Cypher Lock

Cypher Lock started when three friends from high school, that had recently reconnected, had decided that they wanted to share their passion in music by starting a band and spreading their creations all over the world. They initially started with Jeremy as the vocalist, Mariah on guitar, and D on the bass. They were happy with their beginnings, but couldn’t seem to meld in an appropriate way as they were missing a key point: a drummer.

Over the months and through countless auditions, none of the drummers proved that they could keep up the level of commitment and passion that the band shared. While in desperation, Jeremy and D had decided to purchase a cheap drum set from their local music store (K&B Music) and give it to Mariah so that she might fare better than their recent and temporary drummers. The following day they presented Mariah with the drum set to much surprise and hesitation as she had initially wanted to just play guitar. After she had messed around with the drum set and showed that she could come up with at-least a simple beat, it was decided that Jeremy would either vacate the vocal position and take up the guitar or do both to which he decided it’d be better if he stuck with one position and took up guitar, which lead them to a new problem: finding a new vocalist.

They decided that in order to attract a proper vocalist they needed to get used to their current lineup and have a few instrumentals completed. After writing five instrumentals, Cypher Lock then started to play in their local area in an attempt at attracting vocalists to audition to join the band as a permanent member. Over the following months and after having unimpressive auditions, Mariah’s younger sister Hallie had asked if she could audition to which the band replied saying that of course she could. At first being hesitant at actually auditioning, she came to the practice area and impressed everyone at the audition and was asked to join the band that night.

With their line-up complete, they now decided to begin the journey of creating music and spreading it to the masses. It took them a couple of months to finally mesh together, but the result was nothing short of amazing. The songs began to flow out of each member as if they were nothing more than extensions of themselves, to which audiences at shows quickly recognized and began to feel drawn to. After spending another few months playing their local area, they decided to start trying to play at clubs in different areas and got their first small break at JAXX in Springfield, Virginia playing a Localpalooza with a couple of other well known bands. During the show, Cypher Lock played their hearts out trying to win over the crowd and prove that they can play at that level with their limited experience. To which they did.

Their impressive performance surprised many of the audience members who quickly found out that it was their first club show and also impressing the owner of the club to the point that he invited them back to play a show that Cypher Lock had expressed a desire to play earlier: opening for Epica at the beginning of the year in January 2010.

With that show ahead of them, they decided that they needed to make sure that their songs were tight and that they needed to write new material to justify them playing a show of that level. In the two months leading up to their show playing with Epica, they played in their local area to promote the show and to get everything down tight.

Before they knew it, the night of the show was upon them and they were on stage to a packed house and playing with a passion and a purpose that came alive in the moment. Their performance was such that later, bands and numerous audience members came to congratulate Cypher Lock and tell them how amazing and impressive their set was. This was just the start of a great year for the band and received similar receptions in nearly every show they played. Members of the band have been told that Cypher Lock is now considered on of the best regional bands in the northern VA, MD and WV area.

That show had been a turning point in the band, now that they had played one show of this level they wanted more, and now they are determined not to stop or to quit until they are headlining their own tours and finally spread their music to the world.
Cypher Lock has many goals but two of the biggest are to be signed and to play the greatest metal festival in the world, Wacken open air.

The members of Cypher Lock have many diverse and eclectic influences ranging from orchestral to melodic death metal. Hallie herself is influenced by Angela Gossow, Maria Brink and Amy Lee while Jeremy is influenced by Randy Rhoads, James “Munky” Schaffer and Michael Ammott. Mariah has described her influences as a mixture of classical and orchestral, with a bit of heavy metal sprinkled on top, while D prefers to bust ear drums with his bass in a unique way that he says is an amalgamation of many of