Sonny Mayo

Sonny Mayo (born July 16, 1971) is an American guitarist, songwriter, and music producer. He began playing in a thrash metal band called Silence in the late 1980s. Silence (John Mayes, Benjamin Gaither, Louie Denslow, Jason Robinson and Sonny), regularly sold out venues in the DC Metro area including the "Bayou" in Georgetown. While with Silence, he released a nine track CD, Vision, and recorded a three song tape with Alex Perialas (producer -Anthrax, Overkill, S.O.D.). One of the songs from the tape, "One Race" was made into a black and white video filmed at the Bayou (note, the director of the video was John Brenkus, who now does Sport Science on ESPN).

He then joined M.F. Pitbulls with Shannon Larkin (Wrathchild America, Ugly Kid Joe, Amen, now Godsmack) on vocals, Jamie Miller (Snot, The Start) on drums, and John "Tumor" Fahnestock (Snot, Amen, Noise Within) on bass.

In 1995, Mayo moved to Santa Barbara to join the band Snot. Snot was signed to Geffen Records in 1996 and recorded their only full length release, Get Some, in May 1997. Mayo then rejoined Shannon Larkin in the band Amen in 1998 and subsequently recorded and released albums on Roadrunner Records (Amen self-titled) and Virgin Records (We Have Come For Your Parents). In 1998, Mayo contributed to the Vanilla Ice album Hard to Swallow.