Tyler Joseph
From the beginning, my songwriting was from writing in a journal; it was completely unfiltered. I don't know if I really meant to show everyone this side of me, but when I saw how people resonated to the things I was saying, some of the questions I was asking, I realized I was not alone.Collection: Alone
It's a funny thing. I'll be in my home town of Columbus at a restaurant or something, and the waiter maybe asks, 'What do you do?' and I say, 'Oh, I'm in a band... Twenty One Pilots,' and he'll say, 'Cool, I'll check it out. I never heard of them.' And then I say, 'In September we're playing the Schottenstein Center,' and it's like, 'What?!'Collection: Funny
It is true that if you hear our music described, it sounds unappealing. I used to laugh and agree with people when they said it didn't make any sense.Collection: Music
Here in Ohio, the hardcore scene is a big thing, so some of our good friends are in hardcore bands. So we've had to figure out how the heck we get these people to respect us.Collection: Respect
Insecurity, for me, feels like the sensation of suffocating.
Our palette is wide and eclectic. That's why we crank out a lot of different styles. To some people, it makes us seem disjointed or scattered. But when we play live, it makes sense to us.
It's all right to fail. You just have to get up again and try. That's the bottom line.
I had to make 500 shots every day, and when my mom wasn't looking, I'd get up closer to the basket and do lay-ups and count them, and she'd be at the back window at the kitchen and knock. Then I'd have to go back and shoot from longer.
I don't love the way I look. Nobody does, and if they do, I don't want to be that person's friend. But we all know what we're insecure about. The question I had as I was writing was, 'How are these things affecting the way I live? How am I compensating because I don't like this about myself? What do I do to cover it up?'
Live shows have been going on for so long, can you really do something that's never been done before?
There was a lot of pressure to find a genre and stick to it. People would tell me all the time, 'You can't be all things to everyone.' I would say, 'I'm not trying to be! I'm being what I want to be for myself.'
We know in order to get where we want to be and do what we want to be doing, sometimes we have to do what we don't feel like doing. It takes hard work, and the band name is a constant reminder of that.
We just want to outdo ourselves every time we come back somewhere.
You hear about our conservative background and know that we're Christian guys, but we're not timid at all. I will take anyone on when it comes to outworking them or putting on a better show or standing up for people who are being put down.
A lot of things you do to cover up insecurities can be just as harmful to you as anything else.
Music can connect people on an intimate level. What Josh and I are trying to do is represent anyone who has some of the questions that we have.
There's been many times when a producer will say, 'I don't think you want to say that.' We were told we shouldn't be so brutally honest about songwriting or radio or the industry.
Even if it's a horrible venue - a bar that barely has a PA and no lighting - we're still there trying to get somebody to not forget us.
When you write music that expresses doubt or concern, or talks about some of the darker things that a developing human goes through, people will come out of the woodwork to listen to someone else say it out loud.
We've been lucky. Even as a young, local-level band, we were able to rise out of the local scene without having any debt, without having signed the wrong deal with the wrong manager or the wrong booker or a small label.
Radio is a hungry monster that eats very fast.
The lyrics are a lot about those big questions: why are we here, how did we get here, what's the point, and what's next. When those questions come up with fans, I would absolutely share with them what has helped me and where I stand on what it is that I believe.
Blurryface is this character that I came up with that represents a certain level of insecurity.
We're past the self-doubt. We just have fun with it and just try to make the best music that we can make.
Growing up, money is important. And now I have a career where I'm making enough money to live. But I really want to give it to my parents, my family, charities, and people around me.
I like candles. It helps cover up for the fact that I have four male roommates.
Pretty much all the programming on our CDs is done by me personally, so I've kind of been able to have complete control of what sounds I'm looking for to complete a song.
I didn't know that there were many rules in music when I first started writing.
I think throughout the day; there are always lines or certain words, and I'll just keep notes in my phone. It might just be one or two words, and then that could inspire a whole song, lyrically.
Josh is the guy in the band who's just so friendly and super, wanting to walk up to you and say, 'Hey, I'm Josh. I drum in this band, and I'm a big fan of you, and I really appreciate what you do.' Josh has all these great friends in the industry now.
When you play a show or festival, people know what they're getting; they want it. Then you're thrown onto a show where people are watching TV in their houses, and whether they ask for it or not, we're being played in front of them. There's a lot of negative feedback.
Some people would look at a backing track as something that would confine you, but it really frees us up. It's nice not to be strapped down to a certain spot when you're trying to put on a show.
There's so many people who have never heard of us, but I think what we've learned is you can't underestimate the power of a core fan base and people who believe what you're doing. I think they're the ultimate marketers. They're the ones promoting us.
We come from a sensory-overload culture, and so we wonder if one guy on drums and one guy dancing around is enough. Adding guys was something we always were curious about. We decided for this run specifically to stay a two-piece. In the future, we definitely could add members.
When Josh and I are recording a record, we're very mindful of how the music will manifest itself live. That's where we have to live every day. When we tour for the next record, I imagine there will be a new story to tell, and we'll introduce new characters.
There are times when we look back and think, 'Do you remember when we had to lug a piano downstairs to a basement of some venue to play for five people?' We do a lot of reminiscing. It helps us keep our heads on straight.
I remember the first time I ever showed my parents a song that I had written. The content may have been a little darker than they were used to, or really introspective in a way that may have been uncomfortable. I thought they'd retaliate with some kind of judgment or concern about whether I was feeling all right, but they were proud of it.
You kind of have to celebrate the moment that you get to create something that you love that falls into the parameters of a 3-minute-and-20-second song, to try to be creative inside of those parameters.
We had so many friends who did the band thing, and one of their first moves was to go on tour, and they'd just blow all their money.
For a long time, we just played here - Columbus is a perfect place to work your way up and maybe build a fan base.
Our moms accuse us of selling out all the time, so we're still trying to cope with that. They claim to be true fans, like they've been there from the beginning, and they think that we've kind of, like, changed as humans.
Even though there's only two guys in the band, when both of us are on the same page about something, you can't really change our minds.
It doesn't matter what we post about ourselves on social networks or how many times we play live TV, even. It's all about those people, those fans who are telling other people about us.
I've forgotten what it feels like to be in one place for more than a day... But we signed up for this. This is our dream. We sat down and said this is what we want to do, play music and touring.
Writing songs is kind of like a wrestling match to me. You have to pin it down and make it do what you want it to do.
It's hard not to be affected by the live audience.
We do things differently. You don't have to worry about being part of a particular genre. You just go for it.
By the time you do what somebody else is doing, everybody has moved on to something else.
If I were to give advice to someone that just started a band and how to get someone's attention, you've gotta have a central hub. For us, it was Columbus, Ohio.
I guess when I first started writing music, I really had no idea if anyone was ever going to hear what I was writing and almost no intention of people hearing it. So, it was kind of this journal. It was pretty unfiltered.