Hours before taking the stage in front of 1500 fans at The Bellwether in Los Angeles for an exclusive performance, Twenty One Pilots joined Klein from KROQ to talk about playing one of their first shows without phones in the crowd, and how fans have had a hand in shaping the story that they've told across several albums, culminating with Breach released earlier this year.
LISTEN NOW: Twenty One Pilots at The Bellwether
"I do think that we are very proud of how long the story's been around," shares Tyler Joseph. "Even when we start with 'Blurryface,' I remember specifically when we were recording 'Stressed Out,' the producer we were working with, Mike Elizondo, who we've become really close with, when I started singing, 'my name's Blurryface and I care what you think,' I remember it was like that classic, like he's in the control room, he presses the talk button [and] he's like, 'what does that mean?'"
"I was like, 'listen, it's gonna be the name of the record, it's a character, he's kind of the antagonist of the whole thing, so.' And you know, to his credit, he was like, 'all right.' And I think that the idea was, 'well, you know, it's never going to be like a hit because no one knows what you're talking about.' But it was cool that we stuck with it and even cooler that enough people cared to find out what we were talking about, what the story was about."
They didn't just care, they were dedicated to uncovering the origins of characters and looking for clues of what's to come. The relationship with their fanbase became so intertwined that they eventually impacted the shape of the story, and now own a piece of its conclusion. "We should say that our fans have also kind of affected the trajectory of the story in a sense as well," adds Tyler. "As much as we had the idea of where we were heading and an idea of how it was going to end, the way we got there, we really kind of pushed off of them as well, as things kind of happened. So we give them credit too."
"I think it just goes to show that when you put some time and energy into the backstory, it gives people more context for the music if they want to. We've always made sure that we didn't write records that required people to understand that narrative and that story in order to just enjoy the music, but I know for me, I just love telling stories."
To hear much more from Tyler and Josh Dun on who would play them in a movie, the freedoms of a phone-free show, and Tyler trying out material from his "stand up" note in his phone, check out the full conversation with Twenty One Pilots above.