Being Geoff Moore certainly has its positive side. For starters, there’s having Steven Curtis Chapman as your best friend, and the friendly motorcycle trips with SC² to boot. There’s also the four Grammy Award nominations, the multiple Dove Awards, and that string of number one hit songs over the past 12-plus years. Not to mention thousands of screaming fans chanting your name every time you go out to perform yet another live concert tour.

Of course, there’s a down side to being Geoff Moore too. Being away from home 150-plus nights a year while you’re on tour is a big one. Dealing with the sometimes mammoth egos of Christian music industry associates. And the occasional guitar to the head is also a downer.

Yep, a career in Christian music can be dangerous. It seems during one Geoff Moore and the Distance concert at the Lloyd Noble Arena in Norman, Oklahoma a few years ago, guitarist Dale Oliver was performing his scheduled solo with great energy and fervor. In fact, he was so into his job he didn’t notice a certain lead singer standing next to him.

Geoff Moore recalls, "I leaned over and, POW!" Oliver accidentally hit him in the head with the end of his guitar! Still, the show must go on, so even though blood was pouring from his head, Geoff says, "I [held] a towel on my head the whole set [then] I went to the hospital afterwards!"

Other times this rough-voiced vocalist has fallen off the stage, cut his legs, braved storms during outdoor concerts, had sound equipment things fall on him, been bit by bugs, swallowed bugs, had animals come onstage during shows, and, well, the list goes on.

Geoff only laughs when recalling times like these, saying "That’s rock-n-roll, huh?"

So how did a guy from Flint, Michigan, with no musical training manage to get into this Christian music career in the first place? It started, as many things do, in a dormitory bathroom. Wengetz Dormitory at Taylor University in 1980, to be exact.

"I had a roommate, just by chance, who was in a Christian band," Geoff explains. "He had a big collection of Christian music, and I just listened to it and fell in love with it and hung around with him."

That meant following his guitar-wielding roommate into the big dormitory showers—where the acoustics were best—and listening to him make music. One fateful day young Geoff’s roommate said casually, "Geoff, why don’t you try singing one?"

" I sang a song I learned off a record and that was like the first time I ever sang," Geoff says."[There] in the dorm bathroom. I was like, ‘Man, listen to that. It’s coming out of me!’"

Not long after, the lead singer of the roommate’s band got ill and Geoff was recruited to take his place. "Come on, Geoff," the guitarist said. "I’ve heard you sing in the shower. Come on. Fill in."

So Geoff sang Larry Norman’s classic, "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?" for a campus variety show. Afterward, a representative from Youth for Christ asked if Geoff and the band would sing at a youth conference. "Next thing I knew I was in a Christian band!" Geoff says.

In 1983, Geoff graduated with a degree in business administration, got married, and settled down to work in the family business. But he felt God tugging on his heart, pulling him away from the "safe" career and into the pursuit of Christian music. So he and his wife packed up their belongings and moved to Music City, Nashville, Tennessee. There he found himself working at a mall selling men’s clothes.

"God, what am I doing here," he remembers praying over the polyester slacks rack one day. "I’ve ruined my life." Just then a customer walked up and said, "Hey, can you help me find some pants?"

Geoff says, "I turned around, and it was Michael W. Smith."

That began a friendship that has lasted to this day. Geoff continues, "In fact, I met people almost every day that came in to shop at that store—people that are friends of mine; people that were influential in my career. God had me in that place."

Before long, Geoff Moore and The Distance had been formed and blazed its way into Christian music history. But the story doesn’t end there. After more than a dozen happy years with The Distance, Geoff decided to go solo late in 1998.

About midway through a 100-city tour with The Distance in 1998, Geoff began to feel a restlessness in his spirit. The tour was going great, the band was in harmony, and all seemed well—except that nagging feeling inside Geoff Moore.

"It was a real sense that God was kind of initiating some fundamental changes in my life and heart," he says. "So I began to pray; I went to my wife and said, ‘Jan, I don’t know what it is, but I’m feeling like there’s some changes that God might be prompting.’"

And over the next few months that nagging feeling became a call from God to enter a new chapter of life—a chapter without The Distance. The band disbanded amicably, and Geoff Moore began life as a soloist.

How will this chapter end? Even Geoff doesn’t know yet, but he does know he’s where God wants him to be, for now at least. That means he’s touring right now with his best buddy, Steven Curtis Chapman, and has just released a self-titled solo album of roots-rock songs. And even though he’s spent nearly half of his life in Christian music, he’s not about to back off of the strongly Christian content of his songs.

Says Geoff, "The core of what I’ve got to say is that you out there who are listening and can hear this—we’re very much alike. We need a Savior. And that’s what I want to use this platform to say."

And that’s just being Geoff Moore.