Let’s get one thing straight: Twenty One Pilots do not identify as a band. “We’re businessmen,” Tyler Joseph insists. “We’re businessmen on a stage.” And like all great businessmen, they conduct meetings from the top of a piano or behind a ukulele. Wearing suits. Until they realized suits suck.
It’s 2014 and they’ve just annihilated their set at Forecastle Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. The duo—Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun—are sweaty, manic, and completely self-aware. “We rely on [touring] to stay in shape,” Joseph says. “We don’t eat healthy, so the shows are our cardio.” This, apparently, justifies whatever’s happening backstage with the catering table.
The two speak in a rhythm that feels suspiciously rehearsed but probably isn’t. They joke about hating each other. Blocking each other on Twitter. Following each other’s brothers instead. “That way you can never fall out,” Joseph says. “Because you were never in.”
If you’re wondering how a band gets this big without ever answering the question “what kind of music do you make,” join the club. “We would play basement hip-hop shows and hardcore gigs,” Dun says. “Then we’d pick up stuff from all of them and confuse ourselves.”
Joseph calls it “aggressive poetry,” which is either a humblebrag or a new college major. “I never want to write a song where people hear the first 20 seconds and go, ‘Oh, I get it.’” He wants unpredictability. Ambiguity. Songs that sound like genre-hopping panic attacks.
And while the crowd may scream like they’re in a youth group, Joseph is careful about the God talk. “I’m not up there trying to tell people what to believe,” he says. “But I’m asking questions I don’t have answers to.” The angst is genuine. The eyeliner is not.
They’re working on a new album. “The first songs we wrote, we didn’t know if anyone would hear them,” Joseph says. “There was a naivety to it. I want to get back to that.” The pressure is on, but so is the charm offensive.
Will there be ukulele on the next one? At one point, I told them how, back when I was a teenager, bringing a uke to a party was social suicide. “You were not getting laid,” I said. Tyler blinked. “Like a… leis?” Josh offered, eyebrows up. “No. Like sex,” I clarified. I’m pretty sure they both blushed a little at that.
Still, Joseph found himself on a tour called Saving Rock and Roll, shredding the uke in front of thousands. And somehow, impossibly, it worked.
They’re saving rock and roll. One tiny, deeply suggestive, surprisingly effective instrument at a time.
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
