Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
You hear about our conservative background and know that we're Christian guys, but we're not timid at all. I will take anyone on when it comes to outworking them or putting on a better show or standing up for people who are being put down.
One think that you notice about anyone that gets up on stage is that they don't really have a lot of self-awareness. It's kind of a trait that performers don't have because you just kinda just have to let go and do whatever you want to do on stage.
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.
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.
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.
The lyrics are a lot about those big questions: why are we here, how did we get here, what's the point, and what's next. When those questions come up with fans, I would absolutely share with them what has helped me and where I stand on what it is that I believe.
When you play a show or festival, people know what they're getting; they want it. Then you're thrown onto a show where people are watching TV in their houses, and whether they ask for it or not, we're being played in front of them. There's a lot of negative feedback.
We come from a sensory-overload culture, and so we wonder if one guy on drums and one guy dancing around is enough. Adding guys was something we always were curious about. We decided for this run specifically to stay a two-piece. In the future, we definitely could add members.
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.
We've done that whole spectrum of different varieties of shows, and we've figured out the best way of capturing the audience and taking them to a place where they will have an experience that they will never forget, whether they don't like it, or they actually resonate with what we're trying to do.
Self-awareness is a character trait that's horrible to have if you're a performer. I think that a lot of these performers that we see get up on stage and play music, there's a sense of them truly not caring how they're coming across. They are just themselves. I look up to a lot of people who are like that.
There's variables at every single gig. I look forward to those every night. We have a lot of things that happen in our show, a lot of people from the outside watching the show might think it's one schtick after the next. We promised ourselves we have to be there mentally. We have to be aware. We are forced to be aware.
I don't love the way I look. Nobody does, and if they do, I don't want to be that person's friend. But we all know what we're insecure about. The question I had as I was writing was, 'How are these things affecting the way I live? How am I compensating because I don't like this about myself? What do I do to cover it up?'
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.
It's a funny thing. I'll be in my home town of Columbus at a restaurant or something, and the waiter maybe asks, 'What do you do?' and I say, 'Oh, I'm in a band... Twenty One Pilots,' and he'll say, 'Cool, I'll check it out. I never heard of them.' And then I say, 'In September we're playing the Schottenstein Center,' and it's like, 'What?!'