Silent Witness - A Band History
Silent Witness was started by bass player Hal B. Selzer, and actually
came
into fruition in the early 1990 s. Hal was the leader of a band well known
on the New Jersey music scene, called Adrian Dodz. Adrian Dodz included Hal
on bass, John Bushnell on guitar, Joe Nevolo on drums, and Freddy Dodds on
lead vocals. The band released a CD in the late 80s on Rock
Dream/Relativity Records. The critically acclaimed CD received great reviews
in all the major music industry publications, including Billboard, Metal
Forces, The Hard Report, the CMJ Music Journal, and Burrn Magazine.
In fact, it received a 5-star rating in Burrn Magazine s Demolition
review section.
The CD also featured guest appearances from Joe Zukowsky, keyboard player
with Prophet, and Bobby Bandiera, who is now the guitar player for Jon Bon
Jovi s new solo tour and album, entitled Destination Anywhere .
In 1990, Joe Nevolo left the band. Joe was a former member of the band
Phantom s
Opera, which included Alec Jon Such and, later, Tico Torres, both of Bon
Jovi. Joe was replaced in Adrian Dodz by Lance Hyland Stark, who was famous
in the local scene for his wild stage show, which includes throwing his
sticks 20 feet in the air, playing standing up, and running around the drum
kit. Soon after Lance joined, the band started to look for a new lead
singer. Lance took Hal to a small club in Clinton, New Jersey, to see Robert
Mason, the singer in a local cover band called Magnum. They played songs by
Billy Joel and Led Zeppelin, and Robert was a great frontman. Robert had
formerly played in a band with guitar virtuoso Stephen Ross, who put out a
highly acclaimed solo instrumental album on Shrapnel Records. They soon
asked Robert to join Adrian Dodz, and at first Robert was reluctant. He was
making good money playing in the cover band, and would have to give that up
to play with the original group Adrian Dodz. The first show the new band
played was at the famous Limelight Club in New York, to a packed house. The
band then played more shows in New York at CBGB s and the China Club, and
soon had record company interest. The band signed a deal with Epic Records,
but when the A&R vice-president left the label, the band also left the
label.
This is when the group started to evolve into Silent Witness. With new
material, and a fresh, new sound starting to develop, the band decided to
change it s name. The group recorded constantly, all the way up to 1997,
even while the members were working on other projects. John put out his own
side project, a blues band called Unguided Missile , which sold well in
Germany. Lance and Hal recorded with many musicians in and around New York,
and released a CD under the name Tenfold . Hal and Lance also toured with
Bobby Bandiera, and Hal did some shows with Bobby Chionard and Alan St. John,
both long time members of the Billy Squier Band, and Michael Clayton, the
drummer of Tyketto. Robert worked on projects with The Pack, which featured
members of Prophet, and with The Lynch Mob, featuring George Lynch of
Dokken.
He toured as a backup singer with Ozzy Osbourne, and has recently been
singing with Cry of Love. When Dean Fasano, the singer of The Message, which
featured Richie Sambora and Alec John Such of Bon Jovi, was looking for some
songs for a new album, he contacted Hal about some of the Silent Witness
recordings. Dean sent them to Khalil Turk of Escape Music, the UK label that
put out the first Message CD.
Khalil liked what he heard and contacted Silent Witness about the music.
For the second album, Thrills, the group got together with Anthony Lee Fontayne,
who had recently returned from Los Angeles, where he recorded with Warrant while
Jani Lane was pursuing solo work. Anthony's antics on the Jersey club scene are
legendary (he is banned from a few clubs around the state), along with his soaring
vocal prowess.
And the rest, as they say, is music history ...