Monte Cooley, founder of Barnabas, on the origins of the band: "The Lord put it on my heart to start a hard-rock Christian band in 1977, for evangelizing young people. At the time, I was unaware of *any* Christian groups that were playing anything that could remotely be called hard or metal rock; this was before I heard about Resurrection Band. " Monte eventually left the band. But Barnabas went on to record some of the greatest Christian Metal acheivements of the early to mid 80's. They were highly controversial and took a lot of heat and criticism from several "Christian leaders".

Read more about Barnabas on Last.fm.