Twenty One Pilots Abstract Fan Art Tyler Joseph Carpe Noctem

20 One Pilots' last anthology, 2018'due south introspective Trench, ended with "Go out the City," on which vocalizer Tyler Joseph sang about packing up and staying alive, beingness far away from home while staring at "these faces facing me." In a hard pivot away from that collection's dark, downwards-the-rabbit hole saga, the Columbus, Ohio duo's just-released sixth studio anthology, Scaled and Icy, opens with the ebullient "Good Day," on which the frequently concerned Joseph promises, "Low key — I'chiliad alright… My sunshine/ Is a buzz and a lite, I'll be singing out/ I know information technology's hard to believe me/ It's a expert day."

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For a band whose music has often delved into the struggles of navigating life with an anxious, worried mind, S&I is, indeed, a buzz and a light. Coming out of the global pandemic lockdown, Joseph and drummer Josh Dun U-turned from the dense, frenetic concept album'due south twisty storyline and jittery emotions to a breezy, 37-minute buzzbomb of tracks such as "Expert Day," "Mulberry Street," "Saturday" and "Bounce Human."

And, rather than taking what Joseph jokingly referred to every bit a planned "victory lap" of arenas and festivals to close out the Trench cycle, the hard-touring duo suddenly found themselves with an abundance of empty agenda pages for the showtime time in a decade. "When I first started writing in 2020 [I felt like] I could go one of two ways: I could brand a left-hand turn here and really lean into what I felt like everyone was feeling, this ominous world is ending feel," Joseph tells Billboard nigh his creative fork in the road moment during COVID lockdown. "Or I could make a correct-paw plough and kind of escape from that feeling."

Sequestered at habitation with his wife and newborn baby daughter — with Dun thousands of miles abroad in Los Angeles — Joseph decided to plough towards the light rather than dig deeper into the Trench the band had laid. He emerged with an album that is still laced with some of the persistent worries we all accept from fourth dimension to fourth dimension ("Lost my chore, my married woman and child/ Homie just sued me," "I know information technology's over/ I was built-in a choker/ Nobody's coming for me"), simply one that's also shot through with a bubbly, '70s/early '80s AM radio sparkle that he says finally made his father-in-law relate to the vibe he was laying downward.

"I was similar, 'Listen to this song!' And he loved it," Joseph says of the informal roller skate jam "Sabbatum." "That was a actually rewarding moment for me, to sentinel my father-in-law finally be like, 'You lot write music that I similar now!'"

The anthology — which debuted at No. iii on the Billboard 200 anthology chart this calendar week — got a coming-out party during a kaleidoscopic, aggressive mean solar day-of-release livestream that had the ring performing most of the tracks on custom sets built in their hometown arena. For Joseph, information technology was a adventure to reset and give the band's fiercely loyal fans a taste of the next iteration of 21P before he sets off "in another direction" with the follow-upwardly that's already in his head.

Simply beginning, Joseph talks withBillboard about why he embraced his inner Earth, Current of air & Burn down, why he's not agape of leaning into his pop side and how the more than somber album closer "Redecorate" might exist a span to what's next. (Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.)

What was your original plan for this year and concluding before the globe went sideways?

Our 2020 still had shows planned. We were going into that "victory lap" on our terminal record with some festivals and a few headline moments and all that evidently got upended. 2020 was going to be a yr of travel and it turned into a year of me at home writing a record. My daughter was born in Feb. 2020, and so all all of a sudden I was a stay-calm dad working on music. So drastically different equally we were rounding third base at the end of 2019.

And so many of your songs most about anxiety and feeling left out, isolated or other, then how do you lot come up out of a nighttime time with such positive music? The baby was apparently a gift, merely the music seems counter-intuitive to what some might expect from you lot.

When I would walk down into my studio in the basement, every day I crossed that threshold, information technology felt like the right decision to write something that felt outside of the experience that everyone, including the whole world, was going through. It just felt similar the natural direction. There's ever something to be said about when plenty fourth dimension is put in betwixt when y'all create something and when you're able to await back on it. Equally yous add fourth dimension in betwixt those two things, you starting time to see things clearer — and then it's still very fresh for me to know exactly why I wrote the record I did. But I remember somewhen every bit I look back information technology volition become clearer and I'll be able to answer that.

Right, because information technology definitely feels like it would accept been easier for you to lean into the isolation and the darkness — y'all too do that quite well — but was this plough into effulgence more for you, or the fans, or both?

Our fans are and so artistic, they're so talented. When nosotros go on tour and we get to interact with these people who are sharing their artwork with us, their music with us, we're seeing just how powerful and creative our fan base is.

A lot of people discover inspiration in being able to change locations or travel the Earth, or at least walk down your street. What I was worried near was at present that nosotros were all confined into a unmarried space for a year, what was there left to spark that inspiration? That'south when I really wanted to lean into the power of imagination. [Imagination is a word we use for little kids, something we cultivate as kids, only when you're a creative thinker that imagination can still be something you lot tap into. It can also be then powerful even if you lot're non able to move about and exist inspired past irresolute locations.

Your livestream was just that. I got to watch you rehearse "Mulberry Street" a few times and as I walked effectually I kept trying to picture what the final product would be. When I saw it it was clear how y'all imagined a whole earth and and so you poured it out in the way you just described.

Exactly. I really stretched myself at that place: the choreography, and the singing, having to manage my breathing while singing and notwithstanding remembering the steps and making sure you're hitting the right spots at the right time? Information technology was one of the toughest things I've always washed.

Imagination is inherently countless — the simply things that limits information technology is logistics, like a budget or resources. And to be in a ring that has fans interested in what nosotros're going to say an exercise next and to utilize a $20 ticket for them to experience this livestream and put pretty much all of it dorsum into this product? And to feel similar, other than the arena we rented for two weeks that was our only limit, everything else inside of it was costless game. What practice you want to do, what can you dream up?

I'g merely then fortunate to be in that position. As much as I'k trying to give them something they can sink their teeth into and be inspired and entertained by, I feel like they're giving me and then much in return by letting me see my imagination and my inspiration have such a wide array of possibilities. It's something I'll e'er be indebted to them for.

Elite athletes have been talking about how being out of competition for a twelvemonth has helped them heal and regroup. For a band that is so used to touring, hard, later every anthology — was in that location something healing about having a year of non jumping off pianos and pounding on drums and but existence a dad and a creator?

Absolutely! I don't want to take away from the gravity of what 2020 was for people, so I'thousand ever conscientious most pointing out any positive from 2020 — because overall, it was a very negative and traumatic experience for many people and I recognize that. With that beingness said, the ability to be home for a year, and run into my girl from when she was born until now and not have to travel? I can really feel that connection we formed, that bond has been built betwixt the states and I'm actually glad that happened. I'll be reaping from that year for the rest of my life and so I'm actually beholden of that.

When this affair gets going again… I'll tell yous what, it'due south going to be a political party! It'due south a bit of a cliche, but once it'southward gone you really don't realize how amazing information technology is to play for a crowd of people… When y'all take that away and you're thrust into trying to be a normal person and suddenly you lot realize, "wow that was such an crawly opportunity," and that the skills y'all bring to the touring world don't necessarily translate into skills that volition be useful in a normal world where there isn't touring.

What was the biggest claiming of working across the country with Josh living in 50.A.? Y'all two have such an obviously air-tight connection, did it change the vibe at all to do information technology remotely?

Of course. You tin't supersede that homo-to-human, in-person connection, and that chemistry congenital over a decade. Just, trying to find the positive in all this — it didn't happen in 1920, it happened in 2020, with the ability to become on to a video briefing and work out drum parts. He'd point his cameo over to his drums and play something and we'd talk about it and alter it a lilliputian bit. We'd requite each other access to our computers and literally my mouse was moving on his computer while he was recording, and vice versa. We did striking a pace and establish a new co-operative of our chemistry.

I do wonder if that's gonna be a onetime thing — or maybe something we tap into in the futurity as well? Our whole world learned a lot most what we can get away when information technology comes to trying to interact over a conference call. Just correct at the end, he recently moved back to Columbus. And then the band's back together and nosotros're close to each other, and we have no excuse and will get dorsum to working together on music in person.

The correct start vocal is crucial for any album and "Good Day" is similar this boom of light right at the top. Was that your intention, to immediately prepare the table on what to expect this time? First tracks are often also the beginning songs at your show, and then was that in your head as well?

I talked virtually how playing live is and so ingrained in how nosotros create and I think the classic way to first a concert is the low, ominous rumble, and so something happens and something happens and information technology'southward…. more threatening. In the by I've started my records that fashion because I thought, "Hey, I want to start my concerts with the song that starts the record." I knew that when I wanted to write a different tape, the first song was going to be more of import than ever — and how tin I communicate the idea of something turning on? I kept using the words "turning on," like I flicked on the ignition and things were starting to kick on in different steps. That'southward the feeling "Adept Day" gave me, particularly the sound design at the offset.

But I however experience like it would start a concert great… nosotros walk out on phase and become into that [and] it would still have that excitement and momentum, but a completely dissimilar approach. Non the ominous, depression rumble, the turning on — well-nigh coming dorsum to life, an animatronic robot starting to go its blinking eyes back. And I love the idea of holding that one chord on my left hand on the pianoforte and just letting information technology ride.

Your shows always have a visual signature, then exercise y'all attempt to picture what songs like "Bounce Man" volition look like on phase when you write them? Listening to "Choker," do you revel in the idea of thousands of fans singing that chorus back to you? Or "The Outside," where you describe a sea of heads moving up and downward? They almost feel like directions, or instructions for how to motility in unison.

Absolutely. There are times when Josh and I when we were first starting, playing for ten-20 people, where we said, "We need a song that does this, and when it does this the people in the audience can practice that with united states of america." The very nature of a live testify is in the cosmos process of writing the record all the time for us, then those worlds are constantly fused together.

I thought one day I'g going to write a record that doesn't consider the live experience, information technology just puts it out of sight, out of mind. And I've always wanted to try and write a record that didn't permit that live side of it be a cistron in the creation procedure. And I thought this would be the record for that. What better opportunity, with alive music never being and so far away and you lot just don't know when or if you lot'll play these songs live?

And yet fifty-fifty with this opportunity to write a record without considering live music, I still couldn't do it! I still was writing songs thinking most what that audience was going to do and how they were going to answer to it and how they were going to feed into it and add together energy to it. So that'south when I realized that every bit a songwriter, role of the fibers of who I am volition ever consider, "How will this come off alive?"

Request for a friend — why did you leave your pandemic banger "Level of Business organisation" off? Did it not feel function of information technology?

That'southward a good question. For me, sonically, it probably would have fit. Just something I've learned kind of recently… when I would listen to older songs of mine, I used to experience awkward. "I wish I could take done that differently… I would accept recorded that differently…" Just and then recently, what I realized is the way for me to naturally go over that reaction is I realized, "That song is a perfect representation of who I was at that moment." And so the idea of trying to nitpick things that have already been is such a waste of time. You can be proud that information technology is a timestamp of who you were.

Which is all to say that sonically it may take fit the record, but information technology meant more to me as a timestamp of something that was in between records, something quick on its feet. What I'm proud of that vocal for is the power, when the pandemic really started to take, to testify the agility Josh and I have on a creative level: we can write, record and release a vocal quickly.

Y'all've too said you lot already have a second record in the works — what tin can yous tell me about that and are the new songs of a piece with this album?

I've ever got ideas rolling, whether it's vox memos on my phone or fully fleshed out ideas in the studio. There'southward no feeling similar releasing new music to fans that are anticipating it. Some of them aren't going to like it, some are, and that's exciting, to know that that will be changing — the mural of who a 20 One Pilots fan is slightly moving. And that's scary, only also very heady, and I dear this feeling. I'm very sensitive to critique, but also very inspired.

So instead of being thrust into this bear of an album cycle, with a ton of touring and a ton of other things taking up my time, free energy and creativity, the idea of taking the excitement of releasing a record and existence able to quickly motility it into writing a next tape is really exciting for me. I can't say it's fully fleshed-out and I know what direction I'chiliad going to get, only I can say that I'1000 really excited about capitalizing on the energy of releasing a tape and moving correct into writing another one. That free energy used to go into making an awesome bout and putting a lot of that free energy into a skillful bear witness for people.

The livestream felt a bit Broadway at parts — laced, of form, with the dark Dema story undercurrent from Trench for the old school fans. This seems like such a forward-facing pop record for yous and you talked bout the inevitability of losing and gaining fans. Do y'all experience like this is your moment to blow upwards as big as you lot've ever been? And are you at all worried that some fans might resist and cut bait?

That'due south certainly non the intention. At that place'due south certain formats to songs that could make information technology on the radio and could non, and as a songwriter I know when I'yard writing a song that might be able to go far on radio and could not and one that could not e'er be on radio because of its length and structure and format. The other affair I've learned, though, is as soon every bit your intention is to try and write something more commercial you've already failed. If your intention is to write something commercial it'south non going to work.

The idea of trying to gain more than fans… I've seen countless bands try to reinvent themselves in a fashion that custom-tailors to what's going on in the current musical culture and that but never goes well. Then I'm simply going to go on trying to better myself and the states as a ring and me every bit a songwriter and inevitably people people volition end liking the direction we go, but I but tin't stay put and keep writing the same record. I think that would be nearly more than of a disservice to our fans.

That'due south why "Saturday" pops and then much. It'southward like an Earth, Current of air & Fire roller-skate jam, which, over again, feels a bit out of graphic symbol.

I pulled my father-in-law into my truck when I finished writing that song because he grew upward on disco. He literally went to the roller rink every week growing up and he loves that fashion of music. He'south listened to stuff that I was writing for years at present and of course it's non his cup of tea. But so to write a vocal like that, at least for him at that moment, was such a rewarding moment for me as a son-in-police force.

That's funny, because I was listening to "Shy Away" as a kind of skinny necktie new moving ridge popular thing and felt shades of ELO'south "Mr. Bluish Sky," and, on other songs, even J. Geils Band, Supertramp and EW&F. Just I wasn't certain if that was listener's bias or your intention? Is any of that music yous listened to growing up?

Yes it is. I didn't really come from a musical family when it comes to playing instruments or singing, simply music was very much a function of my life in the sense that my dad just loved music. He was the king of "Name That Tune." Any road trip nosotros'd be on nosotros'd flip through the punch and play "Name That Tune" for hours and hours and you get one point for the proper noun of the artist and one point for the name of the song. And this was before you lot could look it up on your phone, so sometimes there were a few points that were disputed all the style to the vacation that we were going to. "I don't know if that's the name of the song!" My dad has a actually large Rolodex of music, and the ones you but mentioned are the ones he really loved and I grew up listening to as well.

My human relationship with my parents, my dad specifically — nosotros've only grown to be friends in a really absurd way, in a way I hope everyone gets to be with their parents because it's hard to get at that place. Yous see them every bit your parents, but when you meet them as a peer at some point in their life, they want that. Talking about my dad and my father-in-constabulary, these are friends of mine. I wanted to write a record that I thought that they would like. Not being afraid of that and not trying to intentionally write something that would turn them off considering then that means that it's cool. There were several times when I would pull both those guys in and say, "Hey, wait at this song I'1000 writing." Because I know it would exist reminiscent of something they grew up on. I had a lot of fun doing that.

Whether or not this is your big pop moment, it seems like you've already got a built-in "proceed a level caput" vocal pre-loaded with "Mulberry Street." Is the essential bulletin at that place: don't be an a–pigsty, stay apprehensive?

For sure. Information technology'south a weird affair to manage: to get upward on stage in front of a lot of people and then have to sink dorsum into reality when you're washed with that show and exist a dad, or husband or friend. My support group of friends and family unit are so naturally humbling already — but aye, what a slap-up reminder to recall that you're no better or different than anyone else in that audience.

I had a very vivid dream [that I was in the audience at a festival] and I think thinking, "I still feel important" continuing in that audience watching that band. I still experience similar I'm calculation to this experience. And I desire to remember that, the perspective of someone standing in the audience bringing their free energy to the moment as well. It'due south also a good, friendly reminder that simply because I'm the ane up on the stage with the microphone, it doesn't make me any different from anyone in the audition.

For the subreddit gang, is the anthology title really, as fans have speculated, an anagram of "Clancy is Expressionless?, another deepTrench reference?

No comment!

While the anthology does, in general, have this upwardly vibe, the final track, "Redecorate," is decidedly more ominous and touches on the legacy we exit behind. It also feels very personal, can you talk about the story of that song and how it fits into the greater narrative?

When I was putting this record together I knew 2 things: "Cheerio" was going to exist the get-go vocal and I kind of knew "Redecorate" was going to exist the last ane. On a audio pattern level "Redecorate" was the song I worked with [frequent collaborator] Paul Meany on, we did Trench together. I introduced this brand new, sparkling, happy, colorful record and I hope that people sympathise that the reason I'm catastrophe it with "Redecorate" is that we're headed in some other direction afterwards this. That is an intentional hint at what I want to endeavour to practise adjacent. Information technology's not actually a cliffhanger, but it is a precursor and lyrically it's such an important song for me.

I had a friend of mine whose son passed away and they kept his room the mode information technology was. I started thinking about something every bit specific and unproblematic equally "What's gonna happen to my stuff?"… everyone can understand that fifty-fifty though it's simple and nigh doesn't matter it can really be an impactful thought. "What happens to my stuff when I go? What nearly the things left behind?" And non merely the stuff, simply you naturally movement to people. What about my family? What about my friends? I idea that was a powerful thought, something I've thought about before and I idea some people would relate to. I'm really proud of that 1.

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Source: https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/twenty-one-pilots-tyler-joseph-interview-scaled-and-icy-9581253/

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