Joining us across Audacy Alternative stations nationwide, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun of Twenty One Pilots took fans inside their brand new 2024 offering on the release day of Clancy, spotlighting a few of their favorite tracks while giving insight into their creative process, and even offering fans a peek at some of their all-time favorite tracks from other artists.
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The duo’s new offering, Clancy, is named after the protagonist introduced on 2018's Trench and marks the final chapter in Twenty One Pilots' intricate story told across multiple albums, beginning with the band's 2015 breakthrough, Blurryface.
Starting with Clancy's lead single, Joseph explains, “’Overcompensate’ is about overcompensating,” with a giggle. “It's really hard to describe what it's about other than that. But it’s one of our favorite songs on the record. It's the first song on the album, and we'll be using this song a lot to open up our concerts. So, we're really excited about it.”
“The first song we wrote for ‘Clancy’ was ‘Overcompensate,’ which is the first song on the album as well,” Tyler explains. “Now keep in mind, when I say first song we wrote, it's the first one we finished. I will say that there was a lot of beginnings of songs that kind of existed as we moved into this writing process for the album. But ‘Overcompensate’ was a bit of a tone setter for us, and definitely the song that we filtered all the rest of the songs through sonically."
The song ”Next Semester” Tyler tells us, “is about when I was going to college. I was kind of detailing a panic attack in the street, and yeah, it's one of my favorite songs on the record. Believe It or not, I wrote it on a ukulele even though it doesn't feel like that's how it was written, but it was. It's gonna be one of our favorites live for sure.”
“’The Craving’ is also a song that I wrote on the ukulele,” Tyler tells us. “I got this new instrument, it's called a baritone ukulele. It's a larger uke, and I've really enjoyed playing it for this album. A lot of the songs on the record have come from that instrument.”
“Backslide,” Tyler says specifically “is is one of my favorite choruses on the record. It feels like the chorus is kind of, I would describe as a long chorus and definitely one that takes a few listens to, I guess, get the rhythm of, but it's definitely something that we're proud of.”
“My favorite song from ‘Clancy’ is probably ‘Midwest Indigo,’ Josh admits. “it's a song that is fun to play, and if I'm driving in the car and listening… this is one that I get excited for.
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Giving us a taste of some of the bands and artists that have inspired the duo over the years, Tyler says one of his favorite bands of all time is The Killers. “The song ‘All These Things That I've Done,’ I don't know, I think it was probably the first song that I heard from them, interestingly enough. There's a video on YouTube of them performing it live -- I think it was T in the Park… and that video kind of, really influenced me. I was lucky enough to meet them later on in our career, got to say ‘Hi’ to them.”
“That was kind of highlight for me also,” says Josh. “Since we're taking over, we wanna play some of our other favorite songs including “Higher” by Creed, which I like because it takes me back to sort of an angsty time that I had as a high schooler. I think it was the first CD that I bought because of that song, which introduced me to the rest of the pretty much flawless album and got me through a lot of really hard times.”
Another one of Josh’s favorite bands of all time is blink-182. Their song off the new album, called ‘Terrified,’ I really like. That's a band that, honestly got me into music and kind of just represented also a time of my life where I was just figuring myself out as a human and as a musician. That's a band that doesn't take themselves too seriously, but likes to make music based off of how they feel and I really resonated with them.”
Twenty One Pilots' Clancy is out now -- pick up your copy here and listen to the full album takeover above.
Twenty One Pilots – Clancy tracklisting:
1. Overcompensate
2. Next Semester
3. Midwest Indigo
4. Routines In The Night
5. Backslide
6. Vignette
7. The Craving (Jenna’s Version)
8. Lavish
9. Navigating
10. Snap Back
11. Oldies Station
12. At the Risk Of Feeling Dumb
13. Paladin Strait
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