Insecurity, for me, feels like the sensation of suffocating.
Tyler Joseph
There was a lot of pressure to find a genre and stick to it. People would tell me all the time, ‘You can’t be all things to everyone.’ I would say, ‘I’m not trying to be! I’m being what I want to be for myself.’
Tyler Joseph
Blurryface is a fictional character and a reference to insecurities, which I think all people have.
Josh Dun
“Don’t roll a tire down a hill if there’s a cow standing behind you wearing rubber boots.”
― Josh Dun
There’s always that fear of your own head and the things you’re going to think.
“Sometimes to stay alive you’ve got to kill your mind.”
― Twenty one pilots
Radio is a hungry monster that eats very fast.
Tyler Joseph
“I’m forced to deal with what I feel.
There is no distraction to mask what is real. – Twenty One Pilots”
― Twenty one pilots
Music seems to hold everything together. It seems to make things not so chaotic sometimes. It seems to make things make more sense sometimes.
Josh Dun
It’s all right to fail. You just have to get up again and try. That’s the bottom line.
Tyler Joseph
I had to make 500 shots every day, and when my mom wasn’t looking, I’d get up closer to the basket and do lay-ups and count them, and she’d be at the back window at the kitchen and knock. Then I’d have to go back and shoot from longer.
Tyler Joseph
Writing songs is kind of like a wrestling match to me. You have to pin it down and make it do what you want it to do. Tyler Joseph
Know this: you can start over, each morning.
“I don’t fall slow like I used to; I fall straight down. You’ve stolen my air catcher that kept me safe and sound.”
—Twenty One Pilots
“It’s worth it to stay alive. Because life is hard in the moment, it’s hard to see what can be down the road. You get tunnel vision and I think that the current moment is all you have left. But that’s not it. There can be come. Please let there be more. Please stay alive.”
― Josh Dun
“Fight it. Take the pain. Ignite it”
—Twenty One Pilots
Some people would look at a backing track as something that would confine you, but it really frees us up. It’s nice not to be strapped down to a certain spot when you’re trying to put on a show.
Tyler Joseph
“No one looks up anymore ’cause you might get a raindrop in your eye. And heaven forbid, they see you cry as we fall in line.”
—Twenty One Pilots
That’s the philosophy that we have always had. Going and playing in front of people and leaving an impressive from that standpoint.
Josh Dun
We do things differently. You don’t have to worry about being part of a particular genre. You just go for it.
Tyler Joseph
“If you’re one of them then you’re one of me. And you’d do almost anything just to feel free.”
—Twenty One Pilots
After talking to people and meeting them every day, I realize that a song can be written from one perspective with an objective in mind. What is crazy about it is that many different people can take one song a totally different way. That is so cool, since music is a universal thing and a very personal thing.
Josh Dun
“We should take a moment and hold it and know that life has a hopeful undertone.”
—Twenty One Pilots
“I’m standing in front of you. I’m trying to be so cool.”
—Twenty One Pilots
Music can connect people on an intimate level. What Josh and I are trying to do is represent anyone who has some of the questions that we have.
Tyler Joseph
“You don’t know my brain the way you know my face.”
― Twenty one pilots
When Josh and I are recording a record, we’re very mindful of how the music will manifest itself live. That’s where we have to live every day. When we tour for the next record, I imagine there will be a new story to tell, and we’ll introduce new characters.
“A loser hides behind a mask of my disguise”
― Twenty one pilots
“I was told when I get older all my fears would shrink, but now I’m insecure and I care what people think.”
― Twenty one pilots
“You will hide from everyone, denying you need someone to exterminate your bones. Friend, please remove your hands from over your eyes for me”
—Twenty One Pilots
Josh is the guy in the band who’s just so friendly and super, wanting to walk up to you and say, ‘Hey, I’m Josh. I drum in this band, and I’m a big fan of you, and I really appreciate what you do.’ Josh has all these great friends in the industry now.
Tyler Joseph
It’s hard not to be affected by the live audience.
Tyler Joseph
I guess when I first started writing music, I really had no idea if anyone was ever going to hear what I was writing and almost no intention of people hearing it. So, it was kind of this journal. It was pretty unfiltered.
Tyler Joseph
I kinda always wanted to be an ant.
“Who is blurryface and why does he want me dead?”
― Twenty one pilots
“Sometimes death seems better than the migraine in my head”
― Twenty one pilots
There’s so many people who have never heard of us, but I think what we’ve learned is you can’t underestimate the power of a core fan base and people who believe what you’re doing. I think they’re the ultimate marketers. They’re the ones promoting us.
Tyler Joseph
Our palette is wide and eclectic. That’s why we crank out a lot of different styles. To some people, it makes us seem disjointed or scattered. But when we play live, it makes sense to us.
Tyler Joseph
I remember the first time I ever showed my parents a song that I had written. The content may have been a little darker than they were used to, or really introspective in a way that may have been uncomfortable. I thought they’d retaliate with some kind of judgment or concern about whether I was feeling all right, but they were proud of it.
Tyler Joseph
“Don’t forget about me even when I doubt you, I’m no good without you.”
—Twenty One Pilots
“The songs on the radio are okay. But my taste in music is your face”
—Twenty One Pilots
There’s miles of land in front of us and we’re dying with every step we take. We’re dying with every breath we make and I’ll fall in line.” —Twenty One Pilots
‘Twenty One Pilots’ is a play by Arthur Miller, who also wrote ‘All My Sons.’ It’s about a guy who’s creating and developing parts for airplanes in war time, when it comes to his attention that some of these parts were faulty.
Josh Dun
“Sometimes we will die and sometimes we will fly away. Either way you’re by my side until my dying days.”
—Twenty One Pilots
“I will make you believe you are lovely.”
—Twenty One Pilots
We know in order to get where we want to be and do what we want to be doing, sometimes we have to do what we don’t feel like doing. It takes hard work, and the band name is a constant reminder of that.
Tyler Joseph
It is true that if you hear our music described, it sounds unappealing. I used to laugh and agree with people when they said it didn’t make any sense.
Tyler Joseph
“Sometimes to stay alive, you gotta kill your mind.”
― Twenty one pilots
I like candles. It helps cover up for the fact that I have four male roommates.
Tyler Joseph
By the time you do what somebody else is doing, everybody has moved on to something else.
Tyler Joseph
From the beginning, my songwriting was from writing in a journal; it was completely unfiltered. I don’t know if I really meant to show everyone this side of me, but when I saw how people resonated to the things I was saying, some of the questions I was asking, I realized I was not alone.
Tyler Joseph
It’s not like we grew up hanging around in church every day. We’ll always stick to what we feel is right for us to do, and I don’t think either of us have had a hard time saying, ‘This is who I am, and I’m fine with it.’
Josh Dun
“Don’t you test me now, just because I play the piano, doesn’t mean I’m not willing to take you down”
― Twenty one pilots
“Domingo en fuego, I think I lost my halo..”
― Twenty one pilots
“I begin to assemble what weapons I can find. Cause sometimes to stay alive you gotta kill your mind”
—Twenty One Pilots
Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit.