Saliva released Back into Your System on November 12, 2002, through Island Records. Their third studio album reunited them with producer Bob Marlette after Every Six Seconds. Lead single “Always,” written by Marlette and vocalist Josey Scott, put that working relationship at the center of the release.
The Memphis band had released their self-titled debut in 1997 before Every Six Seconds arrived in 2001 with “Your Disease” and “Click Click Boom.” Back into Your System was their second album for Island, and the experience between those records gave Scott a different perspective to write from. His subject included what happened once the band found its way into the music industry.
In a December 2002 interview with Billboard, Scott described that change directly. “It’s a wiser and smarter window inside our lives,” he said. The band spent three months recording at Bearsville Studios in New York, with Scott thinking about how the whole album would unfold. He wanted a clear progression across the record, without making it a formal concept album, and room for tension to build and release.
He also resisted having Saliva reduced to a single genre. In that interview, Scott described their hip-hop influence as one ingredient among several, connecting the band’s range to the different musical traditions around them in Memphis. The members wanted their individual influences to survive the recording process.
Those contrasts gave the album more to work with than the approach fans knew from “Click Click Boom.” Brian O’Neill’s AllMusic review singled out the slide guitar on “Holdin On” and the combination of heavy riffs and ballad writing in “All Because of You” and “Separated Self.” “Raise Up” kept the rhythmic vocal delivery in the picture. The record made room for those approaches within its 12-song original edition.
“Rest in Pieces” widened the songwriting circle, too. Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx wrote it with James Michael, and its arrival had a personal meaning for Scott. In remarks published by Blabbermouth in March 2003, the singer recalled that Sixx had been an idol since he was 12. After they became friends, their conversations ranged from songwriting to practical advice about money and buying a home. Then Sixx called with a song he believed Scott should sing. Scott remembered nearly dropping the phone. A musician he had grown up admiring was entrusting him with a composition, and Saliva put it on the record.
The album debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard 200. Its lead single continued climbing after the release: “Always” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart dated February 1, 2003. On that same chart date, it stood at No. 2 on Mainstream Rock Tracks.
