Twenty One Pilots are the latest winners of our Rock Sound 25 Icon Award and in our all-new interview, we asked Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun a very important question – what does Twenty One Pilots mean to them?
As we wrapped up our retrospective, career-spanning conversation with Tyler and Josh, we asked them about what being in the band has meant to them over the years. It is a question that we previously put to fans in London who were lined up in Camden for their tiny show at the Assembly venue back in June 2022.
You can hear some of those fan answers in the video below:
See what the band had to say in this extract from our magazine cover story below:
RS: The last time you played in the UK, we made a video piece where we asked your fans waiting in line about what the band has meant to them. So, as we wrap up this retrospective conversation, let’s finish on that same question – what does Twenty One Pilots mean to you?
JOSH: Well, it’s changed my life. I remember very early on, maybe even before Tyler and I played music together, having a conversation about music and what it is and what it means. Throughout the course of our lives, we’ve both experienced the journeys of what the human brain can do to you. It’s not always an easy road every day. I think Tyler and I both really took a lot from music to help with that, and having a conversation where we said ‘man, if we could make and put out music that helped one person through life, dealing with difficult times, that would feel worth it’. And it’s gone beyond that. 12 years into being a band, there’s a line of people outside of the shows. Seeing and noticing and not taking that for granted, and hearing stories of how it has impacted people positively, that’s what Twenty One Pilots is to me.
TYLER: It’s hard to make your dreams come true. But it’s not as far away as some people think. I think that what Twenty One Pilots has taught me and what it means to me is that when you are passionate about what you do, and you try to pair that with a confidence that what you’re doing is good, that goes so much further than actually having all the talent in the world or all the connections in the world or all the knowledge – all these things that get in the way of feeling like you can go do it. I remember when I first thought ‘I want to write songs, I want to play shows’, I’d be rubbing shoulders with people even in a local scene in Columbus, Ohio that knew so much more than me about gear and about songwriting, who were better at their instrument, knew more people in the industry, had more connections. It was this moment where I felt like I just wanted to quit. There’s no way I could catch up, I gotta learn all this, I got to meet all these people. Something in us said ‘No, you don’t need to figure all that out, just keep going’. Now I look around at something I want to do or understand or create or become and because of Twenty One Pilots, I now realise all of those walls that are in between me and becoming that thing, they’re just made of nothing. But you can still see them, and you feel like you can’t break through that wall. But really, you’ve got to just casually walk through them. It’s not that far away. I don’t know if that makes sense. But I’ve seen it in other ways. Now that I’m a dad, wanting to instil a passion or a purpose in a small child. What are they like? What do they want to become? What are they going to dream up to be? And not only just for me, but for them to see the story of Twenty One Pilots is something that should encourage them that yes, you can do that. I guess not to be too dramatic about it, but there’s no reason on paper why this should have worked. If you’re writing down on paper all the reasons why you think your dreams aren’t going to exist, then you’re looking at the wrong thing, because that’s actually not as big of a hurdle to clear.
