We Came As Romans: Unite and Conquer
“In the grand scheme of bands everywhere, we’re not a big band, we’re not a major label band, we’re not on the side of billboards or anything remotely close to that.”
Joshua Moore and his band We Came As Romans are a week into their second Vans Warped Tour, the bus is stopped in Phoenix, Arizona and Moore is sitting in the back toying with fame ideologies. “But it’s never been about that,” he continues. “We’re not some selfish, fame-seeking, ego-seeking brand, it’s always been about wanting to get our message to more ears.”
In just over a week, the Michigan metalcore sextet will release their third LP Tracing Back Roots (their third nod to botany) and their second with producer John Feldman (Neon Trees, The Used, Good Charlotte). Lead single Hope and the title track have already sparked questions about a sonic resurgence; its synth-laden backdrops, anthemic percussion and sugary breakdowns are all reminiscent of debut record To Plant A Seed. But as the lead guitarist and lyricist tells it, natural progression had nothing to do with it.
“We’ve been slowly making moves to become a more melodic band but still retain that heaviness at the same time that keeps our core fans happy.”
The band wrote much of the record while on tour with The Used early this year, and while Moore says writing those six demos in between support slots wasn’t ideal, it did offer time for creative reflection.Tracing Back Roots borrows equally from To Plant A Seed, which Moore penned at just 18, as it does from their softer, piano-driven follow-up Understanding What We’ve Grown To Be. The sophomore record, lyrically, is the band’s ripened awakening, no longer naïve to the music industry’s pitfalls and the paradoxical burdens of touring, while the new LP tells of how the band navigated those discoveries.
“With this CD we wanted to show that we had gotten through that time and we had moved forward to become mature in our own right, but still remember the eagerness of To Plant A Seed.
“We tried to spread out the themes of all of our past music in the course of the CD which,” he stops himself, “not to sound like stupid or cocky or anything, but I think that it creates a good balance between melodic songs, repeating choruses and songs that are really heavy with repeating breakdowns – so kids can you know, I guess mosh to our ah…” he chuckles, “whatever the kids do these days.”
After four years with a band he gave up a Michigan University scholarship for, 24-year-old Moore has finally found a middle-ground between gigging enough to cover rent while still maintaining his hometown relationships. During the recording and release ofUnderstanding What We’ve Grown To Be, and an ensuing back-to-back, four tour run, the band were away from home 312 days of 2011.
“Everyone was just really burnt out,” he says, before listing the exact dates and number of days he hadn’t been home. He doesn’t pause, not even to do the math – which was perfect. “I’m really glad that we all came to that realisation, because if we hadn’t we might not even be in a band anymore.”
We Came As Romans do have one of the more amicable backstories to come out of the U.S. hardcore scene. Moore says he and bassist Andy Glass were merely attending university as a way to pass time while drummer Eric Choi finished high school. “He needed to at least graduate before we broke the news to our parents,” says Moore. The band then spent the next year living on two dollars a day, hauling a ten-seater bus across the bumpy roads of America – tours that resemble a microcosm of the jaunts they experience today. Interestingly, while their hard work and posi-core message has provoked vitality from disaffected youth, some media, in the way that the media are wont to do, twist their humble comments about rejecting fame and popularity to question their motives and accuse them of self-contradiction.
“It’s weird for me sometimes doing interviews,” admits Moore, “because publications will be like ‘oh you’re not interested in [fame] but you’ll do interviews, or you’ll put your band’s name out there.’ […] It’s kind of a double edged sword of yeah we want to play to more kids because we want them to hear what we have to say and that for some reason, comes along with this perception of some people thinking we want to be famous.
“In actuality I have rent to pay, if I wasn’t making any money out here I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent, I wouldn’t be able to pay off my car that my girlfriend uses to get to work and back. All of us, we gave up everything to do this band. When we go home we don’t have jobs, we’re home for a week at a time – we couldn’t have jobs. Unfortunately that sometimes gets confused with being greedy.”
The more he discusses these fleeting worries, the more vivid the themes from Tracing Back Roots become. In first single Hope, vocalist David Stephens sears into the lyrics ‘You have a voice to be heard/You’re worth more than words’; for We Came As Romans, vulnerability isn’t an option, neither is furtiveness.
“I hope [the record] inspires fans to make some kind of positive change in their life. Something that will make their life or someone else’s life better, that’s always been the goal.”
Tracing Back Roots is out July 26 through UNFD, the band is headed to Australia this November as part of the Vans Warped Tour.