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Saliva Loves VH
November 30th, 2004
Southern California rock radio icon KNAC has posted an interview with Saliva's Josey Scott that features a Van Halen mention. Highly cool that twenty-five years later our band is still influencing the people making the music of the day. Not so cool that the lawyers don't seem to be helping things. \
Here's the relevant excerpt:
"KNAC.COM: Well, I mean, I understand what they're going after, but I
think there's more to this Saliva record than they think. It's not Lynyrd
Skynyrd. There's much more than just being from the South! You've got-- I
hear a lot of Stones, well the "woo-woo's" on Survival of the Sickest.
and right at the break there's a reference right there. I know I'm not
crazy: you sing, "I'm gonna drive this little red love machine!" That's a
gotta be a "hats off" to Prince.
SCOTT: Oh, absolutely! It's certainly a "hats off" to Prince! Man, we are
huge, huge, huge fans of Prince! I think Prince is a fuckin' rock and
roll icon! And uh. I think that we were definitely tippin' our hats to
him. We actually, originally in that breakdown, that part of the song
where we have, "I'm a roller, baby, I'm a rider, so ease down and wrap
your legs around me!" Originally we had, "So reach down between my legs
and ease the seat back!" And we were also tippin' our hats to Van Halen!
And Van Halen's lawyers got on the phone and said that they were gonna
take 75 percent of the publishing--
KNAC.COM: WHAT? That's outrageous. That's just fucking crazy.
SCOTT: 75 percent. They were just really pissy about it. I - personally I
don't think anyone in Van Halen ever heard about it, but their lawyers
were just really shitty about it. So we decided to pull it. And Prince's
lawyers actually gave us a call, and were just enthralled about it. They
were ecstatic! They thought it was really cool and didn't want any money, and they just thought it was really cool that a young band like us was
taking our hat off to Prince. And I just thought that was a handled with
a lot more class and a lot more respect for a young artist by Prince,
than by Van Halen. Or at least their lawyers. Here again, the
communication between artist to artist is broken down by bullshit, red tape and money. And that's really sad, you know? That's really sad that
we can't live in a world that someone can't pay a compliment to another
artist without it being about bullshit."
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