Geoff Moore - Early Years

Early Years

Moore was born in Michigan in 1961. His father played baseball for the Toledo Mud Hens, and later ran a steel fabrication plant. He attended Holly Area Schools at Patterson Elementary, Holly, MI through grade six and then started attending Brandon Schools in Ortonville, MI. He began singing while he was at Taylor University living in Wengatz Hall. At the time that he became a classmate to White Heart's future lead singer, Rick Florian, when he stood in for the lead singer of his roommate's band. He graduated from Taylor in 1983. Newly married, he moved to Nashville soon after college. He was able to break into the music industry with the assistance of Michael W. Smith, when the two met in the clothing store where Moore worked. He signed a publishing contract with Paragon Music, a company specialising in writing songs for others, and sang on demo recordings for extra money. While with Paragon he wrote songs for fellow Christian singer and songwriter, Steven Curtis Chapman. Since that time they've co-written several songs together, including the title track on Chapman's 1992 Dove Award and Grammy winning release The Great Adventure.

During the mid-1980s, Moore recorded three albums released on the Power Discs label, including Where are the Other Nine?, Over the Edge and The Distance. When he was signed to Sparrow in 1987, he put together a backing band called "The Distance" to continue with his career. Geoff Moore is best friends with Steven Curtis Chapman and, like Steven, Geoff has adopted daughters from China.