These omnivorous pop stars are unafraid to pour their hearts out.
twenty one pilots Video Essentials
The Ohio duo give scenes of modern life a fresh dose of surrealism.
twenty one pilots' The Clancy World Tour Set List
Listen to the hits performed on the blockbuster tour.
At Home with Tyler Joseph from Twenty One Pilots: The Playlist
“I'm excited for what music is going to look like—not just for us, but for everyone.”
twenty one pilots: The Scaled and Icy Interview
twenty one pilots’ Tyler Joseph joins Zane to discuss the duo’s sixth album Scaled And Icy.
About twenty one pilots
Artist Biography
twenty one pilots’ cathartic, kitchen-sink style—which folds in alt-rock, reggae, electronic music, and rap—is one of the most unique, unclassifiable commercial sounds of the 2010s and ’20s. Formed by friends Tyler Joseph, Nick Thomas, and Chris Salih in Columbus, Ohio, the band took its name from Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons, in which a contractor knowingly sends off faulty airplane parts to Europe during World War II, resulting in the death of 21 pilots. The band self-released two albums before making the leap to a subsidiary of Warner Music Group in 2012, shuffling ranks along the way before settling on singer-songwriter Joseph and drummer Josh Dun as its core members.
As a duo, they delved further into the idiosyncrasies of their sound—characterized by a minimal blend of keyboards, driving drums, and playful, self-probing lyrics—winning a Grammy in 2017 for their single “Stressed Out.” In 2018, they released their fifth album, Trench, which featured the singles “Chlorine” and “My Blood” and was co-written with MUTEMATH’s Paul Meany. The title of their next album, 2021’s Scaled and Icy, was partially a reference to making music in the pandemic—scaled back and isolated. It was mostly produced remotely, with Joseph and Dun working in separate studios. They called back to Trench with 2024’s Clancy (named after a character from that earlier album), a showcase of their restlessly creative range that mixed hip-hop, pop punk, ballads, and cinematic rock.
A practicing Christian, Joseph credits his faith—and the sustained internal dialogue that comes with it—as a source of inspiration, using his art as a platform to wrestle directly with his demons. Touring Blurryface, for example, he covered his neck and arms with black greasepaint on stage—a visualization of his insecurities. That honesty has earned the band a remarkably dedicated fanbase. “I never would have turned to music if I didn’t feel like I need to work on something or change or cope with something,” Joseph told Apple Music. “I think that I was perfectly fine before music, and then something happened where I just felt, like, a buildup of some sort. And I didn’t know how to release that. I didn’t know how to decompress that and to have an outlet for it. And I was forced to learn how to play the piano.”
Hometown
Columbus, OH, United States
Genre
Alternative
Similar to: twenty one pilots
Discover more music and artists similar to twenty one pilots, like Panic! At the Disco, Imagine Dragons, Fall Out Boy