
(19:47):
the lead of Forward, Man,you're gonna be fucking in there, you
know what I mean. They you'relike, okay, and then we got
this guy over here, He's gonnado this and manage that, and that's
how everybody got taken advantage of manand the ones that we're more were hands
on and in the know of whatthe fuck is going on. Those are
the ones that have managed to eitherthey got fucked too many times where they
(20:07):
were over that and then they figuredit out, or they just knew all
along, like I don't trust it. I'm gonna fucking take control of what
I'm doing here. And I hadto do that with this brand. It
just everything. Every time we turnaround, it was always something else.
And then once Wayne and I kindof got on that same page of Wayne
was like, I'm not going todo any of this ship And I think
(20:29):
a lot of times two bands andI don't want to make it seem like
bad, like they don't know whatthey're doing or they don't have any sort
of business, but they also comefrom a time when they were putting out
records where those labels and those managersare like, well, just take care
of everything, you know what Imean. So when that happens, you're
like, Okay, well you alwayshave that mentality of someone's going to take
care of it, But me,I didn't. I wasn't around in those
(20:52):
times to go through that. Sofiguring out what works for us and what
works for our business is kind ofsomething It took a minute to figure out.
But once we figured it out,you can't really do it any other
way, now, right? Isn'tthat awesome? Once you figure out the
keys, you don't want to givethose keys to anybody. I want to
talk about COVID just a little bit. If this is correct, this is
(21:15):
pretty impressive. During COVID, youguys recorded an album of new stuff,
an album of covers, as wellas rerecording songs for the twentieth anniversary of
Every six Seconds EP, which youguys called Every twenty Years, and then
you personally Bobby recorded a solo albumand all of those songs together. It's
(21:38):
something like thirty four songs, Isall of that true? Now there's many
anymore, there's probably more like sixtysongs. If you're going to include like
the covers record, you're gonna includelike the EP we did, We picked
through about thirty four songs for thisrecord. Oh wow. But the covers
record, we probably did ten cups. You know, we had the EP
(22:02):
and this stuff I did. Idid like ten but I did a different
project kind of like a modern metalindustrial kind of stuff, like that's the
record that I did. And thenI also did some solo shit too,
like some some like Oasis sound andshit. So we had a lot,
a lot of time, I guessreally, you know, during COVID is
(22:22):
what are you Gonna do? Wejust wrote a lot, and I wrote
a lot. But come Back Strongerwas that was like the first song that
we had for this record or thatwe thought, oh, this would be
a great direction to go. Waynewas like when I played him the idea
I had in like twenty nineteen,I had like some music ideas and stuff
and like kind of what I wantedto do, and he was like that,
that's it, that's the next record. Whatever fuck it, do that
(22:47):
and then we'll fucking throw nine othersongs around it, so you know,
and this was come Back Stronger.Yeah, that was the one that he
was really high up on because hedid want the record to be heavier and
he wanted to feel modern, andI mean so did I. I mean
I just felt like, you know, we really wanted to try and get
back into radio and octane and stufflike that. And I was like,
(23:07):
dude, why don't we just makesome bangers, man, some solid,
damn you know, hard rock songs. And we felt like we made a
great record, man. So ouridea was it we were going to record
the record in twenty twenty early onand then release it late summer. That
was the idea. But then allthe COVID stuff happened, and we just
kept pushing it back and pushing itback, and then we were like,
(23:29):
well, we want to do somethingfor the twentieth anniversary in two thousand and
one, so we did the EPand twenty one Yeah, in twenty twenty
one, yeah, And then thenyou know, twenty twenty two, We're
like, well, maybe we'll putthe record out this year. Then happened.
We just kept writing and well,I'm glad you brought up the newest
single from the album. The album'sRevelation, comes out September eight. The
(23:52):
newest single is come Back Stronger.How was gonna ask you anyway? But
since it's so organically came up I'llask you now, Bobby, can I
play that song on this episode?Play it? Yeah, dude, please?
Would you like to introduce it likeyou're a radio DJ. Yeah,
I don't think I have a radiovoice. Are you out of your mind?
(24:15):
Give it a shot. Introduce thatsong off the new album. Tell
everybody when it's coming out. Hey, guys, new record Revelation coming out
September, the eighth New Saliva.This has come back stronger. Call me
(25:00):
out. I swear I still havemy last press blocked me down on my
knees. But I am not fredfrom the charm of the thing. I
will not suffer cay, not downfrom until my sup the just to fly.
(25:25):
It came back standing until down lies. I calm Bay strong, say
it's so long te I was beforeI battle, and I went the way
(25:49):
I just slow as I seen youunder rest and make all the strength that
I came from, all of mymistake, lock down, all intil the
fire myself, all that just afight come back. I'm standing till love
(26:14):
not down. Guys. Not callpast strong Time, strong Clock. I
(26:41):
will call past roll Car, Iwill call blast long clock, I will
call black Drong clock by strong CarYard lock down, all to the boyer
(27:11):
b stop all that test the bodycome back. I stand, It's all
love not down, lies up,Jo pass strong, jop pass Strong.
(27:33):
I will come past strong clock.I will come past strong Clock. I
will come past strong fantastic Thank you. That song is dope as balls.
(28:06):
By the way, is it okayif I say that you're a sober person?
Yeah? For sure? Okay,how is it different because you write
a lot of the songs you know, with other people, with people not
even in the band. You writestuff. But how is it different to
write as a sober person versus youknow, you're writing all these songs back
(28:27):
when you were you know, drinkingand having a hell of a time.
Do you have anything to even writeabout it anymore? It's different? Do
you have a more clear mind?But for me, like from when I
was not sober to where I amlike now with writing, I mean,
I definitely tell a difference in thewriting. But I find myself going back
(28:48):
to those moments of those struggles andthings that I've been through and what I
was going through, and I feellike I'm still telling to tell but just
showing like improvement and overcoming that youknow, come back stronger. It's kind
of about that when you're down,you gotta get up and you gotta fight,
you know, And like for me, my story is different from everybody
(29:11):
else. You know, this guy'sgot a different story or this girl's got
a different story and things that they'restruggle with and their addictions and stuff.
And I think that we don't walkin their shoes, so we don't really
know what they're going through, whatthey're thinking. But for me, it
was huge accomplishment to get sober,and you know, a lot of positive
things just happened in my life onceI did. Now, I think you're
(29:33):
right out somewhere around like five anda half years or something like that,
sober. This October will be fiveyears. Oh okay, well in advance,
let me wish you a congratulation.It's well done, sir. You're
welcome. Was there a reason,like, did you become sober for a
specific reason or just because in general? He felt like that was a better
decision. Oh yeah, definitely abetter decision for sure. So it wasn't
(29:57):
like you ran over your kid's dog, you're anything, and when you're like
shit, No, it wasn't reallythat. It wasn't like one incident.
It was things that just kind ofbuilt up. That's how it is with
a lot of people. I meana lot of times it might take that
one thing though, Like once again, everybody's different. You know, if
a guy is drinking and drinking drinkingand the next thing you know, he
(30:18):
like harm somebody in an accident orsomething, that can be a wake up
call. But a lot of timesit still isn't for people, you know,
like and that's the fucked up realityof struggling with that ship. You
know, for me, it wasjust things that kept building, and I
just I wanted something better for mylife. You know, I have a
new wife, and you know Ihad my kids and stuff too, and
(30:38):
I just wanted better things for usoverall. And I knew that that started
with me. You know, whenyou're kind of like the head of the
household or whatever, you have tobe positive influence and good role model and
just try to do the best youcan. Read well, I do love
that. I do. I wantto move away from that though, because
that's not really a focus. Ijust wanted to high it because it's impressive.
(31:00):
Again, well done, good foryou, and I love that The
family aspect was a big part ofthe decision behind it. That's amazing.
I want to talk about your coversongs, the covers that you guys did.
Are you guys releasing them as singlesor is there a plan to release
them as an album? Man?You know what, the more I think
about it, I might just dropthat shit at Christmas or something. You
(31:21):
know. I don't know, like, because I mean, I've got them.
They're just sitting there. Nobody's hurtthem except for one of them.
I've heard it. It sounds amazing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
but no, like you know,there's just a lot of other songs that
haven't been released, and we shouldprobably put them out, you know,
absolutely. I'm particularly interested in whyyou guys chose to cover Eminem's Lose Yourself,
(31:44):
which, by the way, isfucking awesome. You guys did a
great job on this time. Coversare like really big right now, like
everybody's doing covers. But at thattime, people still weren't really doing a
whole lot of covers. It'd bewhite one here and there, and be
like one on a band's record andstuff. But now it's just like every
time everywhere you look, there's abunch of covers going on and which is
(32:07):
great. I mean, you know, people are using it to gain audience
and build their fan base. Andfor me, it started when we did
the Michael Jackson song in twenty sixteenThey Don't Care About Us. But at
that time, I was just intolike wanting to do covers that would just
be different, like do something thatnobody's ever gonna think that we're gonna do.
You know, see how it goes. And then we did that one
(32:27):
and we were on Universal at thetime, and the label was like they
remember they called me and this isabout the they Don't Care about Us song
and they're like, hey, sowhat do you think should be the first
single? And I told them thatshould be the first single. They're like,
oh, we don't hear it.I'm like, okay, well I
remember going on YouTube at that timetoo, and that Michael Jackson version was
(32:49):
it like three hundred million streams orsomething. I'm like, what is it
that they don't get? I don'tknow, I'll never know whatever. So
it ends up just growing eggs onits own and doing it something. All
we did was we did a lyricvideo for it, but it was like
this video that had a bunch ofold footage of like rioting and like all
this crazy stuff. And this wasI think twenty sixteen was like election year
(33:12):
two. So we're not a politicalband. We're not, never have been.
I've never really been into that kindof stuff, but it just felt
like the timing could have been rightfor a song like that and a time
where people weren't really dropping a wholeton of covers all the time, right,
So we just kind of put itout online and it's at like sixty
million streams or something now jesus,yeah, like on its own, with
(33:34):
no radio, none of that stuff. Dude, just straight up just on
its own, which is pretty awesome. Then you realize, wait, the
Universal is getting all that money allright, Well, how about we're just
gonna do distribution deals from now on. So then comes Eminem. So we
ended up doing the Eminem song.And that was another one that I had
had in mind, like this wouldbe cool to do. I always wanted
(33:58):
to do a song like that.I like rack rock stuff. I always
kind of grew up on that stuff. I mean, who doesn't like him
and M and I just felt likewe could rock it up and make it
cool and that was another one wedid and I think that was it like
forty million screams or whatever. Samething. No radio, no music video,
none of that stuff. And that'snot through Universal, right, that's
just through you guys. Yeah,yeah, yeah, we just we put
(34:19):
that out ourselves, which is great. We were able to like just gain
some fans that way too. Andyou know, we started playing that in
the set live and oh, y'alldo y'all play that? Y'all added that
to your set? Oh that's rad. We do like a mashup of that
and a couple of the other coversthat we've done. Oh that's kick ass.
Eminem, I would say, that'sa guy that he's done so much
(34:40):
right in his career. It's crazy. Like covering him it is not easy.
There's gonna be a lot of peoplethat are gonna be like, man,
you better not fuck up. Youknow right, Well you didn't.
The song is dope as ship.That was important to me to try to
keep it true to like how itwas rappy, but you know, just
kind of change some of the elementsof the music around. Do you know
if he's heard it, if Eminemhas heard it, Oh yeah, he
(35:04):
said it's terrible. He said hefucking hates it. Nah, for real.
No, I don't know. Idon't know, but no one's ever
said, I imagine, listen toit and say, this is pretty fucking
awful. But that's because he's afucking genius. Man. He's a genius,
and he's done rap, god andshit and all this other stuff.
I'm sure that he probably is onehundred percent grateful and humbled where he's at
(35:28):
in his career, and that songLose Yourself did a lot for him and
continuously still does. That's global shit, man, there for real. Okay,
finally, I want to talk aboutthis thing I stumbled upon on Instagram.
It's one of the cutest things I'veever seen. Are you singing with
your daughter on Instagram? Yeah?So we started doing TikTok stuff and then
(35:52):
grew that. I'm at like onepoint four million followers right now just from
doing covers with my daughter and thenon TikTok. Yeah, I'm showcasing her.
And I've been putting him on Instagramtoo and growing the Instagram and in
Facebook a little bit here too.So that's been great, man, that's
been just positive since you know,losing Wayne in March and just the timing
(36:14):
of doing that stuff with her.I always tried to encourage her to sing
and stuff, and I knew shehad a great voice, just trying to
tap into it, you know,and figure out whenever she was ready.
I just couldn't as a parent.I didn't want to like force her,
and I didn't want to I wantedher to like want to do it,
(36:35):
and I hope that there would comea time that she would, whether it
be sixteen or eleven whatever, youknow. And she was eleven when we
started making these videos and stuff,and she just turned twelve and it's been
great. Well, I know thatearlier we talked about one of your priorities
for making some significant life changes anddecisions was the family aspect of it and
(36:58):
to be a role model and tobe there. Yeah, I'm gonna tell
you what, man, that fatherdaughter singing that is gonna be some shit
she is going to remember on herdeathbed one hundred years from now. That's
where it's at. That is parentingone on one. Dude, You're doing
a fucking killer job with that.That is the fucking sweetest thing I've ever
seen. That is so cool anddude, she's like she's doing her own
(37:20):
ship, bro, Like she's we'reabout to go, She's about to go
work with Howard Benson and call itin La like on her own stuff.
Like, yeah, it's pretty coolman, the ship that's been happening lately.
She's gonna be dropping some original stuffhere soon. Oh wow, are
you any part of that? Probablynot, But I'm a part of this
as far as like I'll be doingmusic and helping out there, and that's
(37:44):
what I meant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But she's got to grow
the wings and I want her tobe able to do her own stuff.
But I'm gonna be there for sureand make sure that nobody fucks with her.
Yeah, you're gonna teach her theins and outs right. Oh yeah,
hey, don't sign that contract.That contract sucks. Bobby. Where
can people find you on social media? Man? My name Bobby and Maru.
(38:05):
I post more there than I doon the Saliva stuff. But the
Saliva pages are still active and good. But yeah, I'm on all that
stuff. TikTok's a good one onceagain. Streetwalkers the new album, Revelation.
It comes out September eight, twentytwenty three. A couple of days
later, like on the tenth that'swhen the Snaphoo tour starts. Drowning Pool
(38:28):
at Elita's Way and any given Sunday, I am so excited, except that
you're not coming anywhere near me,so that sucks. I don't know what
I did to you in a previouslife, but that's cool. I dig
it. Are you guys gonna addtour dates as this goes? Yeah,
we are good. Well, maybeyou'll come down here. You go to
Austin all the time, dude,Come on, Well you don't, but
(38:50):
you could. You're in Austin,No, but I could get there.
I'm in San Antonio. Get'all'sasses down here, bro, I've got
to say, yes, san Antonio. We've had like a couple good shows
there. I've probably played San Antoniolike eight times and probably had two good
shows there. That's a tough market, I've found out. It's like people
really love metal there. Metals likea big, big thing there, and
(39:13):
you know, but we did wehad a couple of good shows there,
Like I think we played Outdoor onewith Pod and a bunch of bands years
ago, and then we did thetheater there. What's that theater downtown the
Majestic. Yeah that maybe the Majesticwith Puddle and it was then twenty nineteen.
Oh rad Yeah, that was afun show. Well that is kick
ass. Well, Austin is probablya little friendlier, right maybe. No,
(39:37):
I mean we've had like the showsin San Antonio were fun shows.
They just I always felt like wewere always in santace Cino on like Tuesday
night or like Wednesday night or Okay, it's like, man, we got
to get there on a weekend.Yeah, san Antonio is not really we
don't really do shit on Tuesdays andwin well kick ass hopefully when you do.
When you guys do add some showssome dates at the back end of
(39:59):
the the tour. Maybe you'll comesomewhere near me, Austin, San Antonio,
somewhere around there. It would berad as balls to check you guys
out live. Lastly, I didn'treally want to give it a lot of
room because I know that it's touchy. I just wanted to say that I
am so sorry about your friend.That is all I wanted to say.
I'm so sorry. Appreciate Yes,sir Bobby Amru from Saliva. As we're
(40:24):
heading out, is there anything thatwe didn't talk about or I didn't ask
you about that you specifically wanted totalk about today, Like, did I
miss anything? Did we cover everything? I think so? Man, I'm
good. I'm good here. Allright. Well, dude, go melt
faces, which it's hard to do. Cinceuri Alaska weird. You are going
(40:44):
to be melting faces all over thecountry again, everybody. This NAPHO tour
starts September tenth with Saliva Drowning Pool. I'd leat this way in any given
sin. And don't forget. Saliva'snew album, Revelation, comes out September
eight, twenty twenty three, andhopefully I think Bobby might have promised us
all a Christmas present with an albumof covers coming out for Christmas. Maybe.
(41:08):
All right, Bobby, thank youso much. Man, You take
it easy. Thank you so muchfor taking the time out of your busy
day and your hectic writing and touringschedule to hang out and let us get
to know you a little bit betteron Fascination Street. Man. I really
appreciate it. Awesome, man,thanks for having me. You have a
great weekend with your dad. Man, all right, all right, peace
see it. Opening music is thesong fsp theme, written, performed and
(41:39):
provided by Ambush Vin. Closing musicis from the song say My Name off
the twenty twenty one album Underdog Anthems. Used with permission from Jack's all Over.
If you like the show, tella friend, subscribe and rate and
(42:00):
review the show on iTunes and whereverelse you download podcasts. Don't forget to
subscribe to my YouTube channel. Allthe episodes are available there as well.
Check me out on the vio atFascination Street Pod and TikTok at Fascination Street
Pod, And again, thanks forlistening.
Hey, what's up. This isBobby Emery from Saliva and you're watching Fascination
Street Podcast. Yeah, yes,that amp was Fey. You'll visual down
the most its rest the street inthe world with my voice d Fascination Street
(00:21):
already no Street Brief, Welcome Backstreetwalkers. This episode is with Bobby Amru,
the singer from the band Saliva.In this episode, we find out where
Bobby was born and raised and whatgot him into the music business. We
talked about how he came to bepart of Saliva and now he's been the
(00:41):
frontman for almost twelve years. Wetalk a little bit about how the band
spent their COVID pandemic times. Theywrote a shitload of songs, recorded a
bunch of albums, a bunch ofcovers, all kinds of things. And
we talk about their new album,Revelation, dropping September eighth, twenty twenty
three, and Bobby lets me playthe newest single from that album, come
(01:03):
Back Stronger, in the episode.If you love Saliva, which you do,
or you wouldn't be listening to this, make sure you check him out
on tour the Snapoo Tour beginning Septembertenth, alongside Drowning Pool at Elita's Way
and any Given Sin. They're playingall over the country. Go check him
out at a place near you.And this is my conversation with the lead
(01:26):
singer of the band Saliva, BobbyAmerum. Be Fascinated, becaind Welcome to
Fascination Street Podcast. Bobby Ameru,how are you doing today? Man?
(01:46):
I'm good man, ladies and gentlemen. This is Bobby Ameru. He is
the lead singer, the front man, if you will, of Saliva.
They have a new album coming outSeptember eighth, called Revelation, and they're
going to be kicking off the SnaffooTour September tenth with Drowning Pool at Elita's
Way in any Given San Bobby,what I like to do is start from
(02:07):
the beginning. Man, were weborn and raised? Where did you grow
up? I was born in Charleston, South Carolina. I probably would still
be there. Who knows where thehell I'd be right now had I stayed
there with my family. But HurricanesHugo hit in nineteen eighty nine and they
destroyed a lot of the city,like where we lived. Our whole area
was destroyed, and my parents waslike, oh, what do we want
(02:30):
to rebuild here or we want tomove. My aunt at the time had
married my uncle who was in theNavy in Jacksonville, and she was like,
you should, guys should come toJacksonville where there are more hurricane watches.
You know. We moved to Floridato run from Andrew and all the
other ones too, But Hugo isprobably why I'm in moved to Florida,
(02:53):
so we moved to be closer tothem. I had cousins that were my
age and stuff too, and soI grew up in Jacksonville, I'd say
ninety nineteen ninety or whatever, livedthere ever since. Man, And at
what point did you decide that musicwas going to be your passion, your
future, your career, your wholelife. Really, I always liked music
(03:15):
at an early age. My parentswere into music. My grandfather was like
a lounge singer kind of style stufflike he loved Sinatra, and my dad
was all into, you know,all the seventies eighties stuff like Priest and
Maiden and a lot of that,you know, and then there was that
whole wave of the MTB and youknow, even the hair stuff like you
know, the Dawkins of the Worldand Motley Crue and you know, so
(03:38):
I was just a kid watching thatstuff on MTV and you know, watching
looks at Kill Video thinking they werelike super heroes, and shit they are.
I just knew that's what I wantedto do, man, you know,
but I was a drummer. Istarted as a drummer, and I
moved on to like guitar, andvocals kind of came last. I never
(03:58):
really knew that I could sing orwhatever. Maybe I still don't know.
I'm still trying here. Yeah.I grew up in Jackson, and music
was always something I wanted to do, and I just kept pursuing it,
and I would play in like neighborhoodfootball and baseball. I didn't play baseball
and stuff like that growing up,but I always wanted to play drums and
(04:18):
dreamed about being in a band andall that stuff early on, and started
putting my first band together in middleschool and from there on just didn't stop.
Now, at a certain point beforeSaliva, your band got signed to
like Electra Records or whatever, andthen something's happened and that partnership kind of
(04:39):
didn't really last or wasn't as fruitfulas everybody had hoped. How did that
not sour you on the whole business? Like, why didn't you just go,
well, fuck this, I'm out. I said that a few times.
But like anything else, you know, in this industry, it's always
somehow managed to find your way toget sucked back into it. It's like
(05:01):
the mafia. Yeah, it's likeas musicians, I don't know what it
is that makes us want to sellour souls so bad to be doing this,
But it's got to be because youlove it. Man. You know,
we wouldn't do it if we didn't, And it's like, what else
are we going to do? Themusic business is something that you've got to
learn it. Man, You've gotto figure it out. It's not for
everybody. It's gonna take you sometime to figure it out for sure,
(05:25):
like it took me a few times. You go through a few record deals
and you figure out, maybe thisisn't like the smartest way to go about
this, you know. And Ithink even with like a band like Saliva,
we had to learn the labels wantyou to be at the mercy of
them. They've always wanted that they'rein the business to sell records. They
don't give a shit how they sellthem. Who's behind the you know,
(05:47):
Milli Vanilli bro. They don't givea shit, you know whatever. They
want to sell records. And ifyou're selling them records, you're in there.
If you're not, you know,they're gonna go find someone else that
is. It makes sense, it'snot gonna wait. So I think as
the downloading and all that stuff startedto happen a lot more and labels were
trying to figure out different ways tomake money, they thought, why don't
(06:10):
we just do like three sixty dealsand take a piece of everything a band's
doing or an artist is doing,you know, So then it starts to
become a situation where the artist ismaking even more or less now, you
know, because the labels now takingthings that they weren't normally taking before.
But they're not able to sell aton of records like they used to,
so they got to figure out away to make money off of you.
(06:32):
I always say, I feel likelabels they only want to sign young people,
right. They don't want to signthe forty year old guy who's been
through like three or four of them, because I fucking know better, right,
average eighteen year old is going Ijust want to be signed. I
just want to go toward the worldand be the biggest rock star on the
planet. That's all they're thinking about. Those are the easiest people to get,
(06:55):
and then you can get them tosign these three sixty deals and basically
make the deal with the devil,you know, to become that big time
rock star that we all dream of. So back in the day, record
labels used to only get like eightyfive percent of record sales yea, and
the artist would get like, youknow, fifteen or whatever. And then
that's you're fifteen percent to split acrossmanagers and agents and everybody. You're getting
(07:21):
negative. You owe them money,you know. So about eleven years ago
or so, you gotta I don'tknow, a text, a phone call.
Hell, it might even have beenan Instagram message, I don't know,
but somebody rung you up and said, hey, Bobby, how would
you like to come sing for Saliva? How did that come about? So?
(07:43):
I had a friend that lived inJacksonville. He was a lighting guy
for a lot of bands like Godsmackand Limp, This Skit and a bunch
of big bands. And he wasalways on tour and gone, and he
had talked about wanting to start aband with me on the side. And
I had been doing a bunch ofmy own shit, my own songs,
and you know, for my ownproject. At the time, I was
doing like TV music, doing Qwork, you know, for some companies,
(08:07):
and pitching songs to like TV,like bar Rescue and like Kardashians and
like those TV shows and stuff.And I was making pretty decent money doing
that, and I was kind ofout of the game, like I didn't
really care to do anything other thanjust my own stuff. And well,
he called me. Jeff did,my buddy that was a lighting guy,
and he said, hey, man, I gave Saliva your number. They're
(08:31):
gonna call you. And I thoughtmaybe they're gonna call me about a drumming
gig or something, you know,not a singing gig. I didn't really
know that that's what it was aboutuntil I got a text message from Paul.
Those guys were notorious for not callingpeople. They were texters. They
would just text. I found thatout years later. But yeah, the
(08:56):
text just said something along the linesof, Hey, this is Paul from
Salivah. Jeff Egg given us yournumber. We heard a bunch of your
stuff. We really like you andlike what you're doing. Would you be
interested in working with us? That'swhat it said. It wasn't even singing
or anything. He said, wouldyou be interested in working with us?
And I was like, yeah,man, you know, sounds good.
(09:16):
Just let me know what you guysneed or whatever. And in my back
of my head, I'm thinking,you know, like, what the hell
happened that Josie? You know,I just didn't really know. And I'd
crossed paths with them before because theguy that did my Electra record, Bob
Marlette, had done several of theirbig records. He's the guy that was
like behind them and the first recordand stuff. So I knew of them.
I had never like actually met themor hung out with them, and
(09:37):
you just never know how it's goingto go. Three of them, Wayne,
Dave, and Paul flew into Jacksonvilleand we started recording. November twenty
eleven was when that call and stuffhappened. So here I am, almost
twelve years later, wondering if Imade the right fucking moods. I'm sure
you did. Here's a question thatis a little bit bizarre, and the
(10:00):
question comes off as genuine as Imean it, when you're joining a band
that has already an established band,there's a risk you can either become the
Sammy Hagar of van Halen or theGary Sharone of van Halen, and God
bless Gary Sharone, that wasn't agood fit. So in your mind,
were you worried that you were goingto be the Gary Sharone of Saliva or
(10:22):
did you already know you were goingto be the Sammy Hagar of Saliva?
Does that make sense the way Iordered that. I think Gary Sharone and
Sammy Hagar are both great. Absolutely. I think anybody that was going to
join that third slot for van Halenwas going to get the raf man,
you know. And then you gottasay, maybe it's van Halen. You
(10:43):
know, maybe it's not any ofthese other cats, but doesn't matter.
As the singer in the front man, you're gonna get the ship. You
know, you're gonna take it.You're gonna give eddievan Halen any shit.
He's eddievan Halen, you know whatI mean. So I think with this
situation is so different though, Likebecause when Sammy Hagar obviously joined van Halen,
it was still the mid eighties andshiit was just booming and like people
(11:05):
were selling millions of records. WarnerBrothers was like, we didn't give a
fuck, man, it's Van Halen. We didn't have any of that.
In fact, the band got dropped, it's well, they had fulfilled their
contract. They had to do onemore record. I think they were going
to get dropped anyway from Island,and that record was just poor sales and
touch. And so when I gotin the band, I just didn't know
(11:26):
what I was getting into. AndI don't really talk about this kind of
stuff either, but when I gotinto the band, I mean, it
was just fucking drama, man,drama from before, like all the previous
ship that I had heard in thestories and stuff. But the three guys
I could tell they really were justhungry for a breath of fresh air,
new energy. They wanted to stillplay music, they wanted to still tour,
(11:48):
you know, they didn't want toquit. They felt like, well,
this is either gonna work or it'snot. And that's the way I
looked at it too. I wasnever trying to come into the band and
be like, yeah, man,I'm gonna go. I can take on
the world and it's going to bethe greatest thing, you know, greatest
show on her. That was nevermy mentality. I looked at it as
this is just a good opportunity togo play with a group of guys that
(12:11):
have been doing this with this brandfor the past decade. At the time,
it was I think it's gonna befun. I'm up for the challenge
to be able to go out anddo my thing and influence my capabilities and
stuff. I mean, I knewthat I love being on stage. I
believed that I could do it,but it's all perceptions still, like what
(12:31):
is the public gonna think? Andluckily the fan was not at a level
like of Van Halen at the time, so there were a few years where
people still didn't know that they hada new singer, you know what I
mean. It wasn't like Doo DooDoom MTV. I'm Kurt Loder, fucking
Saliva, you know, decided topart ways with the guy from the Spider
Man soundtrack and all that stuff.There was none of that. I think
(12:54):
the transition happened very fast. Andyou know, I've always given credit to
Joe's and credit to what they didand achieved in the past, and you
know, I've always had a wholelevel of respect for that, even when
I didn't have to. It's justis what it is. But I always
tried to appreciate the opportunity that Iwas given. But I stepped into it
(13:16):
and I embraced it and I madeit mine, and I think I took
it to a level where it wouldhave never gone. It felt like it,
and these guys would tell you too. It just kept nose diving man
down. And then when I gotinto band, it was like we had
to stop from the bottom and goall the way back up. We're never
going to get to where the bandwas twenty years ago, because you know,
(13:39):
labels didn't mind spending five hundred thousanddollars on music videos and ship and
paying off everybody they needed to fora band to break. It's just not
like that anymore. The times havechanged. So we're just like we figured
out what works for our business,and you have to be content with that.
Just make records and make music thatyou love and think your fans are
(14:00):
gonna love, and you know,try to make new fans along the way.
Also. That's live Like I alwaysfeel like I always have something to
prove live, going out on stageand being able to prove it. I
don't know. Maybe that's that wholelike replacing a singer thing chip on your
shoulder. You always feel like youhave something to prove. Maybe Sammy Hagar
probably felt some of that too.I know, damn well, Gary Sharun
(14:20):
did. But a guy like SammyHagar, he probably felt like, I
can fucking do this. I'm gonnago do this. I'm not gonna be
like David Lee Roth, but I'mgonna do my own thing and I think
it's gonna work. And it did. Yeah, but it doesn't always work.
I definitely agree. There. Heystreet walkers, here's a word from
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(14:48):
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drink responsibly, Go bold. Let'sget back into it. So you're almost
(16:03):
twelve years now with Saliva, andall along the way you have had managers
and distributors and record companies and allthat. But correct me if I'm wrong.
Each experience with those individuals or thoseentities has taken a little bit of
the shine off of that side ofthe business for you guys, so much
(16:25):
so that, if I understand correctly, you guys manage yourselves now, is
that right? Well, we werefor the longest time, you know,
in my twelve years here, we'vehad a couple managers, you know,
a manager as I would call it, like, you know to someone who's
just like, yeah, you're great, man, awesome, Hey, can
you pay me my commissions? ButI gotta admit, like the people that
we have now like working with us, have been awesome and the great and
(16:48):
very patient. I mean, Iwould say just with the way things have
gone the last couple of years,you know, with all the coming back
from the COVID stuff, and likea lot of other bands and a lot
of other businesses in general, youknow, we suffered a lot during the
whole COVID stuff, especially a bandlike us where we only make money from
touring and merch. You know,so we're not selling a ton of records
(17:11):
and a ton of snow streams andstuff like that. Can't live off that.
So touring and merch is where youmake your money. Even the biggest
acts are going to tell you thesame shit. They don't want to spend
their own personal money due they're abusiness. You know, they got a
twenty person crew or whatever and peopleon retainer and shit, you know,
like they want the tours to coverall that. You know, that's why
(17:32):
they go do it. That's howyou keep your houses and you keep your
ship intact. But well, COVIDthing, it was just out of everyone's
hands and we went through it.And thankfully we got out of it,
and we you know a lot ofpeople other people had it worse, I
know, and they got out ofit too, And still dealing with a
lot of that stuff, just withfinancial things, but just got to be
positive and know that there's going tobe better, better outcome. So for
(17:56):
a while, you as the frontman, we're taking on a lot of the
manager roles, like as far astaking the reins of the business. So
when you were saying, like,you know, managers and things like that,
we had gone through a few ofthose. We had gone through a
few different labels, and nothing everreally worked or clicked until we got on
(18:18):
Megaforce, which was essentially just adistribution deal. But Missy has been great
and awesome to work with and dealwith through all these years that we've been
with them, since like twenty seventeenor so. I think I have a
great relationship with her and you know, anything we need or whatever, she's
been very good there and managing theband tour, managing the band, booking
(18:41):
the flights, booking the hotels,you know, handling, you know,
the w nine's all the tax stuffinfo, that's your guy right here.
I do all that stuff. I'vebeen doing all that stuff for still for
years. Yeah, still, well, you kind of had to, like,
you know, you tried the wholebusiness manager thing for a minute,
and then you realize they're taking acommission or they're taking a percentage, and
they're not paying you for like twoor three weeks after your tour, and
(19:04):
then they're like on fucking vacations andship with their families, and you're like,
uh, wait a second, what'sthe point We're not making Metallica money,
man. So I felt like wedidn't need a business manager. We
could something that could handle with aCPPA. It's easy, you know,
you gotta see on top of it. The thing the problem is is most
musicians, dude, have no fuckingbusiness sense when it comes to the music
(19:26):
business. They're just musicians. Youknow. I'm not going to say all
are like that, because a lothave learned and you kind of have to,
especially these days with social media andstuff. You're more hands on your
brand now than ever before. Usedto record labels like, Man, don't
worry, we're gonna handle at allman. We're gonna send you out with
fucking the greatest tour manager. Man, he just did fucking Black Sabbath and
(19:47):
the lead of Forward, Man,you're gonna be fucking in there, you
know what I mean. They you'relike, okay, and then we got
this guy over here, He's gonnado this and manage that, and that's
how everybody got taken advantage of manand the ones that we're more were hands
on and in the know of whatthe fuck is going on. Those are
the ones that have managed to eitherthey got fucked too many times where they
(20:07):
were over that and then they figuredit out, or they just knew all
along, like I don't trust it. I'm gonna fucking take control of what
I'm doing here. And I hadto do that with this brand. It
just everything. Every time we turnaround, it was always something else.
And then once Wayne and I kindof got on that same page of Wayne
was like, I'm not going todo any of this ship And I think
(20:29):
a lot of times two bands andI don't want to make it seem like
bad, like they don't know whatthey're doing or they don't have any sort
of business, but they also comefrom a time when they were putting out
records where those labels and those managersare like, well, just take care
of everything, you know what Imean. So when that happens, you're
like, Okay, well you alwayshave that mentality of someone's going to take
care of it, But me,I didn't. I wasn't around in those
(20:52):
times to go through that. Sofiguring out what works for us and what
works for our business is kind ofsomething It took a minute to figure out.
But once we figured it out,you can't really do it any other
way, now, right? Isn'tthat awesome? Once you figure out the
keys, you don't want to givethose keys to anybody. I want to
talk about COVID just a little bit. If this is correct, this is
(21:15):
pretty impressive. During COVID, youguys recorded an album of new stuff,
an album of covers, as wellas rerecording songs for the twentieth anniversary of
Every six Seconds EP, which youguys called Every twenty Years, and then
you personally Bobby recorded a solo albumand all of those songs together. It's
(21:38):
something like thirty four songs, Isall of that true? Now there's many
anymore, there's probably more like sixtysongs. If you're going to include like
the covers record, you're gonna includelike the EP we did, We picked
through about thirty four songs for thisrecord. Oh wow. But the covers
record, we probably did ten cups. You know, we had the EP
(22:02):
and this stuff I did. Idid like ten but I did a different
project kind of like a modern metalindustrial kind of stuff, like that's the
record that I did. And thenI also did some solo shit too,
like some some like Oasis sound andshit. So we had a lot,
a lot of time, I guessreally, you know, during COVID is
(22:22):
what are you Gonna do? Wejust wrote a lot, and I wrote
a lot. But come Back Strongerwas that was like the first song that
we had for this record or thatwe thought, oh, this would be
a great direction to go. Waynewas like when I played him the idea
I had in like twenty nineteen,I had like some music ideas and stuff
and like kind of what I wantedto do, and he was like that,
that's it, that's the next record. Whatever fuck it, do that
(22:47):
and then we'll fucking throw nine othersongs around it, so you know,
and this was come Back Stronger.Yeah, that was the one that he
was really high up on because hedid want the record to be heavier and
he wanted to feel modern, andI mean so did I. I mean
I just felt like, you know, we really wanted to try and get
back into radio and octane and stufflike that. And I was like,
(23:07):
dude, why don't we just makesome bangers, man, some solid,
damn you know, hard rock songs. And we felt like we made a
great record, man. So ouridea was it we were going to record
the record in twenty twenty early onand then release it late summer. That
was the idea. But then allthe COVID stuff happened, and we just
kept pushing it back and pushing itback, and then we were like,
(23:29):
well, we want to do somethingfor the twentieth anniversary in two thousand and
one, so we did the EPand twenty one Yeah, in twenty twenty
one, yeah, And then thenyou know, twenty twenty two, We're
like, well, maybe we'll putthe record out this year. Then happened.
We just kept writing and well,I'm glad you brought up the newest
single from the album. The album'sRevelation, comes out September eight. The
(23:52):
newest single is come Back Stronger.How was gonna ask you anyway? But
since it's so organically came up I'llask you now, Bobby, can I
play that song on this episode?Play it? Yeah, dude, please?
Would you like to introduce it likeyou're a radio DJ. Yeah,
I don't think I have a radiovoice. Are you out of your mind?
(24:15):
Give it a shot. Introduce thatsong off the new album. Tell
everybody when it's coming out. Hey, guys, new record Revelation coming out
September, the eighth New Saliva.This has come back stronger. Call me
(25:00):
out. I swear I still havemy last press blocked me down on my
knees. But I am not fredfrom the charm of the thing. I
will not suffer cay, not downfrom until my sup the just to fly.
(25:25):
It came back standing until down lies. I calm Bay strong, say
it's so long te I was beforeI battle, and I went the way
(25:49):
I just slow as I seen youunder rest and make all the strength that
I came from, all of mymistake, lock down, all intil the
fire myself, all that just afight come back. I'm standing till love
(26:14):
not down. Guys. Not callpast strong Time, strong Clock. I
(26:41):
will call past roll Car, Iwill call blast long clock, I will
call black Drong clock by strong CarYard lock down, all to the boyer
(27:11):
b stop all that test the bodycome back. I stand, It's all
love not down, lies up,Jo pass strong, jop pass Strong.
(27:33):
I will come past strong clock.I will come past strong Clock. I
will come past strong fantastic Thank you. That song is dope as balls.
(28:06):
By the way, is it okayif I say that you're a sober person?
Yeah? For sure? Okay,how is it different because you write
a lot of the songs you know, with other people, with people not
even in the band. You writestuff. But how is it different to
write as a sober person versus youknow, you're writing all these songs back
(28:27):
when you were you know, drinkingand having a hell of a time.
Do you have anything to even writeabout it anymore? It's different? Do
you have a more clear mind?But for me, like from when I
was not sober to where I amlike now with writing, I mean,
I definitely tell a difference in thewriting. But I find myself going back
(28:48):
to those moments of those struggles andthings that I've been through and what I
was going through, and I feellike I'm still telling to tell but just
showing like improvement and overcoming that youknow, come back stronger. It's kind
of about that when you're down,you gotta get up and you gotta fight,
you know, And like for me, my story is different from everybody
(29:11):
else. You know, this guy'sgot a different story or this girl's got
a different story and things that they'restruggle with and their addictions and stuff.
And I think that we don't walkin their shoes, so we don't really
know what they're going through, whatthey're thinking. But for me, it
was huge accomplishment to get sober,and you know, a lot of positive
things just happened in my life onceI did. Now, I think you're
(29:33):
right out somewhere around like five anda half years or something like that,
sober. This October will be fiveyears. Oh okay, well in advance,
let me wish you a congratulation.It's well done, sir. You're
welcome. Was there a reason,like, did you become sober for a
specific reason or just because in general? He felt like that was a better
decision. Oh yeah, definitely abetter decision for sure. So it wasn't
(29:57):
like you ran over your kid's dog, you're anything, and when you're like
shit, No, it wasn't reallythat. It wasn't like one incident.
It was things that just kind ofbuilt up. That's how it is with
a lot of people. I meana lot of times it might take that
one thing though, Like once again, everybody's different. You know, if
a guy is drinking and drinking drinkingand the next thing you know, he
(30:18):
like harm somebody in an accident orsomething, that can be a wake up
call. But a lot of timesit still isn't for people, you know,
like and that's the fucked up realityof struggling with that ship. You
know, for me, it wasjust things that kept building, and I
just I wanted something better for mylife. You know, I have a
new wife, and you know Ihad my kids and stuff too, and
(30:38):
I just wanted better things for usoverall. And I knew that that started
with me. You know, whenyou're kind of like the head of the
household or whatever, you have tobe positive influence and good role model and
just try to do the best youcan. Read well, I do love
that. I do. I wantto move away from that though, because
that's not really a focus. Ijust wanted to high it because it's impressive.
(31:00):
Again, well done, good foryou, and I love that The
family aspect was a big part ofthe decision behind it. That's amazing.
I want to talk about your coversongs, the covers that you guys did.
Are you guys releasing them as singlesor is there a plan to release
them as an album? Man?You know what, the more I think
about it, I might just dropthat shit at Christmas or something. You
(31:21):
know. I don't know, like, because I mean, I've got them.
They're just sitting there. Nobody's hurtthem except for one of them.
I've heard it. It sounds amazing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
but no, like you know,there's just a lot of other songs that
haven't been released, and we shouldprobably put them out, you know,
absolutely. I'm particularly interested in whyyou guys chose to cover Eminem's Lose Yourself,
(31:44):
which, by the way, isfucking awesome. You guys did a
great job on this time. Coversare like really big right now, like
everybody's doing covers. But at thattime, people still weren't really doing a
whole lot of covers. It'd bewhite one here and there, and be
like one on a band's record andstuff. But now it's just like every
time everywhere you look, there's abunch of covers going on and which is
(32:07):
great. I mean, you know, people are using it to gain audience
and build their fan base. Andfor me, it started when we did
the Michael Jackson song in twenty sixteenThey Don't Care About Us. But at
that time, I was just intolike wanting to do covers that would just
be different, like do something thatnobody's ever gonna think that we're gonna do.
You know, see how it goes. And then we did that one
(32:27):
and we were on Universal at thetime, and the label was like they
remember they called me and this isabout the they Don't Care about Us song
and they're like, hey, sowhat do you think should be the first
single? And I told them thatshould be the first single. They're like,
oh, we don't hear it.I'm like, okay, well I
remember going on YouTube at that timetoo, and that Michael Jackson version was
(32:49):
it like three hundred million streams orsomething. I'm like, what is it
that they don't get? I don'tknow, I'll never know whatever. So
it ends up just growing eggs onits own and doing it something. All
we did was we did a lyricvideo for it, but it was like
this video that had a bunch ofold footage of like rioting and like all
this crazy stuff. And this wasI think twenty sixteen was like election year
(33:12):
two. So we're not a politicalband. We're not, never have been.
I've never really been into that kindof stuff, but it just felt
like the timing could have been rightfor a song like that and a time
where people weren't really dropping a wholeton of covers all the time, right,
So we just kind of put itout online and it's at like sixty
million streams or something now jesus,yeah, like on its own, with
(33:34):
no radio, none of that stuff. Dude, just straight up just on
its own, which is pretty awesome. Then you realize, wait, the
Universal is getting all that money allright, Well, how about we're just
gonna do distribution deals from now on. So then comes Eminem. So we
ended up doing the Eminem song.And that was another one that I had
had in mind, like this wouldbe cool to do. I always wanted
(33:58):
to do a song like that.I like rack rock stuff. I always
kind of grew up on that stuff. I mean, who doesn't like him
and M and I just felt likewe could rock it up and make it
cool and that was another one wedid and I think that was it like
forty million screams or whatever. Samething. No radio, no music video,
none of that stuff. And that'snot through Universal, right, that's
just through you guys. Yeah,yeah, yeah, we just we put
(34:19):
that out ourselves, which is great. We were able to like just gain
some fans that way too. Andyou know, we started playing that in
the set live and oh, y'alldo y'all play that? Y'all added that
to your set? Oh that's rad. We do like a mashup of that
and a couple of the other coversthat we've done. Oh that's kick ass.
Eminem, I would say, that'sa guy that he's done so much
(34:40):
right in his career. It's crazy. Like covering him it is not easy.
There's gonna be a lot of peoplethat are gonna be like, man,
you better not fuck up. Youknow right, Well you didn't.
The song is dope as ship.That was important to me to try to
keep it true to like how itwas rappy, but you know, just
kind of change some of the elementsof the music around. Do you know
if he's heard it, if Eminemhas heard it, Oh yeah, he
(35:04):
said it's terrible. He said hefucking hates it. Nah, for real.
No, I don't know. Idon't know, but no one's ever
said, I imagine, listen toit and say, this is pretty fucking
awful. But that's because he's afucking genius. Man. He's a genius,
and he's done rap, god andshit and all this other stuff.
I'm sure that he probably is onehundred percent grateful and humbled where he's at
(35:28):
in his career, and that songLose Yourself did a lot for him and
continuously still does. That's global shit, man, there for real. Okay,
finally, I want to talk aboutthis thing I stumbled upon on Instagram.
It's one of the cutest things I'veever seen. Are you singing with
your daughter on Instagram? Yeah?So we started doing TikTok stuff and then
(35:52):
grew that. I'm at like onepoint four million followers right now just from
doing covers with my daughter and thenon TikTok. Yeah, I'm showcasing her.
And I've been putting him on Instagramtoo and growing the Instagram and in
Facebook a little bit here too.So that's been great, man, that's
been just positive since you know,losing Wayne in March and just the timing
(36:14):
of doing that stuff with her.I always tried to encourage her to sing
and stuff, and I knew shehad a great voice, just trying to
tap into it, you know,and figure out whenever she was ready.
I just couldn't as a parent.I didn't want to like force her,
and I didn't want to I wantedher to like want to do it,
(36:35):
and I hope that there would comea time that she would, whether it
be sixteen or eleven whatever, youknow. And she was eleven when we
started making these videos and stuff,and she just turned twelve and it's been
great. Well, I know thatearlier we talked about one of your priorities
for making some significant life changes anddecisions was the family aspect of it and
(36:58):
to be a role model and tobe there. Yeah, I'm gonna tell
you what, man, that fatherdaughter singing that is gonna be some shit
she is going to remember on herdeathbed one hundred years from now. That's
where it's at. That is parentingone on one. Dude, You're doing
a fucking killer job with that.That is the fucking sweetest thing I've ever
seen. That is so cool anddude, she's like she's doing her own
(37:20):
ship, bro, Like she's we'reabout to go, She's about to go
work with Howard Benson and call itin La like on her own stuff.
Like, yeah, it's pretty coolman, the ship that's been happening lately.
She's gonna be dropping some original stuffhere soon. Oh wow, are
you any part of that? Probablynot, But I'm a part of this
as far as like I'll be doingmusic and helping out there, and that's
(37:44):
what I meant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, But she's got to grow
the wings and I want her tobe able to do her own stuff.
But I'm gonna be there for sureand make sure that nobody fucks with her.
Yeah, you're gonna teach her theins and outs right. Oh yeah,
hey, don't sign that contract.That contract sucks. Bobby. Where
can people find you on social media? Man? My name Bobby and Maru.
(38:05):
I post more there than I doon the Saliva stuff. But the
Saliva pages are still active and good. But yeah, I'm on all that
stuff. TikTok's a good one onceagain. Streetwalkers the new album, Revelation.
It comes out September eight, twentytwenty three. A couple of days
later, like on the tenth that'swhen the Snaphoo tour starts. Drowning Pool
(38:28):
at Elita's Way and any given Sunday, I am so excited, except that
you're not coming anywhere near me,so that sucks. I don't know what
I did to you in a previouslife, but that's cool. I dig
it. Are you guys gonna addtour dates as this goes? Yeah,
we are good. Well, maybeyou'll come down here. You go to
Austin all the time, dude,Come on, Well you don't, but
(38:50):
you could. You're in Austin,No, but I could get there.
I'm in San Antonio. Get'all'sasses down here, bro, I've got
to say, yes, san Antonio. We've had like a couple good shows
there. I've probably played San Antoniolike eight times and probably had two good
shows there. That's a tough market, I've found out. It's like people
really love metal there. Metals likea big, big thing there, and
(39:13):
you know, but we did wehad a couple of good shows there,
Like I think we played Outdoor onewith Pod and a bunch of bands years
ago, and then we did thetheater there. What's that theater downtown the
Majestic. Yeah that maybe the Majesticwith Puddle and it was then twenty nineteen.
Oh rad Yeah, that was afun show. Well that is kick
ass. Well, Austin is probablya little friendlier, right maybe. No,
(39:37):
I mean we've had like the showsin San Antonio were fun shows.
They just I always felt like wewere always in santace Cino on like Tuesday
night or like Wednesday night or Okay, it's like, man, we got
to get there on a weekend.Yeah, san Antonio is not really we
don't really do shit on Tuesdays andwin well kick ass hopefully when you do.
When you guys do add some showssome dates at the back end of
(39:59):
the the tour. Maybe you'll comesomewhere near me, Austin, San Antonio,
somewhere around there. It would berad as balls to check you guys
out live. Lastly, I didn'treally want to give it a lot of
room because I know that it's touchy. I just wanted to say that I
am so sorry about your friend.That is all I wanted to say.
I'm so sorry. Appreciate Yes,sir Bobby Amru from Saliva. As we're
(40:24):
heading out, is there anything thatwe didn't talk about or I didn't ask
you about that you specifically wanted totalk about today, Like, did I
miss anything? Did we cover everything? I think so? Man, I'm
good. I'm good here. Allright. Well, dude, go melt
faces, which it's hard to do. Cinceuri Alaska weird. You are going
(40:44):
to be melting faces all over thecountry again, everybody. This NAPHO tour
starts September tenth with Saliva Drowning Pool. I'd leat this way in any given
sin. And don't forget. Saliva'snew album, Revelation, comes out September
eight, twenty twenty three, andhopefully I think Bobby might have promised us
all a Christmas present with an albumof covers coming out for Christmas. Maybe.
(41:08):
All right, Bobby, thank youso much. Man, You take
it easy. Thank you so muchfor taking the time out of your busy
day and your hectic writing and touringschedule to hang out and let us get
to know you a little bit betteron Fascination Street. Man. I really
appreciate it. Awesome, man,thanks for having me. You have a
great weekend with your dad. Man, all right, all right, peace
see it. Opening music is thesong fsp theme, written, performed and
(41:39):
provided by Ambush Vin. Closing musicis from the song say My Name off
the twenty twenty one album Underdog Anthems. Used with permission from Jack's all Over.
If you like the show, tella friend, subscribe and rate and
(42:00):
review the show on iTunes and whereverelse you download podcasts. Don't forget to
subscribe to my YouTube channel. Allthe episodes are available there as well.
Check me out on the vio atFascination Street Pod and TikTok at Fascination Street
Pod, And again, thanks forlistening.
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