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In 2014 we\u2019ve seen quite a lot of Michigan\u2019s We Came As Romans<\/strong>. Having kicked off the year touring with Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!, The Color Morale and Palm Reader, they were back in the UK for Download in June and most recently they were back once again for the Reading and Leeds Festival.<\/p>\n We caught up with the band at the Leeds Festival<\/strong>, and with the release of their new live DVD, ‘Present, Future, and Past’,<\/em> being imminent at the time, we questioned Andy, Lou and Joshua about the release, playing Reading and Leeds for the first time and their US headlining tour. The trio also discussed the importance of staying in fans consciousness whilst trying to write a new record.<\/p>\n AH: For starters can we get your name and role in the band?<\/strong> Lou: I\u2019m Lou. I play guitar.<\/em><\/p>\n Joshua: I\u2019m Joshua and I plasy the other guitar.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: This is your first time at Leeds and Reading. How are you finding it so far?<\/strong> AH: What did you know about the festival before you came over?<\/strong> Lou: It\u2019s insane to say we\u2019re playing the same festivals with some of the bands we grew up listening to, that we idolise.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: I talk to a lot of American bands and it seems the whole European festival scene seems very different to the States?<\/strong> Andy: The whole way festivals are run over here with catering, backstage areas. In mainland Europe too we did a bunch of those this summer, last summer and the summer before that, it\u2019s awesome. They build little cities back there. Behind our stage right now there is like trailers that are green rooms. Every band has their own little house, and you just hang out all day then you go and play an awesome show. It\u2019s great.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: Have you had chance to see any bands yesterday or today?<\/strong> Lou: We had to leave Mice played. We will definitely see them tonight. <\/em><\/p>\n Joshua: They\u2019re good friends of ours. We\u2019ve toured together when they were just starting out, and we were too. Yesterday we had a ton of press, we were there for three hours. We decided to do this whole thing ourselves. We only had one crew guy with us, then after that we were all setting up all our own stuff at the stage. It\u2019s kinda cool. It\u2019s fun. It\u2019s something we haven\u2019t done in awhile. It\u2019s cool to see your hard work pay off. You have a great show and then you\u2019re like \u201cI actually did all that. I loaded all my stuff on stage. I restrung my guitar.\u201d Thankfully in the States we\u2019re blessed enough to tour with a crew in a bus and it\u2019s great. We\u2019ve worked for six years now to get to that point, and to throw it back a little bit where we\u2019re doing all the work ourselves is rewarding.<\/em><\/p>\n Andy: I like doing it too.<\/em><\/p>\n Joshua: It\u2019s cool to be hands-on again because sometimes you\u2019re on the road all the time for like three months at a time, and we will be like \u201cI don\u2019t care. I wanna go home. I\u2019m over it. I\u2019ve been doing it for two weeks straight.\u201d But now it\u2019s cool to be hands-on with everything.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n AH: You were here for Download a few months ago. In terms of the crowd, did you find much difference between that crowd and the crowd at Reading?<\/strong> AH: What have you been up to since Download?<\/strong> AH: Like you\u2019ve just mentioned the Japanese tour. Are you looking forward to going to Japan?<\/strong> AH: Then you\u2019ve got the US headliner with For Today, The Color Morale and Palisades.<\/strong> AH: Are you looking forward to it?<\/strong> Andy: I love headlining. <\/em><\/p>\n Joshua: It\u2019s always fun because when you\u2019re not headlining you play a half hour set, hundred percent energy and you punch it out. <\/em><\/p>\n Andy: You get to play to fans who may never heard of your band, and they are there because you\u2019re playing with all these bigger bands.<\/em><\/p>\n Joshua: Yeah it\u2019s always fun doing that but headlining is kind of a different animal. It has it\u2019s pros and cons. I love it. We get play a bunch of old stuff then some middle stuff and then some new stuff. It\u2019s kind of nice to show what you\u2019ve been up to and give them a real show. We all sat down and thought of the best way to have our set all laid out and everything we\u2019re going to do. It\u2019s just cool to unveil it and show everyone our hard work. We\u2019re excitied and we\u2019re going to play a long, long set and have fun with kids.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n AH: Also that coincides with the release of the ‘Present, Future, and Past’<\/em> live DVD?<\/strong> Joshua: We did some cool fan interaction stuff. We were doing meets and greets everyday. There were kids that were saying \u201cI\u2019ve listened to your band for five years, seven years. I\u2019ve got your tattoo.\u201d We just wanted to chronicle our band from start to this point and kind of where we going to in the future. It will be cool. I know our true die hard fans will pick it up, but if anyone is curious about it I really think it is worth it and I\u2019m not just trying to sell it, I actually think it\u2019s worth it.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: It\u2019s really captured your live show?<\/strong> AH: Looking forward to 2015. You mentioned you\u2019ve been writing a new album. Is that the main aim for next year?<\/strong> Lou: After the US tour I don\u2019t think we have plans for months. <\/em><\/p>\n Joshua: It\u2019s our fourth album and we thought the last one was important in our career, then get to this one and we\u2019re like \u201coh my god!\u201d This is the album that is important.<\/em><\/p>\n Andy: It\u2019s like Graduating. We Graduated Middle School, we got to High School and now we\u2019re like Graduating High School and moving to College. Or failing. (all laugh)<\/em><\/p>\n Joshua: We\u2019ve got put every effort and try and make the best CD. We need time to do that, you can\u2019t rush it like that. You\u2019ve got to feel it and there isn\u2019t really a time limit on that. You kind of roll with it and see what happens.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: Yeah. There is a saying \u201cyou have a lifetime to write your first album but only six months to write your second.\u201d<\/strong> Joshua: A year and a half is the max. Fans have the insatiable thirst for new music all the time and we\u2019re trying to give it to them.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: Also because there are so many bands in this day and age, if you\u2019re not active you\u2019re quickly forgotten about.<\/strong> Joshua: It\u2019s crazy. Like Andy said you\u2019ve got to keep touring all the time because then that keeps your bands name in the conversation of all your fans. Then on top of that you have to release new music every x amount of months, and it\u2019s so hard to write on the road, so you have to take time off to write then you\u2019re not touring. It\u2019s an insane balance that so far after six years of touring we\u2019re starting to get the hang of it. I guess we\u2019ll see.<\/em><\/p>\n AH: To finish off do you have any final words to share with the Already Heard readers?<\/strong> ‘Past, Present, Future’<\/em> DVD by We Came As Romans<\/strong> is out now on Nuclear Blast<\/strong>.<\/p>\n We Came As Romans<\/strong> links: Website<\/a>|Facebook<\/a>|Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n
Andy: I\u2019m Andy and I play bass.<\/em><\/p>\n
Andy: It\u2019s awesome. Lots of friends on the same bill and everything like that. It\u2019s cool running into everyone and saying \u201chi.\u201d The kids yesterday were awesome. Overall it should be a good time. <\/em><\/p>\n
Joshua: I don\u2019t think we knew a lot other then that\u2019s massive. Being from the States and to hear of festivals overseas you know nothing about but you know the name, the headliners and it\u2019s obvious that the festival must be huge if Paramore and Blink-182 are headlining. It\u2019s insane to be part of it. We played Download earlier this year, and that was our first really big UK festival, people were like \u201coh man if you guys like Download, Reading and Leeds is going to be sick!\u201d Yesterday was really awesome. The fact we get to do it two days in a row is pretty awesome.<\/em><\/p>\n
Joshua: Yeah I honestly feel like over here you get catered to a little bit better. It\u2019s pretty cool. Kids in the States are awesome. A lot of bands don\u2019t get the chance to come over here, so when they do kids intend to go a little more nuts as they don\u2019t know if it\u2019ll be the last time they come over here. Overall I enjoy both. Coming over here is a treat.<\/em><\/p>\n
Andy: We saw Architects yesterday. <\/em><\/p>\n
Lou: I actually saw a few familair faces from Download. We did a signing at Download too, and there were a few kids who bought us drawings and little gifts that I saw in the crowd. That is really cool because it takes something extra in a band to get somewhere in the UK, not that you\u2019re picky but you really have to be dedicated. So to see returning fans a month or so later, especially at a festival where it\u2019s not cheap to get into. It\u2019s not a club show where you go and see five bands. So that was insane personally on my side of the stage. I was like \u201cI know you from a month ago when we played here.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
Joshua: We took some time off. We\u2019re starting to write for a new record, so Andy, Lou and I we all have recording programs on our laptops. We all have interfaces and we all play stringed instruments, so we all just trying to hammer out some new tunes and figure out what direction we want to go in. So thankfully we had some time off to do that, now we\u2019re in for a little long stretch. We play straight to Japan from here, then we fly to Detroit back from Japan and start a US tour the day after.<\/em><\/p>\n
Andy: Yeah. It will be our second time. Last time we just played Tokyo two nights in a row which was super awesome. We had a lot of fun. We played last time with Crossfaith, and we\u2019re going to go back with them. They\u2019re awesome dudes, good friends of ours. We\u2019re excited because we get to go beyond Tokyo and other places. We get to do more travelling. Hopefully this time round we do more exploring, meet new fans and check out new stuff. I\u2019m kinda looking for some inspiration too whilst I\u2019m out there seeing crazy mountains or something cool that will help with the next record. We\u2019re all looking forward to it then get back to the States and do an awesome headliner.<\/em><\/p>\n
Joshua: Crossfaith were on that tour and unfortunately their guitarist has a stress fracture in his hand, so for our Japanese tour he\u2019s sitting out and they\u2019ve got a friend to come and fill in. But unfortunately they\u2019ve had to cancel the US tour, which is a bummer as we\u2019ve been friends with those dudes since the first time we went to Japan in 2012. They\u2019re all really awesome. It was just last week that we found they had to drop off that tour. As of last week it\u2019s For Today, The Color Morale and Palisades.<\/em><\/p>\n
All: Yeah.<\/em><\/p>\n
Andy: The tour is actually named after that. Louie came up with that. we were like \u201cwe don\u2019t know what to name it. Call it anything.\u201d Then Louie sent the mail, the golden email we refer it to. The DVD is a live show from our last headlining tour. <\/em><\/p>\n
Andy: Yeah we\u2019ve watched live DVD\u2019s like The Used, Story of the Year, Pantera and we always watch and when we\u2019re done we say \u201cwe\u2019ve got to go and make something crazy.\u201d It\u2019s really inspiring for us to watch other bands live DVDs, so maybe some fans will watch ours, or some kids that are playing in local bands will get inspired from ours. So maybe in a couple of years we will be opening for them, you never know. That\u2019s how it went for us and hopefully that can inspire our fans to take the same route. Do something awesome, do something great.<\/em><\/p>\n
Andy: Yeah. We took a lot of big steps on our last record. Josh was saying earlier with our last record we didn\u2019t do anything crazy like reinvent the wheel but we definitely took some big steps. It took a bit of a different direction, and I think we\u2019re now just trying to hone in on it more and really try and touch base on what we ultimately have as a sound. We’re doing a lot of cool things, and I don\u2019t want to say we\u2019ve got a lot of tricks up our sleeve, but we\u2019ve got a lot of good ideas brewing up. Some really good concepts and a good overall vision of what we want to do, so that is going to be our main focus.<\/em><\/p>\n
Andy: Yeah. In this day and age too the turn around time is crazy. Some bands used to take three or four years, now two is even pushing it. <\/em><\/p>\n
Andy: Yeah. Honestly staying on the ball and keeping everything rolling is super important. Touring is another huge thing. If you\u2019re not constantly touring and being like \u201chey! we\u2019re here.\u201d You have to do everything possible or else you fall short behind. The work load is the same but it\u2019s done differently. You really got to keep pressing on, stay out there and stay relevant. I think we\u2019ve been doing a pretty good job at that.<\/em><\/p>\n
Joshua: We\u2019ve got a live DVD coming out, if you want to pick up it Nuclear Blast are releasing it in the UK and Europe. Hopefully you guys will enjoy that. We\u2019re going write some new stuff and we will be back in the new year to hopefully play it for you guys.<\/em><\/p>\n