A Rock concert Friday night will bring a mix of pop and praise to the Towers courtyard.

It will be the first time the band – a part of the music-focused campus ministry group The Rock – will perform at the Towers Residence Association, said Matt Heerema, senior in psychology who leads the band.

The band, usually referred to as “The Rock band,” is actually one of two bands that play for The Rock, a student group affiliated with Stonebrook Community Church, Heerema said.

Nathan Meyer, graduate student in engineering mechanics who leads the other Rock band, said the division is actually somewhat flexible.

With some members going back and forth from group to group, the Rock band “morphs to fit situations,” he said. “It’s not like we’re two major entities, but for cohesiveness we stay semi-separate.”

When The Rock started in the fall of 2000, there was only one Rock band, which he led, Meyer said.

This year, as the number of opportunities to play and interested musicians increased, the band split into two, he said.

This decision to split the band reflects the goal of The Rock and of Stonebrook “to be planting churches,” Heerema said.

“We want to form new bands as the opportunity presents itself,” he said, “So that when we plant a church, we have a band to send with them.”

So deciding to split the band was the easy part – the hard part was deciding what to call them, Heerema said.

“Basically, there are no band names,” he said. “Both Nathan and I are so picky about names that we both have yet to come up with one.”

“We tried Band A and Band B, but didn’t like the `hierarchical’ sense that it gave, one band being better than the other or something,” Heerema said. “Then we toyed around with Band 1B and 2A, but that didn’t work either.”

Pat Blair, junior in liberal arts and sciences-open option who plays guitars for the band Heerema leads, said someone once suggested military lingo-based names, “but I didn’t want to be in a band called the Eagles and they didn’t want to be in a band called the Hawks because we’re Cyclones.”

“Basically, we try not to, but we end up referring to them as `Matt’s Band’ and `Nathan’s Band’,” he said.

Currently, the band Heerema leads consists of eight ISU students and recent graduates, he said.

In addition to Heerema and Blair, the band consists of drummer Scott Chidester, Ames; bassist James Brinker, senior in music; keyboardist Heather Hanson, freshman in music; vocalist Rachel Nixon, Ames; vocalist Cliff Plymesser, junior in construction engineering; and vocalist Heidi Powers, sophomore in pre-business.

Meyer said the band he leads is also a mix of ISU students and Ames residents, including some other notable figures from the local secular music scene.

Derek Powers and Peter Bovenmyer, members of Ames band Envy Corps, play in his band now, he said, and another Envy Corps member Luke Pool was in the original Rock band last year.

Heerema said the band plays original arrangements of mostly praise and worship songs in “quite a variety of styles.”

And while neither Rock band plays original songs yet, they’re working on it.

Meyer said it is a goal for both bands to eventually be writing songs, something they’ve dabbled in.

Heerema said even though they’re dreaming big, the band is still pretty easygoing.

“Someone once said of us, we come in the door of seriousness, and layer fun onto that,” he said. “I think deep down we feel pretty serious about what it is we’re doing, but we definitely have a good time doing it.”

And a good time is what the band members are hoping for Friday night.

Blair said, “The event is for people who wouldn’t go to a religious event on a Friday night. I would be one of those people if I wasn’t in The Rock.”

Heerema said the band will open with some “radio pop hits,” including songs by the Foo Fighters and Jimmy Eat World.

The band plays secular pop covers because “one of the purposes of music at the Rock is to communicate with and connect with the crowd,” he said. “Why should we limit that to Christian music?”

“There are a lot of good pop tunes out there that have a lot of truth to them, about the world today and about the way people feel today,” he said.

After the first set, two people will “share their life stories, briefly,” Heerema said, including an ISU student who had to withdraw this semester for cancer treatment.

Then the band will play some “pretty standard modern rock worship” songs, he said.

“The big thing to remember is you don’t have to be a Christian to come out and enjoy the music,” Heerema said. “I’ve had a lot of people tell me … that they really just enjoy the music.”

The music will start at 7:30 p.m. in the Towers courtyard.