Joshua Moore

Hailing from Detroit, We Came As Romans formed in 2005 while the members were still attending high school. By 2009, the band's line-up solidified, they'd released two EPs and landed a contract with Equal Visions Record. That official debut To Plant A Seed vaulted the band to international notoriety.

Lead guitarist Joshua Moore is the only present member who can claim to membership in the band since its infancy. Three albums and a million or so tour miles later, Moore's central role also manifests as the band's lyricist. Given the fact that the band has two vocalists, it may be considered somewhat unusual that We Came As Romans lyrical output is generated through its non-singing guitarist. But within the band the process is seamlessly democratic. Moore explains: "Whenever I write anything, I take it to the band and ask if this is how we want to be represented as a band and if it's something that we all agree with. I wrote all the lyrics for Understanding What We've Grown to Be in this notebook, and when I was done, I took it to the guys and asked them to read it. Everyone read it and agreed that that's how we wanted to be portrayed. So I do write the lyrics, but when it comes to the music as a whole, it's about what the band has to say."

Along with the band's powerful signature sound, which often borders on "epic," that message is distinctly positive ? so positive that We Came As Romans sometimes finds itself labeled as a "Christian band." Apparently positive lyrical messages flummox some metalcore tastemakers. "We're just try to be positive dudes and have positive lyrics, and that naturally just gets the Christian tag. That's what a lot of Christian bands sing about, and there aren't a lot of secular bands that try to be positive with everything. It's always easier to be negative about what's going on, and a lot of people take that route. We want to be a positive influence on kids, so we try to do that without any religious or political message."

Moore's first Ibanez of choice was the FR Prestige. Until this year the constantly touring guitarist might wield least four of them during any given We Came As Romans show, reflecting the band's inclination toward material that utilizes Drop D, C, B and A# tunings. But recently Moore reported some streamlining that allowed him to focus on his favorite instruments: "This Summer on the Warped Tour, I'm bringing my FR6UC with Bareknuckle Aftermaths in it as well as my custom wood grain FR Prestige, loaded with Duncans (JB/59). We were able to trim our set down to using 2 tunings, so I brought my two favorite Ibanez guitars with me! The black one I keep in Drop Bb, because it holds the tuning so well and lets the dirty parts sound heavy, but doesn't sacrifice anything when I switch over to clean tone. I'm also jamming my custom model in Drop D to play some song from our first album for the old-school WCAR fans!"



Here is a quote from Joshua about his gears:
"This Summer on Warped Tour, I brought my FR6UC with Bareknuckle Aftermaths in it as well as my custom wood grain FR Prestige, loaded with Duncans (JB/59). We were able to trim our set down to using 2 tunings, so I brought my two favorite Ibanez guitars with me! The black one I keep in Drop Bb, cuz it holds the tuning so well and lets the dirty parts sound heavy, but doesn't sacrifice anything when I switch over to clean tone. I'm jamming my custom model in Drop D to play some song from our first album for the old-school WCAR fans!"