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Behead the Prophet No Lord Shall Live came together in 1994 by way of Joshua Plague (Singer/Screamer) who carefully pieced the instrumentalists together with different types of players who had never played together before. Jon Quittner, or "Quitty" was in Josh's previous Olympia punk band Mukilteo Fairies, so there was a previous link there, but Dave Harvey (guitar), Michael Griffen (violin) and myself Jordan Rain (drums) were relatively new to each other.

Dave Harvey came to Olympia from San Luis Obispo, CA where he had played in a number of hardcore, punk and dirge bands. As a constant seeker of new sounds Dave was a perfect pick for BTPNLSL to push the envelope of what was going on in hardcore and looking into the future with a new and sonic or noisier sound that was needed for BTPNLSL. Dave is currently playing sitar in his epic Psych/punk/rock band NUDITY. See BTPNLSL's top friends for more info on Nudity.

Quitty had played in some relatively successful pop punk bands previous to the Mukilteo Fairies and who's bass playing I would describe as "Evil Muppet" in Behead the Prophet. Also noteworthy of Quitty's bass playing style was his technique which was very unconventional and most likely original. Because Quitty would play with his thumb, wrist and palm his right wrist would often have bloody sores after one of our ten to fifteen minute sets. For the record here is Quitty's extensive list of bands just for shits and giggles: Tight Bros from Way Back When, the Light Year, Brents TV, the Dukes of Burl, The Lyme Disease, Drenched in Blood, The Lesbian, the Special Friend, The Freaky Dashikis, the Joshua Plague Cooking Show Band, Sure, Krekiss & Testikles, Mundt, Honeybucket, Demasculate, Pinhead Gunpowder, Bastard Bitch, Witchy Poo, Bok Choy, the Pillage People, Tyce Teraway and Hessian Obsession (probably the best zine ever in my opinion).

This was a physically brutal band to play in. Quitty's bass would be bloody and his wrist/hand in pain, my drums would be splattered with blood from nicking my knuckles on the steel rims of my drums and as well feeling like I had run a marathon in ten minutes, drenched in sweat from head to toe. Though I could see their limbs getting tired I think Dave and Michael went largely unscathed due to the use of the pic and bow implements of their instruments. Unquestionably Josh bore the most damage, of course self inflicted in accord with the audience. For example, Josh would get lovingly jossled, smashed and tossed around, land upside down and hit his head on the floor while playing one of the songs. He certainly threw himself into the whole performance/audience which made BTPNLSL one of the most engauging bands of it's time.

Josh recruited Michael Griffen of Bellingham, WA after seeing him play with his legendary improv-noise band Noggin. Michael's style of playing in Noggin(often times) and especially Behead the Prophet could be described as frantic, noisy and cathartic; a perfect addition for BTPNLSL as this added to the disorienting and frenetic sound of the band. It would be easy to say that Michael never played the same violin line twice in the history of the band. I am currently working on a full length documentary of Michael here in Bellingham. If anyone has any footage of BTPNLSL on video, I would love to get a copy of it for the purpose of using it in this documentary.

During the first year of the band I lived Seattle and so we had people in the band from Olympia, Seattle and Bellingham throughout BTP's History. I moved to Bellingham in 1995 and Dave took my place in Seattle; he is now a resident of Olympia again. Previous to BTPNLSL, I played in a band called Patterns Make Sunrise, which could be described as sonic/emo/pop I guess. Joshua saw Patterns play once and evidently liked my drumming. I got to know Josh on a trip down the west coast with my friend Cameron Chapman who introduced Josh and I. During this visit with Josh, he asked if I was interested in playing in his new band he was putting together. Of course I was, and honored...

-Jordan Rain/Yogoman (drums in BTPNLSL)

Here is the Biography that was formerly on the Wikipedia Site on Behead the Prophet No Lord Shall Live but has since been deleted:

Joshua Plague and Jon "Quitty" Quittner were both members of Olympia, Washington's Mukilteo Fairies and when that band broke up around 1994, they quickly gathered together a group of musicians from Olympia, Bellingham and Seattle to form Behead The Prophet, No Lord Shall Live. BTPNLSL's name is taken from a Deicide song, and was given to them by an obvious death metal enthusiast in a supermarket, claiming to be the younger brother of Deicide's lead singer. Members were Joshua, vocals and lyrics, Jon on bass, Dave Harvey playing guitar, saxophone and feedback, Jordan Rain on drums and Michael Griffen on violin. Their sound was alternately described as crust punk, noise, queercore and by one critic, "spazzcore". The term "Screamo", although not in common usage at the time the band was around, has mistakenly been used posthumously to describe them. They released their first self titled, 8 song 7" single on Outpunk Records in 1995. In 1996, they played the Dirty Bird Queercore Festival in San Francisco where they made quite an impression and garnered many new fans. They then released their only full length CD/album I Am That Great And Fiery Force, a split release on Outpunk and Olympia based K Records. They later released two more 7" records, one a split with Joe Preston's one man band Thrones, on the label Voice of the Sky where each band did their own rendition of Blue Öyster Cult songs. Their last 7" release, on the Sound Pollution label, entitled ""Making Craters Where Buildings Stood"", includes "253-425", a song about the gentrification, technology boom and population increase that was rapidly taking place in Seattle in the late 90's when this single was released. In the wake of their full length album, BTPNLSL did a six week tour of the U.S.A. BTPNLSL were well received in many places thick and thin across the country in the all-ages underground music scene. One show of the tour took place in Fargo, North Dakota between two massive days of flooding. The young crowd attending this show were exhausted from sandbagging their town. Regardless of their fatigue from the necessary work of Fargo's repair, youth bounced off the walls that night in a joyous fervor, grateful for the inclusive thrashy sonic noise of BTPNLSL. Practicing the ethic in the name of the independent record label Kill Rock Stars, BTPNLSL loved and were well loved by their fans, due to the members friendly nature and approachable manner. For a band who has so little recorded, their impact has been remarkable. One critic mentioned the influence of BTPNLSL he felt he could hear in The Locust's music; however the two bands actually played together so this is arguable. There is no doubt about the influence Joshua Plague has had on the band Limp Wrist; their song "Ode", from the Complete Discography LP, is a tribute to Plaque, along with Gary Floyd of The Dicks and Randy 'Biscuit' Turner of Big Boys, the hardcore punk queer heroes of the band. One of the most remarkable attributes of BTPNLSL is that, for a band that might scare the daylights out of you with their loud, noisy and thunderous music chalked with angsty political and spiritual lyrics, they ultimately had an extremely cathartic and positive effect on their audience. If you were in the audience at a BTPNLSL show, you were part of the act whether you liked it or not. If you were anywhere in the crowd you could at least expect to get sweaty if not get an eye or bootful of Joshua Ploeg's body flying relentlessly this way and that throughout their set. After Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live broke up, Joshua Plague formed the band Lords of Lightspeed and, after that, The Special Friend. Dave Harvey and Jon Quittner joined Empire Of Man and, later, Tight Bros From Way Back When. Jordan Rain moved to Bellingham, joined the Reeks and the Wrecks, became a selector/deejay of Jamaican music and now leads and sings for his own 8 piece Yogoman Burning Band. Michael Griffen (of Bellingham) continued to play in Noggin, the legendary Northwest improv-noise duo with Eric Ostrowski. Once Ploeg stopped performing with his previous bands, he began performing on his own, sometimes accompanied by Michael Griffen on violin, and has released several CDs, including Sanctuary Sounds. Ploeg is now a gourmet travelling chef who has released a series of vegan cookbooks and toured the states a few times doing private dinners.