#i now found a video from clancy tour and-

[pardonmydelays]

those note changes in backslide, OH MY GOD???

[inkbagel]

Okay I gotta ask: who’s Clancy?

I’ve been listening to a little bit more twenty one pilots lately just because I found a couple songs I like and I noticed the name pop up in Paladin Straits.

Is this a real person? Is there lore behind the songs? I’m dying to know, tell me their secrets /nf

OKOKOK OMGG OK SO

Clancy is a fictional character, idk if there’s actually a name for the lore other than the tøp lore but he’s from there

The guy on the left is Josh Dun/The Torchbearer, and the guy on the right is Tyler Joseph/Clancy.

Clancys the mc in the story and the Torchbearer is his kind of romantically coded best friend who’s also the leader of the Banditos! A rebel(?) group that lives outside the city of Dema.

If you go to twenty one pilots channel on yt, they have a playlist with every major lore video (but there’s plenty of extra stuff outside of that playlist that you can find on the Wikipedia, plus a livestream they did in-universe which is v pretty I love it dearly I have a link if you ever want it)

The whole story is a mediphor for battling with mental health, and tells it really well!! It’s really impressive.

The basic plot of the story is Clancy is a citizen of Dema, a large depressing city in the gorgeous fictional continent of Trench. The city is controlled by the Nine Bishops who enforce their religion upon its citizens (which is essentially telling everyone to be depressed and kill themselves) so they can “seize them” (bc the bishops can control dead bodies)

The city is nearly impossible to escape thanks to a giant concrete wall, but Clancy has escaped multiple times. Outside the wall he meets up with the Banditos (led by the torchbearer) and just kinda lives with them and is happy and loved and everything good. But Nico (the leader of the nine bishops) keeps dragging him back into Dema.

At some point Clancy becomes well known in the city for being one of like three people to escape, (and also for having a website dedicated to spreading propaganda but that part of the story gets confusing and no one really understands what happens to Clancy there) and the bishops decide to use this to their advantage by giving Clancy pink hair and pronouns and forcing him to be an entertainer.

(Side note during this arc Clancy started to flat out hallucinate the torchbearer bc he was so lonely which I think is really cute he missed his best friend so much)

Eventually Clancy escapes bc Nico is betrayed by another bishop, Keons, and gets washed up onto an island called Voldsoy where he meets the Neds!

(They look like this I couldn’t find a picture from the actual story and am too lazy to go screenshot it myself)

The neds give him the gift of their antlers which allow Clancy to control bodies the same way bishops do!

Another side note, the REAL torchbearer has the Jesus-like power of controlling Clancy’s hallucination to “guide” Clancy to places he needs to go (he guided Clancy to the Neds and also guided him back to the Banditos later)

After Clancy meets back up with the banditos (and more importantly the torchbearer), they all prepare for a final battle with the bishops and go fight them. This is where for the bajillionth time the lore gets confusing.

This happened in the finale which btw, right before releasing the video, Tyler Joseph (lead singer) said “let me ask you, do you think this is the end?” Bc this most recent album was supposed to be the finale to the story but now he’s acting cryptic about it? So a lot of people are torn on if we’re getting more lore or not (I think we definitely are esp after what they’re doing with the world tour)

But basically in the finale all the Banditos fought the Bishop controlled zombies outside the walls of Dema so Clancy could sneak in undetected and take out the bishops, and he takes down most of them but right at the last second Nico grabs Clancy by the neck and starts talking to him and then Clancy opens his eyes to stare Nico down and send a message that he’s not afraid of him anymore and the screen cuts to black.

Once again this is supposed to be the end of the lore. A lot of ppl are assuming Clancy is dead rn but now that the tøp world tour started there’s more lore involving different characters writing letters to each other. This is so far unrelated aside from the fact that they all talk about Clancy inspiring them to take action.

All the albums after Vessel are based on the story. They’re supposed to all be in the pov of Clancy (ofc) and if you look closely at the lyrics you can catch a lot of extra lore.

Blurryface is what Nico calls himself, Trench is the name of the pretty continent they live in, Scaled and icy is an enneagram for “Clancy is dead” (which in their Christmas single they said was propaganda) and also a play on the saying “scaled back and isolated” (bc it’s the album where Clancy is kidnapped and alone) and finally Clancy, the “finale”. It’s a really cool story.

There’s a ton of extra details I left out like the significance of the color yellow but yea that’s the main story and who Clancy is :) my siblings and I have been digging up all the lore the past month and with each new tidbit I get a little more fixated on this weird cat guy hope you like this unprompted infodump

[bookpirate32]

So at the risk of being BULLIED I am a twenty one pilots fan. My sister told me I should put this on the internet so here I am. I have been a fan since I was 12 years old. Blurryface had JUST come out and my teacher played Tear In My Heart in my jazz dance class and from there I heard migraine and ode to sleep and I was hooked. I was being over prescribed stimulants, my autism had been long undiagnosed, and my parents were not in tune with my needs. I’d been suicidal for 4 years at this point because I was basically walking through the world completely isolated from everyone else. My dad said it was just regular teenage angst. He knows it wasn’t now, but they had other kids to deal with. I wasn’t even really connected to my siblings. In a lot of ways, this music was my connection to the world for the very first time. My mom fell in love with Vessel and Self Titled, my brother loved Blurryface. Before I knew it my mom was taking us both to our first concert: The Emotional Roadshow. Ever since then, my mom and I have seen every tour together. We connect on a lot more things now, that I have my diagnosis and have moved out and I am getting the help I need. If it hadn’t been for Tyler and Josh and their art, I don’t think I would have a relationship with my mom. I don’t think I would have been able to move past the hurt. I don’t think I would have been able to forgive. We talk all the time now, and I can tell her how I feel without it hurting our relationship. The other day, they dropped their 7th album (Tyler Joseph’s 7th work, Josh Dun’s 6th work with them operating as a duo) Clancy. Since this album was released we have texted or called all day every day. I’ve called and texted my sisters every day about it. Yesterday my mom and I talked for 2 hours about what songs were the best, and why, and what they were about and the lore and the videos. I found myself so excited to talk to her about everything this album had given us. My favorite song on this album is called “Oldies Station”. It’s about surviving suicide and suicidal ideation. It tells of Tyler’s personal struggles with major depressive disorder, and how his mental health has bettered and worsened depending on the seasons of his life. It means so much to be. Twenty one pilots means so much to me. They mean so much to family. So I guess thanks for everything.

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #81: Ned’s Declassified Trench Survival Guide (1/25/19)

Wowza! After a quiet past month, we got flooded with a huge deluge of content so substantial that it requires the Weekly Update to revert to its old long-form format. That required a few extra sleepless hours from me this week, but I literally cannot complain when my favorite band is keeping me so well fed. We’ve got a lot to sort through, but I believe we can do it together.

This Week’s TØPics:

Meet Ned: “Chlorine” Music Video Released

Clancy Returns to Mess Up Our Lives

TØP to Headline Lollapalooza Paris

Sirius XM Radio Town Hall and Hosting Gig

ALTer Ego Saves the Best for First

Upcoming: Bandito Europe Kicks Off This Week

And MORE!

Major News, Releases, and Announcements:

The biggest news of the week (as you know, otherwise why would you be here?) was undoubtedly the release of the music video for “Chlorine”. Not set in the world of Dema (unless Trench has been developed into an Australian suburb in the last few months), the video features Tyler and Josh filling up a swimming pool for an adorable little goat/cat/Furby critter named “Ned”. The fine Clique folks on Twitter and Reddit have been very active speculating just what in the heck this all means and if it has anything at all to do with the rest of the band’s current narrative. My theory: Tyler read some early fan speculation about the reversed “We are Banditos” clip in “Nico and the Niners”, which sounds like “So keep Ned by you,” and Tyler found that so funny that he thought up of the most ridiculous idea for who “Ned” could be and put it into the first music video they filmed after the fans had their hands on the whole album.

Much more shocking than the music video (which we’ve known was coming for a few weeks) was the revival of dmaorg.info for the first time since well before the release of the album. Three big takeaways from this new letter: First, from a narrative standpoint, Clancy is back in Dema, brought back by the kindly old bishop Keons. He is still uncomfortable there, but he also was never fully comfortable out in Trench either, and now feels torn about where he belongs. Second, the file name is the atomic number and mass of chlorine, because Tyler Joseph is a monster. Third, the hidden message on this one, coded in letters that are double printed, is “SODEEPNEDBYYOU”, which I’d say pretty much confirms the theory about ol’ Ned’s origins.

Finally, we got another new show announcement, as Twenty One Pilots will be headlining Lollapalooza Paris this July in their first of five European summer festivals. If you’re a French/European fan who hasn’t been able to get to a show from the upcoming tour, now’s your chance! 

Performances and Other Shenanigans:

As fun as it was to join with the Clique in losing our minds speculating over "Chlorine”-related nonsense this week, the most special piece of Twenty One Pilots content from this past week was Tyler’s acoustic piano set for Sirius XM’s Town Hall, which was released in full on Monday. I could write half a book on this performance, which Tyler designed to chronologically trace the arc of his career and the evolution of his creative process. It wasn’t just Tyler sitting down to play some songs; he clearly put a lot of thought into the performance, as he introduced each song with a meaningful story and even inserted a recurring bit with Josh calling in from his travels through New York. Highlights include a gorgeous stripped-down rendition of “Taxi Cab”, Tyler describing the importance of an actual sustain pedal for composing songs on piano, and, of course, the first ever performance of “Cut My Lip” with percussion provided by Tyler’s wedding ring striking the piano. That said, the most impactful part of the whole show for me was Tyler’s revealing introduction to an almost spoken-word rendition of “Holding On To You”, which was enough to make me listen to a song I’ve heard a thousand times these last six years in a completely new way. The entire set is a must-listen for any fan.

That element only scratches the surface of the band’s surprisingly extensive collaboration with Sirius over the weekend. In addition to a fun and engaged fan Q&A at the tail-end of the Town Hall (in which they confirmed new songs will be joining the setlist this year), Tyler and Josh did a game job hosting the weekend Top 45 countdown for the Hits 1 station, talking about other artists, pop culture, and other inane nonsense with the goofy and dry humor of two guys who know each other very well. Here’s a collection of some of their best dialogue from the weekend; completionists will have to go to Sirius’s On-Demand website and go on that complete archive binge.

With all that’s happened in the past seven days, one can almost forget that the week started off with the band’s first performance of 2019 (well, technically the Town Hall was recorded first, but it’s the first one the general public saw and the first full concert production with both Tyler and Josh and... look, you get it). Tyler and Josh expectedly killed their contribution to iHeart’s ALTer Ego festival, opening the show with the night’s longest set. (Tyler quipped that they “saved the best for first”; River Cuomo later joked that Weezer “saved the best for the middle”.) The stream of the show has been mostly taken down by our corporate overlords, but I’m sure ya’ll can find the relevant clips if you scour the Interwebs long enough. Also, Josh paid back this radio sponsorship by answering some fan questions that’s worth a watch for a few laughs.

It was refreshing to see Twenty One Pilots back in the competitive environment of a festival where not everyone knows them and their songs, considering they’ve been away from that setting since they headlined Firefly nearly two years ago. I’m looking forward to how general festival audiences receive Trench when they start headlining later this year.

One last thing to note: chart performance for “My Blood” and “Chlorine” are stable. Haven’t budged much at all. We’ll see how that changes when the music video’s impact hits.

Upcoming Shows:

Let’s wrap up this week by looking ahead to the future! Next Wednesday, Tyler and Josh will literally return to Dema when they kick off the Bandito Tour in Kiev, Ukraine, the home of the university where most of the Dema scenes were shot in the “Nico and the Niners” music video. It will be the band’s first show in the country, giving 10,000 Ukrainian fans the chance to see their band in person at their city’s Palace of Sports for the first full show of the year. With the recent release of the “Chlorine” video and the performance of “Cut My Lip”, I feel pretty secure in guessing that those songs will finally make the setlist. Everything else is up in the air: Will other songs from Trench make their way on? Will any old favorites return? New covers? What songs will have to be cut? Who is the support act? Will Ned be there? These and more important questions will be answered by this time next week.

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/

[rose-tinted-juls]

Twenty Øne Piløts ~ Trench

Welcome to my Ted Talk about everything going in my head right now because of these two boys.

They came back after one year. To be exact, they left on 7 July 2017 (two days before my birthday) and then came back with the new logo and gif/short video thing on July 9 2018 (which is my birthday) and then they released two new songs on July 11 2018 (two days after my birthday). For me it seems so cool, this 2 days before-after thing and that something happened exactly on my birthday as well. Anyway.

They have been pointing at it, all the theories (Clancy letters, pictures and moon dates) were true and now they all make sense like whaaaat.

They released two songs as I mentioned previously, along with a new album title, which is Trench. People have found this word and have been guessing about its meaning for a while, now we know what it is.

The first song is Jumpsuit. (I actually screamed when I was just simply texting my bff and saw the notification appearing on my screen. I couldn't believe my eyes tbh.) AND NOT ONLY A SONG. IT'S AN OFFICIAL VIDEO. Let's talk about that later.

The second song is Nico and the niners (a.k.a. NATN). It's only audio, but God, what an audio... (I was watching Jumpsuit when I got the notification, I literally dropped my phone whilst screaming - my family didn't have a clue what on earth happened to me again.) Let's talk about this later as well.

They just told us the date when Trench, the new album will be released. October 5, 2018, I'm coming for you.

They released the name for the tour starting on 16 October, 2018, and it's The Bandito Tour. (THIS SOUNDS SO COOL WTF) This wonderful piece of world tour will come to Europe (where I live), more exactly to Vienna (which is about a 5 hours long drive from my town - they will be so close to me, hell yeah!)

The new era is yellow. It's freaking yellow. The new logo looks so lovely and cool that I can't. I'm in love.

Okay let's talk about the Jumpsuit video and all the lyrics of the new songs.

Jumpsuit official video, music and lyrics

Josh appearing at 4:20, looking over Tyler

Tyler screaming

Tyler in flowers

the burnt down car (probably it's the same as the one in the HDS video, I mean, look at his hair. Just the same. Even his clothes.)

Tyler's voice sounds somehow more mature (?). God, I missed his voice so freaking much.

this new-ish style, which is incredibly good to listen to

the red caped man is probably Blurryface

the lyrics is just how I imagined the lyrics to their new songs

"We've been here the whole time. You were asleep. It's time to wake up." freaking hell I freaking knew you were here (not really, tbh I just hoped they were)

I'm pretty sure it was Josh who started throwing down those flowers.

anyway, I never knew I had a thing for Tyler running. Now I know I do.

TYLER LOOKS SO GOOD GOD HOW IS HE CAPABLE TO LOOK BETTER AND BETTER?

Tyler's face before the screaming part as he sang the "I can't believe how much I hate" part.

I missed them so so so muchhh I can't even tell you how much.

that horse is so beautiful

the song (the melody, Tyler's voice) somehow reminds me of the old tøp like the self-titled era and RAB maybe but that's just me remiscing about it.

GOD I NEED A JUMPSUIT. They started a new fashion brand now with this song. (If it's yellow, it's even better.)

Just imagine one thing. The Bandito Tour, and instead of the red confettis there will be yellow flower petals falling down. That would look so amazing!

Nico And The Niners (NATN) official audio and lyrics

the way it starts. THAT UKULELE.

Tyler's toned down and reversed voice says "We are banditos. You will leave Dema and their duties. You denounce Vialism." Even this sounds so cool honestly.

"EAST IS UP." Can you believe that we figured it out correctly? When I first heard these three words I almost fainted. I've been saying these words, thinking about what they could mean for soooooo long. AND KNOW HERE IT IS.

"Dema don't control us." AGAIN.

God sometimes I though that this website thing with all the cryptic letters, pictures, moon dates were only some joke that someone plays on us. And that someone in this world is sitting there laughing at all the rumours we're building up. And now it turns out it way Tyler and Josh doing all of this (also the laughing part probably)... I'm dead.

Okay, get this together. (Part of it quoted from Genius Lyrics.) Jumpsuits are worn by firefighters because they are non-flammable and protect them from the flames. Also, Jumpsuit is their other new song. These clothes are also quite heavy. Tyler is saying he needs a “jumpsuit” to protect him from the “fires” in his mind, aka things such as stress, depression, and anxiety. The “jumpsuit” is whatever distracts you and protects you from them, or even whatever suppresses them and lessens them. This is why it takes him high, because it makes it easier to cope, and flying higher means he gets farther away from the fire. In comparison, being lighter means he is closer to the fire and succumbing to it. THIS IS AWESOME.

THAT RAP AT THE END WTF I wasn't ready for that.

the way Tyler says "so high" sends shivers down my spine (wtf)

it's kinda upbeat but still dark because of the toned down voice in the background and in the bridge part, and it sounds incredible.

"We'll win but not everyone will get out." these boys and their lyrics... they kill me every time with these lines. And this is just one example.

Anyway. WHO IS NICO AND WHO ARE THOSE NINERS? I'm confused a little bit, someone explain this to me please.

Okay, let's get to other things (with a few pics and gifs).

The album cover.

It looks so so so good in my opinion.

The tour. (The whole thing is perfect.)

Tyler. (And Josh.)

I love these so much.

And for a final pic this is so funny but so true at the same time. God lmao, I agree.

Anyway, these were my thoughts. Hope you liked it. (If you read it till this point, so you're still reading these words, congrats!)

Tell me what you think about the end of the hiatus, their comeback, the songs, the video, the new era (the colour), and everything else about these boys.

We are twenty øne piløts and so are you. |-/

||-//

[nikkifinnie-blog]

Meet The Bolokos

The Bolokos are a punk band formed in 2009 in Goyave, Guadeloupe (F.W.I). They are composed of Océ Cheapfret (vocals, guitar, bombard, mandolin,) Edy Caramello (vocals, guitar, harmonica, bagpipes,) Mister Fridge (drums, vocals) and Ben O'It (bass, vocals). Pioneers of Punk Rock in Guadeloupe, the group started out playing small clubs on the island as The Sleepwalkers, but quickly renamed themselves the Bolokos. (More on what a Boloko is below!) The band is a fusion of punk, country, ska, Celtic and Creole music. They cultivate a particular style both visually and musically. In December 2014, they released their first single, "Love You As Before" on the Bokit Production label. The band is known to incorporate other instruments not commonly found in punk such as gwo ka, melodica, banjo, and trumpet.  They are releasing their first LP sometime in 2018 produced by Martinican artist Kali. They are native French speakers, but wanted to do the interview in English and I found them to be a group of really funny, very independent and free thinking, extremely talented individuals.  Read on! Photo credit: Lala Von Schwartz (L to R: Ben O’It, Ocè Cheapfret, Edy Caramello, Mister Fridge and Woody the bird!)   Erin: Hi guys!  My first and most pressing question is what the hell is a Boloko? Océ Cheapfret: Hi Erin, thank you very much for this interview! To answer your question, a Boloko is a creole term for someone with a completely extravagant odd outfit and rude manners.  In the West Indies it’s a very pejorative term.  He has no conscience about the lack of good taste or he simply ignores it.  It’s someone who is daring and ignores fashion codes. I see him as an anti-conformist. Edy Caramello: Yeah, it’s kind of an insult. The closest thing I can think of that would translate into English, is a misfit or a bumpkin.  When we began we had a different name but my eldest sister used to call us Bolokos because that’s what we were haha!  So we finally changed it, thinking with a name like that it can permit us to do anything and everything.  But it was a mistake, because at the beginning nobody wanted to hire us because of the name. Here we don’t have that culture of depreciating names for bands. Mister Fridge: We don’t care about what people think.  Even if it’s a denigrating word in Guadeloupe, we choose to laugh at it rather than take it seriously. Erin: Tell me a bit about each one of the band members; where you are from, what made you want to play music, what instruments do you play? Mister Fridge: Let's start with the only woman in the group, Océ Cheapfret!  She’s a bit like our mother, because without her we would forget a lot of things for concerts haha.  But otherwise, it’s this unique, sincere, melodious voice that thrills the audience.  An unforgettable character for the public, everyone remembers her.  Then we have Edy Caramello, the first fan of punk in Guadeloupe, our songwriter without whom none of this would have been possible!  Obviously, without us, it would be nothing, but he gave much of his persona for the band.  And myself the drummer, the oldest, “el padre”.  I originally come from Normandy.  I have lived in Guadeloupe for 10 years.  Music is vital for me.  I also love trying new instruments.  I literally live music, I beat the rhythm everywhere I can. Edy Caramello : Very poetic!  For a shorter presentation, hum hum, I was born and grew up in Guadeloupe.  I think it was listening to Bob Dylan with my father which really gave me an interest in making music rather than only listening or dancing to it.  In the band I do some barking and play guitar, harmonica, bagpipes and banjo. Océ Cheapfret : I do lead vocals and play guitar, mandolin and bombard.  Like Edy, I was born and grew up in the French West Indies (Martinique and Guadeloupe).  After we completed  our studies in France, we decided to reform our old band and spread the punk message louder than the first time.  Punk rock in theWest Indies seemed a risky business at the time.  You know zouk is the predominant music with dancehall and you have other Caribbean music which fills the empty spaces, so rock ‘n’ roll is nearly inexistent.  But we really wanted to share this music which make us so happy and after a lot of gigs and perseverance the audience got bigger. Erin: When did you start playing music and when did you decide or realize music was the path you were going to take? Mister Fridge: I started playing music at 13 with saxophone, but I quickly changed to percussion and it has remained a passion ever since. Océ Cheapfret: My taste for rock music developed at adolescence with Californian bands like The Offspring and Red Hot Chili Peppers. I immediately wanted to play guitar.  At 12, I got my first guitar from my uncle who previously got his first guitar from his uncle!  It’s a kind of a family tradition! Punk music came later with more happy times. My friend Edy introduced me to this very particular scene.  It’s with him that I learned how to sing when we started to play traditional tunes that inspired us so much. Edy Caramello : I was kind of late to start music compared to the other band members.  I was maybe 14 or 15.  I began with piano and my father taught me how to play the harmonica, but it’s Océ who taught me how to play the guitar.  I don’t really know how to explain it because it’s a passion, you know?  It’s when I see people dancing, shouting and singing our songs that I realize that it really worth doing it. Erin: Who are your major influences? What or who inspires you today? Océ Cheapfret: For me, traditional country music (Kingston Trio, Carter Family, etc.,) but the music that is inspiring me the most right now and makes me happy is ska!  Bands like The Selecter and The Specials. Mister Fridge: I listen to a lot of Ska-P, The Offspring, but initially I'm a big fan of ska/reggae music like Toots & the Maytals or Jimmy Cliff. Edy Caramello: My biggest influence will ever remain Bob Dylan, but also The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, Hank Williams, Carter Family, Kali, D.O.A, Subhumans, UK Subs, The Damned, TV Smith, Goldblade and of course The Clash to name a few. They had a really huge impact on my musical path, and personnal developement. It’s the same people that I was listening to when I was a kid who still inspire my today but also new bands and but not exclusively in the punk scene. Erin: Living on an island, how do you think that affects your music and creativity?  Do you feel isolated or are you better able to develop your own style of music and scene? Why? Edy Caramello: Very interesting one! I think living on an island (reminds me of the Cock Sparrer song!) influenced who we are because we don’t have the same culture and access to Western culture is sometimes difficult.  But, Guadeloupian culture and Caribbean culture in general are dearly beloved by us.  If we would have grown up in another country, we would probably never have started a band.  One of the reasons we did is because nobody played the music we wanted to hear.  There were some bands who played classic rock and the same boring shit we’d hear over and over again, but we wanted to hear bands like U.K. Subs or Sham 69!  Sometimes we feel isolated, but we’re also proud to live here and who knows, without this distance maybe this conversation would have never happened! Océ Cheafret: Cultural mixing is very fascinating. It was very important to us to cultivate this very rich Caribbean culture and mix it with punk music. Though this association seems easy with ska, an adaptation like “Bel Aw,” was the occasion to really show our cultural plurality and give our tribute to traditional Guadeloupian music like Gwo Ka. Mister Fridge: I will add, that in Guadeloupe nobody had been as boloko as The Bolokos haha!  So we try to surprise our audience at each show, change the set list etc. Erin: Do you currently have a record label you are signed with? Océ Cheapfret: No, we are a DIY band. We choose to produce ourselves.  The inconvenience is we don’t have a lot of money, so things take time to happen, but the good part is we don’t have any pressure or someone who tells us what to do. Erin: Where in the world have you played shows? Edy Caramello : For now, only in the Caribbean islands, but our dream is to play at the Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, which we go to every year for our dose of punk rock!  I think that after that I could stop making music and start raising chickens haha! Erin: What is the band currently working on right now?  Tours? Albums? Videos? Océ Cheapfret: We are constantly playing gigs throughout the year where we can.  The next one will be at a festival in Marie-Galante. We’re currently working on our début album which will be out by the end of this year.  It’s already recorded, but now we have to do all the promotion ourselves until the outing. It’s times like these we realize that a label can be helpful haha.  And we start filming a new video clip next week! Erin: Personally, which form of music does each member prefer? Vinyl, CD, cassette or digtal music?  Why? Mister Fridge: Vinyl for the vintage side. Edy Caramello: I would like to say vinyl without sounding like a pretentious twat like Mister Fridge, but I do dig this format.  It’s a sort of a ceremony when you are playing it. You’re really paying attention to what comes out of the speakers.  Now it makes me sound more pretentious than him hahaha!  I also still buy a lot of CD’s to support bands I like.  I don’t use Spotify, Deezer or any digital platform.  If I do it’s for pirating to discover bands, because I don’t have enough money to buy everything I like, but if I really appreciate them, I will buy their music in physical form. Océ Cheapfret: Vinyl has something magical and sounds alive.  Although CD’s are still convenient (more choices,) and cheaper. Erin: Do you think the internet enhances or destroys the creativity of the mind? Mister Fridge: For me, it destroys the creativity of the mind.  Internet influences us too much. Edy Caramello: I have a different take on this one.  You know if the internet didn’t exist I would probably never had developed an interest in music, especially in punk, because we don’t have access to this music here on radio, in shops, shows, etc.  But I get your point that sometimes we spend too much time on it and it can be inhibiting seeing people like a 4 year old little girl playing 1000x times better than you ever will in some YouTube video hah! Océ Cheapfret: The internet is an open door to the world and a source of inspiration, even more for us islanders.  Its content can be a source of inspiration but it also can make you forget your singularity. When you look too much at the others, you forget to live and be yourself. Erin: What guitars/amps/pedals do you use? Mister Fridge: Mapex, Zildjian. Edy Caramello: I use an old telecaster that Océ’s uncle who lives in Lyon gave me few years back. (Thanks Gilles !) I’ve just replaced my first Fender amp I bought in high school with an Orange one but I don’t remember the exact model.  I don’t really use pedals except for a tuner and a boost for solos. Océ Cheapfret: I’m currently using a not well known Canadian brand called Galaxy which was used by Joey Shithead for the last DOA album (last extravagant gift from my friend Edy.) So I couldn’t resist the luxury to play it with a good Orange amp! I haven’t used a pedal since, I just plug in and play!   https://www.facebook.com/thebolokos/ https://www.instagram.com/thebolokos/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdKospwBCKc Read the full article

[playstationhaven]

Kate Saxon (The Witcher 3/Lead Voice Director) at the SIDE L.A. grand opening

As a gamer you may not have heard of a company called SIDE but trust me you are very familiar with their work.

SIDE is the go to provider of creative services to the video game industry. Some of those services include:

Casting for voice sessions

Performance capture shoots

Actor likeness

SIDE is so well trusted in the industry that chances are the majority of titles you have in your personal library have been touched in some way be the company. Some of the games that SIDE has provided services for include:

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands

Battlefield 1

Hitman

FIFA 17

Tom Clancy’s The Division

Star wars Battlefront

and Mass Effect: Andromeda to name a few

SIDE has been working its magic from the UK primarily  and has begun to open new offices in the years following their acquisition by Pole to Win in 2015. They have now opened a new studio here in sunny Los Angeles, CA which is home to many AAA and indie video game publishers and developers. On March 23, 2017, SIDE L.A. opened their doors to the press and other industry guests for a ribbon cutting ceremony, press conference and a VIP tour of their shiny new studio.

Pictured: Jacquie Shriver, Teppi Tachibana, Deborah Kirkham and Andy Emery

The grand opening began with a press conference with  Teppei Tachibana: CEO of Pole To Win International, Deborah Kirkham: COO & President of Pole To Win International, Andy Emery: Senior Director of Global Audio at SIDE and Jacquie Shriver: Head of Studio at SIDE L.A.. After a brief highlight reel showcasing a few of the AAA titles they have worked on, Andy Emery spoke on how voice acting in video games practically did not exist 20 years ago when the company was founded. Emery went on to add that what was there was “pretty rubbish”. I could not agree more and I am sure we all can remember the “hey let’s all look over the writer’s shoulder as he types the script and then record our lines as he types” nightmare that was the voice acting in the original Resident Evil (PS1). We have all been fortunate in the years since then to see voice acting and now performance capture be taken just as seriously as the graphics and gameplay  of the games we love.

“As this industry has matured and character performances in games have become evermore sophisticated, it’s been really exciting for SIDE to be at the forefront of the evolution” –Andy Emery/Senior Director of Global Audio

During my tour of the new studio, I found myself more than a tad bit amazed at being able to look at all of the recording booths and equipment that I have previously only seen in behind the scenes documentaries. It was really cool to think that I was standing in a room that may very well be where the dialogue is recorded for my next favorite game.

I somehow managed to leave without grabbing a slice of cake…

Jacquie Shriver explaining the magic of Performance Capture

SIDE L.A. VIP Tour

  Try as I might I was not able to get anyone to confess to me what titles they are currently working on at SIDE L.A. but I was assured that they already have work  underway so I will bug them a bit more once they have had a chance to settle in…

Welcome to SIDE L.A. As a gamer you may not have heard of a company called SIDE but trust me you are very familiar with their work.

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #53: Out (7/6/2018)

This is it, boys and girls. The “hiatus”, as we’ve called it for the last 364 days, is finally, finally, finally over... probably. Let’s cover the week that was, and look forward to the new era that could be.

This Week’s TØPics: 

“New” Music Discovery

The Last Message From Dema

The Return of WILD SPECULATION

Major News and Announcements:

On any other week, new music from Tyler Joseph would be the biggest news story. And... well, I mean, I guess it should be, so we’ll cover it first, but it really doesn’t feel like it. That’s really weird, isn’t it?

@ultrawafflehouse shared a unique piece of content with the world in the middle of the week. After a friend of a friend received an old Tyler Joseph mixtape from a local youth pastor trying to prove his street cred to the middle schoolers of suburban Ohio, Ultra discovered that two of the unnamed tracks were pieces of music that had never previously found their way onto the Internet. 

One of the unnamed tracks is a slick instrumental with elements of some of Tyler’s other early works like “Two” and “I Need Something To Kill Me” on full display: i.e., an extremely promising but unfinished arrangement from an extremely talented novice with no training or experience and a dozen better ideas than this that he decided to actually flesh out. Little wonder it, like presumably most of Tyler’s work, never made it to the general public.

The other track, however, actually sounds like a full song. Dubbed “Going Down” due to the phrase’s repetition in the hook, the track fits in perfect with the general No Phun Intended/Self-Titled sound; passionately-sung heart-on-sleeve lyrics supported by a simple piano arrangement with some basic hip-hop elements thrown in. I’ll be real: I was not blown away by this song. The writing in general, particularly on the hook, is low-energy, all over the place, and stretches the metaphors real thin. Tyler’s vocal delivery is at peak teenage whine, and his bars in the sole rap verse seem amateurish and out of breath. 

But I wasn’t expecting to love it- most of Tyler’s stuff pre-Self-Titled, and even some tracks on the first two albums, are clearly made by someone who has no real clue how to do the whole music thing. “Drown” and “Blasphemy” are the only truly great songs from No Phun Intended, and they were both repurposed later down the road when Tyler had a better idea what he was actually doing. I still think Tyler is a genius, but he was not born the songwriter and performer he had become by the time Fueled By Ramen signed him. I still appreciate tracks like these, but more as historical curiosities, stepping stones to what Twenty One Pilots would become with brief flashes of Tyler’s insightful introspection and genuine brilliance.

The biggest news of the week, as with last week’s update, was not new music, but updates from the world of Dema. To start, we got three updates from dmaorg.info on Sunday. The first was a gif of a creepy vulture slowly turning to camera. Not too much to derive from this one. There’s the iconography of vultures, aka the carrion feeders who consume the bodies of the dead left at real-world Towers of Silence. The vulture can be seen to “blink” with its thin transparent eyelid, aligning it with the fifth Closing Eye Lyric: “Nobody dreams when they blink.” This correlation is strengthened by the name of the gif itself: “i”.

The second post, another letter from Clancy, was much more intriguing. The letter contains some great prose, with Clancy describing how the bishops have robbed the denizens of Dema of their dreams using something referred to as “smearing” and pledging to not let them crush his hope. The references to nighttime and light connect it to the sixth Closing Eye Lyric, “remember the morning is when night is dead”. The image title of this update is “e_sr_eve_r.jpg” (”reverse” in reverse), and that’s reflected both the content of the letter and its organization- you can swap the order of the sentences, and it still makes perfect sense. But why this command to reverse? To what end? Hmm....

The answer to that comes in the third update, a simple smattering of yellow marks slipped out of chronological order in the middle of the list the list under the date of the band’s Grammy win. When laid over the Clancy letter, the markings for individual letters again spell out the word “trench”, which connects it to the audio clip from the previous Dema update, while the solid vertical lines highlight the phrase “We are banditos.” When you connect all these dots and reverse that audio, as several people had already discovered previously, it becomes pretty clear that Tyler is singing “We are banditos.” What does that mean? Well, hold your horses, kid, because the circled letters in the message spell out “end”. That looked like it might be it...

Until the gif that originally revealed the Dema site made its way back onto the main website. Many interpreted this to be the fulfillment of the last Closing Eye Lyric, “Now I just sit in silence,” due to the gif ending with the finale of the “Car Radio” music video, and a sign to the Clique to pay attention to the site if they weren’t already.

dmaorg.info finished its mission on Thursday with another rush of content. First, a photo of a vast desert with a single small figure possibly visible on the horizon. The image was simply titled “o_ut.jpg”. Not much else to say; once again, the big reveal was delivered to us by Clancy.

This letter is honestly the best fiction writing and world-building I’ve seen from Tyler yet, good enough to make me wonder if he’s been considering writing a Hunger Games-style YA series if this whole music career thing doesn’t pan out. Clancy lays out his plan to break out of Dema: since it will be impossible to sneak past the huge walls unnoticed, he plans to make a big commotion during the enclave’s biggest holiday, the Annual Assemblage of the Glorified, to distract the “watchers” and permit those from the “other side” to find a way in, then avoid being “smeared” by the bishops until the others can show him the way out. There are tons of great details and turns of phrase (”concrete coffin of a city”) and really cool moments (”They don’t control us” should sound way more cringey than it reads here.) They even snuck in a final hidden message message: following the dotted lines up the same number of rows as there are squares reveals one last “Wake up.”

The biggest takeaway from this letter, though, is how direct it is. It makes reference to it being “a year since the last convocation” and directly says that “by morning, everything will be different.” And, if you still didn’t get the message- *poof*. Within minutes of the Clique posting and dissecting these new posts, dmaorg.info was gone. They pulled the plug. The only evidence of the last few months of theorizing, speculating, and decoding will be on Reddit threads lost to the dust of time, as our thoughts become occupied with a whole different type of Twenty One Pilots content...

WILD SPECULATION:

As of the moment I’m writing this (7/6/18, 1 am PST), the band has not released any new music. I am not bopping to “Jumpsuit” right now. But something is totally happening within the next 12-24 hours. The only question is... what?

Well, I have zero information beyond the registration of the song titles “Nico and the Niners” and “Jumpsuit” and the implication that the songs will relate to this unfolding tale of Clancy and the Bishops of Dema. But I do have some theories/wishes.

First, I don’t think we’ll be getting a whole new album all at once. Twenty One Pilots ain’t Beyonce. They don’t have the clout (yet) for FBR to let them get away with dropping a full project with zero mainstream promo (also, there’s no other registered song titles, so nothing for at least a few weeks). I think that, in following the standard pop music tradition of the last few years, we’ll get two singles dropped on the first day (the aforementioned registered names), with a music video for one to tide us over, then a trickle of songs for two or three months before an album in time for the holidays. I suspect “Jumpsuit” to be the main radio-play single (I’m already picturing a prison break from Dema for the video), while “Nico” serves as the song for the fans that lays out more about this concept.

The thing that excites me most about the whole Dema idea is that, unlike the rather straightforward metaphor of Blurryface, the ARG content we’ve received so far has laid out an entire world populated with multiple named characters and concepts that we aren’t clear on just yet. Because of that, I think we might get quite a few songs (like, hopefully, “Nico”) that focus more on storytelling (and, also hopefully, killer soundscapes) than just affirming the importance of staying alive. I really hope “Nico” is, like, a nine-minute long rock/EDM opera that lays out all the different bishops’ plans and motivations while mashing genres in the classic TØP style. I really want to see Tyler and Josh push themselves artistically, and I think that what we’ve seen so far is really indicating that is the case.

A few more questions (and some speculation): 

What other songs are coming? “Trench”? “Heavy”? “Banditos”? “Wake Up”? “Coconut Sharks: Requiem”? (No clue, can’t wait to find out.)

What will the promo look like? Will the band bother to participate in local radio interviews anymore? (Depends on how early sales go, I think.) Will they do any long-form/in-depth sit downs? (Rooting for Zane Lowe, but also hoping a mag like Rolling Stone that’s willing to put artists in the hot seat puts Tyler on his toes and asks some of the difficult questions.)

What can we expect of tour? (I’m calling amphitheater followed by arena shows, just like with Blurryface and a lot of the bigger FBR acts. Praying for more live musicians and maybe some theatrical stuff with Dema.)

What will the album be called? Dema? Silence? Tower of Silence? Iris [remember that, holy crap]? Blurryface 2: Electric Boogaloo? Hard to say (Probably the first one, let’s be real).

Will it be successful? (Almost definitely not as much as Blurryface. We’ll have to see how hard they focus on the Dema concept or an alternative sound, since radio hates weird.) Will it be good? (Yes. I was unsure for a long time, but I’ve got a really good feeling now. A really, really good feeling.)

Community Spotlight:

This is technically cheating, but I am part of the community, so I’m gonna write about myself today. Forgive me.

Last year, on my 21st birthday, Twenty One Pilots posted a shut eye and some mirrored lyrics on their social media and then, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. I spent my whole twenty-first year of life without ‘em (the irony is not lost on me), which was weird considering how much they had inspired and impacted me throughout high school and college.

I did a lot of stuff when I was 21. I graduated college. I got a new job. I made friends. I lost friends. I got in fights. I learned to let go, but not soon enough to spare someone I cared about from unnecessary heartbreak. I turned corners in my mental health, only to run into new walls. I listened to a ton of music. I grew up.

Today, I turned 22. The irony of the absence of Twenty One Pilots aside, I’m so glad I had the chance to figure out who I was without this band by my side every step of the way. I learned that I could make it. And now I get to have them back while I continue to make it. How sick a birthday gift is that?

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #54: COVER ME (7/13/2018)

Finally, after months of solid drought, the barren wasteland known as the TØP fanbase has finally been blessed with rain. And not just a gentle sprinkle; it’s been a consistent heavy downpour, a veritable flood. Even before new music, this week gave us new content from the group every single day. There will probably be something new out by the time you’re done reading this. So let’s not waste any time! Here’s your week in Twenty One Pilots news.

This Week’s TØPics:

Your Band Is Back: Trench Coming This October

“Jumpsuit” and “Nico” Released

New Logo/Theming/Everything

Josh Speaks

And SO. MUCH. MORE.

Major News and Announcements:

This time last week, I was certain that we would be getting new music on the 6th because it was my birthday. Turns out, myself and many others in the Clique read a little too deeply into Clancy’s promise that “everything would be different” by morning. We did not receive new music on that date, which, for the record, was way earlier than most reports had pegged. The fanbase wanted music ASAP and interpreted the letter to fit that, and anyone who said the band lied about when music was coming was just not being honest with themselves. 

Things were different starting last Friday. On the one-year anniversary of their departure, Twenty One Pilots directly reached out to their fans for the first time, not through the wide platform of social media, but with an email message to their mailing list.

The message only consisted of the subject line “ARE YOU STILL SLEEPING?” and a gif of an opening yellow eye, with images fitting the iconography of the Dema site flashing under the eyelid. The Clique basically lost their minds at this direct contact, so much so that major publications like Billboard finally started to report on the long gestating speculation. Everyone was excited to see the eye open over the course of the day, bringing everything full circle and culminating (presumably) with new music.

That... didn’t happen. Rather, dmaorg.info was restored after being down for only a few hours, and this gif of torches was added onto the site. This indicated that Clancy had escaped Dema, and the Clique promptly set about assuming that the next day would mark the band’s full return. Further, the name of the gif, “they_ca_ntseeFCE300″, seemed to confirm what people would be speculating ever since Josh dyed his hair nearly two years ago: the next era’s color would be yellow (specifically, FCE300) to symbolize hope and light pushing back against the dark.

The next day brought with it another update from Clancy (and the general concession among the Clique to stop expecting new music every night and just go to bed). In one of my favorite bits of attention to detail so far, Clancy’s latest journal was messily handwritten on a scrap of paper, due to the fact that he had successfully escaped Dema and was now traveling through- big shock- a region called “Trench”. The writing itself is kinda rambly and generic (so I can relate), with Tyler Clancy marveling at how much he loves being in the trees being alone out in nature. That said, I do love that there is a definite story being presented, with Clancy experiencing changes, taking action, and going on a real journey through this world that Tyler’s created.

On the back of the paper, however, is something much more interesting: a blown-out image that, when reversed, revealed a dead body. That was creepy enough as is; far more creepy was the Clique’s CSI-level discovery that this ripped photo fit with several other dmaorg.info images in a giant puzzle. Who was this man? Was this a random poster that Clancy grabbed as he escaped, or are we supposed to take it as a metaphor? Was it a random citizen of Dema? A bishop? Clancy himself? Blurryface? So many questions.

Twenty One Pilots truly made their mainstream return on July 9th, when they posted a second video of a half-opened eye, not just for hardcore fans, but on all of their social media platforms. This return was accompanied by a total overhaul of the band’s general branding: a new yellow-and-black ||-// logo was revealed for the new era, while the old “silence” banners and even the website subscription box were covered up by bright yellow tape. Billboards featuring the logo on this yellow tape aesthetic sprang up in cities all around the world, from London to Toronto, Berlin to Melbourne, even an entire building in São Paolo. The boys were back.

On Tuesday, Twenty One Pilots again returned to social media to post a second video. The eye, now about 3/4 open, depicted even more of this medieval battle, now with the addition of the Watchers on the cliff throwing... something (rocks? rose petals?) into the air. Instead of generic white noise, this clip was scored by a muffled but still obviously crunchy bass line. As radio stations across the country began to tweet about a major alternative release coming Wednesday morning (with a few even mentioning they were from Columbus), we finally knew that we were going to be ok....

New Releases:

And then I was not okay.

Early Wednesday morning, Twenty One Pilots dropped two singles and announced the names and dates for the next album, Trench, and tour, Bandito. My prediction from last week was 100% correct, and you all may thank and validate me in the comments below like and subscribe. “Jumpsuit” is our main single with a full cinematic music video, while “Nico and the Niners” is the more lore-heavy low-key song for the fans. I’m going to pull back from fully going in on picking apart every sonic and thematic element of both songs and save that for (hopefully) a less busy week, but you know I gotta write about their first new music in two years. Cause that’s what I do: I write too much.

Guys, “Jumpsuit” is a straight-up banger. Featuring a killer driving bassline, some of Tyler’s most impassioned screams, and a truly devastating bridge, I have not tired of this song one bit in the last few days. It takes me on a complete emotional journey in just four minutes every time, and it does so mainly through its soundscape (there’s only the hook, three couplet verses, and that damn bridge). It’s so, so, so, so good, potentially (dare I say it) the best sonically arranged and produced song the band has ever released.

So... what’s “Jumpsuit” about? Well, a lot of things, but in a word: pressure. Again, the lyrics are super vague, I think deliberately so. Clearly the song is about the singer feeling pressured by others into taking a path that he does not want to travel down. That bridge, delivered in an eerie detached falsetto, shows Tyler pushing back even at his weakest point, stating that he will not submit to what others want him to do unless they “grab him by the throat, tie him down, and break his hands.” Certainly you can argue that this is about the music industry. The “breaking his hands” line is killer in that context, as it signifies that the industry can’t control him without taking away the things that makes him valuable to them in the first place, his artistic ability and freedom. You can also say that it’s just playing straight into the concept, with Clancy breaking away from the bishops’ control. But the deliberate vagueness of the lyrics means that the audience can apply the message- and the empowerment of that killer bassline- to whatever struggle they are facing. That’s pretty darn rad.

The music video, directed by “Heathens” and “Heavydirtysoul”’s Andrew Donoho, is sick. Tyler (looking extra fly in his new yellow hooded jumpsuit) attempts to flee from this creepy Red Riding Hood old dude on a white horse (Nico?) through what is certainly a Game of Thrones filming location while other figures in yellow duct tape jumpsuits look on from the cliffs above. Tyler is captured by the bishop, who “smears” him by putting the black Blurryface makeup on his neck. Tyler is freed briefly from the bishop’s control when the other yellow-clad figures throw yellow petals down on him, but he is chased down knocked out or killed. The others flee the scene, save for one very handsome looking drummer boy... Oh, and there’s a bunch of intercut clips of Tyler on the car from “Heavydirtysoul” for some reason.

Besides those “Heavydirtysoul” scenes, which truthfully don’t connect much to the story of the video beyond artificially welding it onto the end of the Blurryface Era, this is one of the band’s best videos yet. It totally fulfilled all of my expectations of a more epic scope for this era, from the gorgeous Iceland setting to the dope as hell costumes to the implication that the story might continue on from this point. And there are tons of little Easter eggs, from brief flashes of the nine bishops to possible cameos from the Josephs and Duns. We don’t really know for sure if Tyler is playing Clancy or if the red dude is Nico, but it will certainly be fun to continue to fill in the blanks as we move forward and (hopefully) hear more from Tyler directly.

“Nico and the Niners” is a weird track, but one that I still absolutely love. In some ways, it’s a more traditional tøp track, with some of the raggae elements found on Blurryface and a rap verse to fit all of Tyler’s lyrics in. But in other significant ways, it’s a totally different path for them. For starters, just look at that title: it’s very explicitly about this album’s concept from top to bottom, with Tyler singing about fleeing Dema and its bishops’ control and even heavily referencing “Jumpsuit”; there’s clearly going to be a great deal of thematic cohesion in this project. But there’s also just the general vibe of it: just as “Jumpsuit” was a heavier rock song than anything we’d yet seen from the band, "Nico” is way more laid back, its repeated references to being high and even its visualizer of assorted shrubbery making it a potential stoner anthem (whether that was Tyler’s intention or not). Regardless, the song is brimming with character and hooks, and it’s already grown on me significantly in just a few days.

Oh, and one more thing: this song lives up to its Dema-referencing title and content by being cryptic af. The track is littered with reversed audio in the instrumental bits, including the “we are banditos” snippet from dmaorg.info and another sample of someone who sounds a lot like Josh saying “We will leave Dema at true east, renounce Vialism [the bishops’ ruling philosophy, alluded to be Clancy in an earlier journal].” I swear, if all it takes for Tyler to make all this stuff is a year break, he should do this after every album.

With all that new music, the fact that we finally have a name for Album 5 almost got lost in the shuffle. Trench was a popular guess over the last few days thanks to dmaorg.info, but it’s good to finally know for sure. Graphic designer Brandon Rike from the Blurryface Era is back again, revealing a cover featuring a badass-looking vulture/falcon/whatever, some new logos (including the return of FPE!), and some more yellow tape that appears to be covering the names of the rest of the album’s songs. Not too much else to say at this point; we’ll just have to wait until some of that tape gets peeled off between now and October 5th.

Finally, let’s talk about the Bandito Tour. It bears mentioning that, amidst the otherwise overwhelmingly positive positive atmosphere of the band’s return, this tour name received the most general opposition from fans and non-fans alike. The fact that “bandito” was probably going to turn up in a lyric from two decidedly white dudes was already enough to put some folks on edge, but the idea of an entire tour of predominantly non-Hispanic tweens flooding arenas and calling themselves banditos was enough to turn a few people against the band. And look, I get it- I hear “bandito” and the first things I think of are John Wayne Westerns and Speedy Gonzalez, and I get why a lot of fans might feel uncomfortable with that. But, to be fair, the band hasn’t used any of those stereotypes and banditos is a word for outlaw used in a number of Romance languages. Perhaps most interestingly, there’s not yet any evidence that the word even appears in the album itself. So far, the only appearance of “bandito” is in a coded message on dmaorg.info and in reversed audio in “Nico”. If this does turn out to be a name meant to only make sense to the most hardcore of fans, it is almost redeemed (I mean, I still think the name is a little silly, but I’m already in presale).

So, with that out of the way, let’s actually talk about the tour itself. It will be an international arena tour- even if the band’s sound is not going in a pop direction, they still clearly feel confident that the Clique will show up wherever they go. The first show will be hosted in Nashville (their first arena concert in that market) on October 16, not even two weeks after the release of the full album. What a baller move, and much preferred to the Blurryface rollout where we didn’t hear most of the songs on the record until nearly two months after the album release and they didn’t play near me for even longer. The boys will tour the U.S. until November 21, even playing arenas in a few markets that they’ve never played large venues in before, and then hit up Australia and New Zealand in December.

The most objectively interesting leg will be in Europe from January through March. Not only will the band play their first arena shows in markets like Moscow, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Central Poland, and Manchester, they will return to markets like Dublin and Glasgow they’ve been absent from for years. Most exciting, Twenty One Pilots will play their first shows in Bologna and Stuttgart and venture into the countries of Ukraine, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal for the first time ever. Needless to say, the rabid fanbases of all of these regions are super excited, and I’m super excited for them!

Other Shenanigans:

While Tyler has continued to stay silent (much as he has since mid-Blurryface Era), Josh immediately jumped back on Twitter with a standard Josh joke and even resumed his morning workout Snapchats. On Thursday, Josh even called into BBC Radio One with Annie Mac to give a quick interview about the new era. He didn’t provide a ton of information, but it was just a delight to hear our kid’s voice again. A few tidbits of info:

Josh reported that he was calling from Trench, I hate him.

The sick bass riff on “Jumpsuit” was born from soundchecks toward the end of Emotional Roadshow. He says that, as a result, it sounds closest to the Blurryface sound, serving as a good transition into the new era. (If this is what he thinks is close to Blurryface on Trench, this album’s gonna be nutter butters.)

Both Josh and Tyler are really nervous about the elaborate rollout, both out of the usual fear that no one stuck around and out of wariness of severely disappointing people when they hear the actual music (so far, so good...)

Trench continues to have the “diverse” sound of the previous records and also was designed to be played live.

Josh also tuned into Apple Music’s Beats 1 for an interview with Hanuman Welch. This conversation was less about the new album and more about the “hiatus”. More tidbits: 

The band views collaboration as a “sacred” thing, and while they’re not against it in the future, it has to be done in a context that makes sense and not merely for marketing purposes.

The band has never used the word hiatus because they’ve been working. They drew back from the spotlight to allow themselves some time to recharge, but also because they were worried of oversaturation (particularly after the Grammys pushed them into that next-level pop culture sphere). Rather than make a bunch of social media posts that didn’t mean anything just to stay relevant, the band decided to draw back, focus on music, and in the process “thin the weeds” of fans who weren’t the diehards.

For the last few albums, the music has come from a specific personal place the band was at while write, whether it be a spiritual journey with Vessel or tackling insecurities on Blurryface. Josh says the same remains true with Trench, but notes that there will be a little more fleshing out themes by working on a specific story with this one (he still says it’s not really a concept album, but ok).

Believe it or not, we are not done. While the boys were blazing a brave new path forward, another bit of content reminded us of where the band came from. Greg Wells, the producer who made Vessel the masterpiece it was, gave an hour-long interview to Billboard’s Pop Shop Podcast. He mainly speaks about getting started in the industry back in the 90s and working on the mega-blockbuster Greatest Showman soundtrack, but he does talk about Vessel for a bit approximately forty minutes into the interview. I won’t give the exact time-code, not because I’m lazy, but because the entire interview is worth listening to. Greg just seems like a rad dude. His laid-back nature and the seriousness he takes with his craft really shine through; he and Tyler must have gotten along just fine.

Community Spotlight:

The Clique took some heavy losses over the last year, as a great deal of old fans moved on to greener pastures. But that just left room for a whole host of new fans to rise to the occasion and help us get through that long drought. Today, I wanted to give a shout-out to GingerSheep and Stolen Potential, two Clique vloggers that have really kept the fanbase informed and uplifted and have been working their butts off reporting on the daily content. I know how long it takes me just to research and write one of these- I can’t imagine the work that then goes into filming and editing on top of that nearly every day. Hats off to you, good sirs. Make sure you all check out their channels if you haven’t already! But, you know, don’t stop reading these. I have bills to pay with all the Tumblr money I’m not making.

Well, that wasn’t too much, was it? If you made it all the way to the end, mad props. See you next week for a slightly tamer week (probably).

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/