The original members were Stephan Ielpi (vocals), Steve Wishnia (bass), Peter Campbell (guitar) and Matt Superty (drums).
In their early years, the band was also noticed by the striking appearance of their singer Ielpi, who among other things wore a kind of mustache that consisted exclusively of two braids under the nostrils, which, according to Spin magazine, looked like "two encrusted stalactites".
Jello Biafra, an avowed fan, arranged a record deal with the Alternative Tentacles label, and their first LP False Prophets was released in 1986.
In the same year Wishnia and the current drummer Ned Brewster left the band after differences with Ielpi during a west coast tour.
This polarized the Prophets – while on the one hand their creativity and impropriety were respected, and comparisons were made to the British crustcore band Crass,[9] they were sometimes openly rejected by hardcore concert goers.
[8] Spin author Charles M. Young described the band's music as an "independent, punk-influenced synthesis of wildness, moodiness, showmanship and versatile arrangements", and the 1987 album Implosion as having a "pleasant, all-encompassing 1968 feeling ".
The blog Vinyl Journey stated singer Ielpi's live performance "gave you a picture of what a Communist Party gathering in a Cambodian madhouse would look like".
[4] The blog described the band as part of the hardcore scene, but highlighted the occasional use of piano and synthesizer in the music of the Prophets and attested to their closeness to classic British punk, but also to Alice Cooper and the Kinks.