Photo by Sam Yu David and Teresa Hyden are shown Wednesday in their Frederick home with some of the instruments David uses for his Christian music.

Everybody has skeletons in their closet -- David Hyden has heavy metal hair in his.

The lead guitarist with the '80s Frederick heavy metal band Lynx, Hyden played it fast and heavy at clubs like the old Rabbit's Foot on Buckeystown Pike and on stage at Baltimore's rowdy Hammerjack's.

"I wanted to be like Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads, who played with Ozzie Ozbourne after Black Sabbath," said Hyden, who just released a three-song CD "Having Purpose" two decades after his Quiet Riot dreams. It's Christian rock, of course.

For a while, it looked like Lynx might break out. The band opened once for Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, for Kix in Ocean City, and got radio play on Baltimore's 98 Rock and D.C. 101.1. Hyden and his bandmates even signed a record deal with a small Pittsburgh company. But by 1990, the record company had collapsed and "we started to pull apart."

Everybody wanted to go in a different direction and drinking, drugs and the elusive rock 'n' roll lifestyle had taken its toll, he said. Hitting their late 20s as Grunge bands Nirvana and Pearl Jam released Nevermind and Ten in 1991, the handwriting was on the wall. Rock was moving forward. Hyden and Lynx weren't.

"We'd be at clubs and you'd hear someone was there and they were interested, but it just never happened for us," he said. "We played the circuit for seven years and things started to break down."

It ended like an episode of VH-1's Behind the Music.

When you're sleeping in your car in New Jersey, broke and haven't taken a shower for a couple of days," Hyden said, "you think, 'Is life really supposed to be like this?'"

He quit playing altogether, blaming the guitar and metal for his woes. Eventually, he finished his course work at Northern Virginia Community College and got a regular job for a cabinet manufacturer. Still describing himself as adrift in 1996, Hyden ran into a former acquaintance, the former bartender/manager from the Rabbit's Foot, in the beer tent at Baker Park during the annual Fourth of July celebration.

"I saw this beautiful blonde and thought, 'I know her,'" Hyden said. He asked for her phone number and then slept in his car again because he had one or two beers too many.

"We went to the Outback Steakhouse the next day for our first date," she said. "I'd been through it all, too, the drinking and partying. Bad relationships."

Hyden's arm was useless from sleeping on it all night. However, they hit off.

"We had so much in common, we had been through much and were both kind of broken people at that point," he said. "We clung to each other. Teresa was in the music industry in a sense, managing the club, and she understood all that, too."

They married in 1997.

"I made him cut his hair," Teresa Hyden said, with a laugh. "I kept his pony tail. I told him our children and grandchildren have to recognize him in the pictures."

They later brought a house on Yellow Springs Road, next door to Grace Community Christian Church -- not that Hyden cared one way or another. He cut his grass on Sunday mornings, watched ESPN after that and didn't go near the place.

Well, not for years at least. Not until 2002, when things were bad enough and they both were finally ready to seek help coping with life's ups and downs.

"We were still lonely, sick and tired; broken and scared," Hyden said. "We weren't happy. We had employment issues and financial issues, Teresa had gotten laid off from her administrative assistant's job. I guess I finally said, 'Why don't we go next door and give it a shot.'

"We accepted Christ as our savior and got baptized together in 2003," he said. "We turned to God when misery and failure seemed to be everywhere in our lives. God saved us together and it has made all of the difference to see the miracles He has done in our lives."

Still, David Hyden wasn't interested in playing the guitar.

"I basically put music down because of the drugs, late nights, sleepless nights and all the fighting," he said. "Someone at the church, however, found out I played guitar and asked me to come and play. I didn't want to."

Eventually, he relented.

"The devil had taken my talent and burned me with it," he said. "God's argument is 'I'm the guy who gave you this talent and I intended you to use it.'"

Convinced he'd heard his calling, David Hyden began playing again, now in praise bands. Today, as a member of Frederick 's Church of the Brethren, he performs nearly every weekend with Living Water at its services and at its Wednesday evening program, The Well. He said he's content to stand in the background at church, but is serious about resurrecting his music career.

"I'm trying to get a major record deal," David Hyden said. "If not something solo, maybe get paired with someone else; play the guitar."

He hopes the CD, co-written with his wife, will garner attention from Christian record companies. His brother Glen produced and engineered the tracks at his Frederick Glenjamin Studio. David Hyden sings and plays all the instruments, except drums. For that he brought in Josh Grossnickle, who sits in with the Frederick Church of the Brethren band -- although David Hyden does remain friends with former Lynx drummer Arnie Stewart.

A Lynx reunion isn't likely, though. Stewart is the only former band mate he kept in touch with over the years. He said he hasn't seen or heard from the other three guys in 15 years. Stewart, perhaps not coincidentally, also started attending church a few years ago and performing in praise bands.

"Teresa and I had both been raised Catholic and were required to go to church growing up," David Hyden said. "Like a lot of teenagers, as soon as we were old enough, we took off and ran. But that seed had been planted. We knew where to turn when we were in trouble.

"Still, sometimes you can't help regret that you wasted half your life chasing the wrong things."

(To listen to David Hyden visit www.davidhyden.com)