The crowd gathers at the front of the stage as Russ Mortenson, vocalist and bassist for the Eugene metal band In the Name of God, steps up to the microphone to timidly mutter a greeting to the audience.
After his barely audible address, Mortenson undergoes a drastic transformation from the man who just seconds before appeared shy and uncomfortable to a belligerent madman screaming ferociously into the microphone. At first the sound is overwhelming, but as you get a chance to let the music sink in, you start to pick up on the classical inspiration behind the leads of guitarists Geoff Miller and A.J. Chordas.
You feel the drumming of Wes “Bean” Robertson pounding in your chest with mechanical precision, and you realize that this is not ugly, not beautiful, not noisy, not coherent. It is not any one of these things; it is all of them.
Metal is often written off as “noise” or even “meathead music,” but just try to find a meathead that could write a three-part guitar lead or arrange a song like In The Name of God’s, “Cancer.” For many, metal is as creative and intelligent as any music out there, and the people who make it take their work very seriously. In the Name of God is one such band.
Tired of the increasingly homogenized metal scene in America, ITNOG’s founders Miller and Ferguson got together early in 2003 to form a band that was more than just power chords and bad vocals. Ferguson is a second-year music student majoring in classical composition with about 14 years of informal experience on the guitar. Miller, who was a drummer before ITNOG, took notes from Ferguson and quickly caught up enough to co-write music and play on stage. Their song-writing blends elements of classical composition with the brutality, speed and neo-classical elements of bands like Slayer, At The Gates and Bach.
They began playing with Troy Seavers, a drummer who currently plays for the band Satin Fury, until Seavers announced that he was more interested in playing music that was a combination of Mr. Bungle and The Bloodhound Gang. After parting ways with Seavers, Ferguson and Miller began to look for a new drummer and hold auditions for a bassist. They found out that another local metal band, Off With Their Heads, had recently broken up and they started calling the former bassist, Mortenson, who turned out to be a perfect fit. After Mortenson became involved in the band, the highly coveted Wes “Bean” Robertson, also from Off With Their Heads, agreed to join.
“It’s like when stupid Christians say God never shuts a door without opening a window, except we don’t really believe in God,” Miller said.
The band takes their name from a song by their favorite band, Slayer, but Miller said they also chose the name for the irony associated with it, specifically the atrocities that have been carried out “in the name of God” throughout history. He also likes the fact that one of the first questions people ask them when they hear the name is if they are a Christian band. If the lyrics were easier to understand, inquirers would probably understand why that question makes the band chuckle.
“My lyrics are very dark and apocalyptic,” Mortenson said. “My brain always comes up with crazy scenarios of stuff like zombies rising from graves and devouring humanity one bite at a time. Kinda like how the world would be if I was in charge.”
For now, the farthest away from Eugene that ITNOG has performed is Portland, but it seems to be the unanimous commitment of the band to become career musicians. By next summer, the band hopes to have completed a West Coast tour and all of them would like to be touring consistently in the next five years.

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