Curriculum Vitae: The History and Origins of Coffin for Mary

Coffin for Mary is the musical order that not only is a band but also an exercise in spirituality and the exploration of various occult and artistic themes. With the vampyric archtype as a main inspiration for most of Coffin's sound.

It began in 1995, Coffin for Mary has been very successful as a recording project which for the past several years only consisted of its soul founder and initiator Tristan DeValler. Coffin for Mary has been a recording project for a substatial amount of time now but was originally intended to also be a live act but the absolute invocation to manifest this project into flesh was yet to be defined. Acting alone as a solo project Coffin for Mary recorded three self produced independent albums between 1996 and 2002.

Sometime in 2000 Tristan decided to take Coffin for Mary into more unexplored realms of creativity. Reaching back to Tristan's earliest metal influences, bringing the guitar to prominence and embracing more traditional rock structures, in a sense "coming home". With dark narratives and songs inspired by Vampyric and other etheric archtypes Tristan created a darkly enchanted sound, world and vision, from forging a huge worldwide fanbase from nothing to overcoming the isolation of being the sole creative force in the project, Tristan/Coffin for Mary became a force not to be cast off. After taking steps to establish itself on Mp3.com Coffin for Mary found unexpected success, between 2001 and early 2003 we reached as high as number 2 on the national mp3.com Black Metal charts and as high as number 5 on the National mp3.com Gothic Metal charts, with over 100,000 downloads as of the final days of mp3.com before it changes its ownership and overall layout which resulted in a huge lose of our online fanbase due to the fact they didnt know where to find us anymore. So finally we launched an official website and created this page here at MySpace to try and regain and restablish our once strong internet presence, we basically have started over our internet promotion and so forth but the timing could not be more apropos since we have once more decided to take our music to the live stage.

Band Members:

Tristan D'Valler - (Lead Vocals, Lead Guitar, Keyboards, Programming)

Some Personal quotes from Tristan:

“My birth name is Robbie but as my art progressed and my own sense of self was defined I assumed the oldest version of my mothers maiden name Valler or D'Valler which is Norse/Norman French in origin and Tristan which as alot of meaning to me on a personal level So many call me Tristan it does not matter which you address me by. I am the founder, lead vocalist and lead guitarist for the gothic metal band/recording project "Coffin for Mary". I also sometimes allow myself to be other things such as an artist within multiple mediums, oh yes I am a 250 year old vampyre....yea right, I’m so damn full of shit...…”

“Metal, music is my life, death and rebirth”

“Metal & Rock, Metal is Religion.”

“Many esoteric Occult traditions such as Thelema, Enochian, Nordic and Celtic shamanism, & runic lore, Spiritual Satanism, Gnostic Christianity. I seek enlightenment to the point of fanaticism, I have fallen into many snares that have hindered my spiritual quest but as driven as I am I now have found myself within a Illuminated Darkness.”

“Architecture, I have a degree in Architectural Drafting and design, I love gothic and classical architecture.”

“Art is very important, I draw in two ways, one is like a typical therapeutic way of making my visions and so forth have a physical representation the other is kind of a form of automatic writing I suppose, They show things, I receive them, they speak I draw, its weird. I am also into Photoshop and all that 3d shit I learned in school like computer animation and all that crap.”

“Writing, my new thing is writing, I am putting together a collection of poetic ramblings and lyrical explorations that I someday may finish.”

“Metal is like a religion to me, as I said before it is the giver of life, death and rebirth...the source of all inspiration... “

To find out more about Tristan visit his myspace at:  http://www.myspace.com/dvaller

Bain - (Bass) 

Images and Info coming soon

To find out more about Bian visit his Myspace at: ... link coming soon.