We Came As Romans | Display Of Raw Power
e Came as Romans is not a Christian band. This may come to as a surprise to some of you and some of you are currently silently calling me an idiot. Either way, you cannot deny the raw power and amazing performance that these guys display night after night. Currently on The Emptiness Tour alongside Alesana, A Skylit Drive, The Word Alive and Of Mice and Men, we caught up with guitarist Joshua Moore in a small dressing room at The Knitting Factory in Boise, Idaho to discuss the current tour, misconceptions about the band and the meanings behind labels and genres. The guitarist, plucking away at his guitar and sporting an oversized pair of sweatpants, couldn’t have been more gracious in our chat. What started out as a simple set of questions quickly turned into a whole other discussion altogether.
How did We Came as Romans get its start? And what is behind the band name?
Joshua Moore: Dave, our current vocalist played guitar and sang in a Christian pop punk band back home and he wanted to make some heavier music with friends so him and two other guys in his class wanted to start a band. Our first bassist ever played two shows with us then left. All the original members went to the same high school so we all knew each other through that. As time went on, we lost members and gained members through friends and what not. Way back when we had started our original drummer had left to go to college and he had done all the writing at the time. So when we quit we went through a major style shift and we wanted a new name really bad. We just wanted something really cool and anything was better than the name we had then.
What was the name then?
JM: Our original name was This Emergency. Never name your band This Emergency. It was awful. So as a bunch of kids back then we just thought we’d keep it. So the new name doesn’t really have any meaning to us, it was just something to go along with the style we were going for.
So there’s no Biblical reference in the name?
JM: No. We are not a Christian band at all. There are Christian members of the band but as a whole we are not a Christian band.
Will the orchestra aspects of your album be incorporated into your live show at all? Or is that something you’d like to do down the road.
JM: All the orchestra parts on our CD we have the exact actual part on a backtrack so it does play live. It’d be hard to tote around an orchestra on tour especially with the status we’re at (laughs). Everything we play live we try to have it close to CD perfect as possible.
Talk to us about the idea behind the title To Plant a Seed?
JM: It’s about our message as a band as loving one another, being compassionate and respecting people. It’s kind of funny because sometimes fans will say “Oh basically everything your parents tell you to do” and I answer “Yes, there’s a reason your parents tell you to do it”. As you grow up as a person, you realize life is way easier when you’re enjoying it and loving on people and being loved back so that’s our whole message as a band. If the kids read the lyrics or hear the music or come to a show hopefully that though or seed will be planted in their minds and hopefully it will grow and eventually if it does grow, which I believe it can grow in anyone, they can start planting that seed or thought in other people. You can see in the album artwork, the seed grows in the boy on and branches come from his hands to help plant that seed or message.
As with other religions, obviously treating people well is a common ideal. Do you think that’s why the question comes up to you repeatedly?
JM: We do get the Christian thing a lot. It’s kind of tough. Me personally, I’m a Christian but not everyone in our band is Christian at all. We try not to force any religion on anybody. There’s always an argument for any religion, you can debate it forever but no one is going to debate about the message we have now. No one is going to argue like “Oh I think loving people is a bad idea”, that isn’t an argument. Its human nature to love or be loved. It doesn’t matter what you believe in. If I personally choose to believe in Christianity and someone else in my band doesn’t want to believe in it but they believe in a certain set of morals like loving on people or whatever, whatever your beliefs are that’s how you should be living and us as people all agree on this. If you have a bunch of Christians in a band you should be living a Christian life. I don’t agree with the Christian label of labeling a band that. If that’s what you believe that’s how you should be doing everything not just the music you’re making.
I feel like you’re in a unique position then.
JM: I really don’t think that Christian is a genre of music. There are people who are Christian and make hip hop music or metal music. If you looked up Christian as a genre you’re going to get everything, rock, metal etc. That’s not what a genre is. A genre tells you how the music is going to sound. I completely disagree with the use of the word Christian as a genre. Yeah, it could be used to describe the people in the band or some of the lyrics but music as a whole should not be judged as a religion. I guarantee you that you could take a band to some people and say “This is a Christian band” and they won’t want anything to do with it but you could take a band to someone and say “This is a metal band” and they’ll say “Let me listen to it”. There’s no need to bring religion into describing how something sounds. I’ll tell every kid that asks me that I’m a Christian but even if I was in a band with all Christians I still wouldn’t label my band a Christian band. I hope this can get out to kids because it happens a lot with my band with me writing the lyrics of course they are going to have a Christian influence in them because that’s who I am but at the same time it’s not specific at all. A lot of people who are Christians and have the same view as me and it will have the same influence on them and they’ll say “Oh this band is Christian” but that’s the wrong call to make. There are people who will read the lyrics and who aren’t Christians who will be down too. I try my best to write my lyrics as non religious as possible but its tough when I see things a certain way and there are other Christians that see things another way. I just don’t agree with Christian as a genre. That’s my personal opinion, I don’t want this to be like my judgment call, that’s just my opinion.
Your guys’ music is very uplifting. How important is it to you guys to promote positive ideals through your music?
JM: It was something that we had discussed as a band and decided that if we were going to make it as a band or have any sort of drive to do anything we were going to need a message or a reason. We all have different religious beliefs and we all agreed this is pretty much how we want to live our lives, how the lyrics denote. Yeah, we get the whole Christian band thing a lot but its not exclusive to that religion at all. I think we get it a lot because there aren’t a lot of secular bands that have that message. Not a lot of bands are about what we are about but without having the religious message. That’s cool if you want to be about partying or drinking, I don’t want to say you can’t make music about that but at the same time there aren’t a lot of bands that have a message like we do. If you don’t want to have a message you don’t want to but we decided as a band that we needed to have a message and this is what we all agreed on.
How has The Emptiness Tour been so far, highlights?
JM: This tour has been ridiculous, I think every single show has sold out, maybe one or two haven’t. It’s been so awesome. We’ve toured with Of Mice and Men and The Word Alive before and being on the road all the time as our bands are its hard to really enjoy and cherish your friendships when you never see each other ever. The last time I saw the dudes in The Word Alive was July. It’s great to tour with people you’ve toured with before because all the friendship and all the jokes are still there so this tour has been awesome coming into it and A Skylit Drive are some of the nicest dudes. It’s been great and definitely the best tour we’ve been on to date. It’s been bigger than any other tour we’ve been on.
Describe your live show?
JM: Energetic. I think we put a lot of energy and passion into what we do on stage.
Every kid grows up wanting to be in your position. Is this life of music and constant touring all its cracked up to be? What are some of the pros and cons you have seen thus far?
JM: It’s weird because kids look up to us because we play on a stage and people think we’re cool. We’re on stage and we’re out for a specific reason, we get a lot of credit for it and sometimes I think its more than we should get. I know people who live with a lot more conviction than I do, it just happens be our job to play music and share it with other people. I try my best to explain it to kids that you can have that passion in other things, not just playing music. I love playing shows and being on the road but its not cut out for everyone to be completely honest but that doesn’t mean you can’t live the same way, or live with less pride or passion in what you do.
So this is your first full length album. Do you feel like To Plant a Seed fully encapsulates your sound or do you feel like you’ll be comfortable moving in different directions creatively as time goes on?
JM: In the way that our album is about planting a seed or thought in people’s minds, in terms of our album Its just the beginning for us, we’re just starting to grow so I think it fully encases what we’re capable of as a band. I hope we don’t get worse (laughs) so I think it’s all just the beginning of things for us as far as our sound.
