How Twenty One Pilots charted a course for success

“I feel like we’ve got the coolest people listening to our music,” says Josh Dun, drummer in Twenty One Pilots.

“The type of people who would call us out if we did something dumb. They’d know if we just phoned in a show or a song. They keep us on our toes.”

These days, those toes barely touch the ground.

Twenty One Pilots have played 128 shows so far this year and almost by stealth, they’ve become the year’s biggest breakthrough band.

The momentum began with Stressed Out, a rock-rap ode to the innocence of childhood (“Used to dream of outer space, but now they’re laughing at our face / Saying, ‘Wake up, you need to make money'”).

Released in January, it reached number two in the US and gave the band their first UK hit. But things really took off when they contributed a song, Heathens, to Warner Bros’ anti-superhero movie Suicide Squad.

Eerie and atmospheric, it took singer Tyler Joseph’s prevailing concern – the demons faced by people with mental health issues – and applied it to the film’s cast of villains and outcasts.

Since its debut in June, the song has been streamed more than 368 million times, arguably becoming more successful than the critically-derided film it hails from.

“I don’t know about that,” laughs Dun. “I enjoyed the film – we went and saw it opening night in Alabama with our crew. It was a cool thing, hearing our song in a movie.”

(Source: BBC News)