#my teacher is letting me do whatever I want. so obvious I gotta capitalize on that

[purpleleafsyt]

I was created for the sole purpose of destroying you.

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #69: Proud of Our Boys (11/2/18)

Technically, not a lot happened this week. Also, everything happened. Does that make any sense? I don’t know, everything’s been a blur since Tyler Joseph wore a pride flag on a Halloween show in the capital of the United States. Let’s cover that and more in this week’s Update!

This Week’s TØPics:

The Bandito Tour Continues

Tyler Visits the Live Lounge- Or, Rather, It Visits Him

The Best Interview of the Trench Era, Conducted by Fans

“My Blood” Moving Slowly but Steady Up the Charts

Major News and Announcements:

No new music, no new tour announcements, but plenty of other things going on this week.

Mark is helping to keep our lanes nicely watered, as he returned to giving us weekly doses of video content for the tour starting almost immediately after the release of last week’s Update. The first episode covers the planning for the tour, Tyler and Josh receiving the first physical copies of Trench, Josh’s unique method of opening CD cases, and Josh getting a nice head injury after falling off his riser during a rehearsal. Plus, there’s a pretty nice piano interpolation of “Morph” to kick the whole thing off. The second goes more into the depths of planning and staging the show, giving a glimpse of just how much of a diva Tyler Joseph is when it comes to getting every aspect of the tour right. It doesn’t exactly put him in the nicest light- he calls the prototype clip that drops his “Stressed Out” beanie “garbage”, clearly expects the crew to be as intimately familiar with his music as he is, and pushes pretty hard to get the transitions faster and faster. But hey, that approach worked to produce a great show, and Tyler makes sure to thank the crew in every Trees Speech.

I was wavering between whether to include the content from the BBC Live Lounge sessions here or in the Shenanigans section, but considering that we got three HD video performances and a high quality recording of a new cover, I’m gonna tie it in here. In-between the stops in Washington and Atlanta, Tyler flew back to Columbus solo to record a session for the world-famous Live Lounge from Newport Music Hall (because of course Tyler was that extra). Sitting at a gorgeous shiny piano and wearing an outfit that looks like a flannel traffic cone (in a good way, honest), Tyler played some stripped-down covers of “My Blood” and “Ride”, using brand-new vocal interpolations for both of those songs that are just incredible. Live Lounge is most renowned for its covers, and Tyler delivered there as well with his version of Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan’s classic “9 Crimes”. It’s an incredible rendition of a gorgeous song, and the fact that Tyler mentioned the track way back on “Drown” when “9 Crimes” was a brand-new song makes it land as even more heavy. The real kicker came just this morning, when Live Lounge revealed that they recorded one more song: we have our first high quality performance of “Neon Gravestones”. I still haven’t fully recovered, mate.

Performances, Interviews, and Other Shenanigans:

Touring continues to keep us well fed. As I mentioned in the opening, Tyler grabbed an offered pride flag during “Holding On To You”, which deeply affected the entire Clique, especially our LGBTQ+ family. So many kids in that community struggle with depression and lean hard on this band’s music to get through; this clear and pure gesture of support, while small, simply means the world. 

Outside of that show, there were plenty of other great moments from the tour this week. You can tell Tyler’s been tinkering with the format as he’s been getting feedback from the audience response. Despite how dedicated Tyler was to getting back to the stage for the end of “Pet Cheetah”, the big drop now starts while Tyler is still on the skybridge above the pit’s head, which makes way more sense. The ending of “My Blood” seems to be reduced to just getting the audience to fight to be louder than the other side rather than try to harmonize different bits. And Josh keeps writing city-personalized messages on his chest that he shows off to the crowd as he walks across the bridge, dramatically removing his jacket like something out of Magic Mike.

Also, Tyler tossed a frisbee in Boston and the boys discovered finger guns in Philly. Those were pretty cute moments, gotta share ‘em if you missed ‘em.

Interviews continue as the tour travels the nation. KISS FM Cleveland kept the tradition of B.S. first meeting stories alive with a deep dive into Josh’s talent as a painter, though that’s really the only thing you need to watch that interview for. Boston station ALT 92.9 does a little better, though he mistakenly attributes the backflip to Tyler and asks when Josh will get out from behind those drums... To his credit, the interviewer asks about how Jim is accommodated on the tour (unsurprisingly, the crew fights over who gets to look after him) and what Tyler learned from co-producing Trench with Paul.

The best interviews, however, have all been in the form of fan meet-and-greet conferences that have been finding their way online. There’s just something to the energy of these interviews that is so much better than the awkward and rushed ones in cramped green rooms hosted by radio station interns who obviously just Googled a few facts before they’re rushed in. These fans truly care about their band, and their questions were thoughtful and about so much more than just trivia. 

The best of these, I think, is from St. Louis’s 105.7, a station that’s always had pretty good relations with the band.

Tyler has tried to be more intentional about seeing the places they go on tour outside of the venues, with the mindset that he wants to have better stories to tell his kids (oh my God, please help me...). His favorite place that he’s visited? Hobbiton in New Zealand. I love these nerds.

Tyler and Josh talk about the origins of that gorilla suit that shows up in the “Ode to Sleep” video.

They talk about how one of the more difficult aspects of touring early on before “making it” was eating healthily enough to sustain regular shows when they were broke and the only places that were open to eat late at night after shows were Taco Bells.

Tyler tells a truly heart-wrenching story of being at his parents’ house and seeing his two baby nieces playing with (and vomiting on) the keyboard that taught him to play music and opened up the world for him. The obvious emotion in his voice as he talks about learning the “Pachelbel Canon” from staring at the keys for hours and the clear joy he felt at getting to share this private moment with Jenna... I still haven’t recovered.

When one fan asks how she might learn to overcome creative blocks in her career of graphic design, Tyler gives a really technical explanation of how he got past blocks when writing “Neon Gravestones” and “Pet Cheetah” before taking those lessons and extracting how they might broadly be used to help any artist “shock the system” by breaking habits.

Tyler says that he anticipates that “Legend” will be pretty tough to perform live. He further states that a lot of songs don’t emotionally affect him much because he has to worry about achieving the technical aspects of his performance. That said, “Neon Gravestones” has been really emotional for him, and “Holding On To You” is so driven into him now that he actually can think about what he’s saying.

Tyler views the two-man nature of the band as a challenge rather than a crutch to excuse the use of backing tracks due to how hard they have to work to keep audience attention. Tyler does appreciate the dynamic of having a bunch of people collaborate for music (as shown by the cover medleys), and he is not vehemently against the idea of adding members in the future. He’s just very happy about the way things are with just him and Josh.

Josh once again gets very open about his struggles with anxiety, particularly speaking in front of people, tracing it back to how he would even ask teachers to give him alternatives to giving presentations because it scared him so much. He’s come so far since the Vessel days where he just wouldn’t talk in most interviews at all, and I’m so proud of him.

Tyler is against the “Magellan” method of trying any and all new foods, preferring stuff he knows will satisfy his hunger (he mentions that’s been difficult to stick with now that he’s married to Jenna).

Tyler says that you can tell which of his songs started with lyrics before composing the music based on which have rapped lyrics. The raps are almost always poetry that he’s tried to incorporate into a song- otherwise, he almost always starts with the melody.

Another great conference-style interview comes on behalf of Philly radio station 104.5, whose fans also gave some great questions:

As tactfully as possible, Tyler passes on a question about what event specifically motivated him to write about “Neon Gravestones”, saying that he could not do so without violating the respect that he hopes underlines the message of that song.

Tyler tells a pretty rough story about a time when he was working at a restaurant to support the band and school, only to lose weeks of wages to a traffic ticket. It’s a scene that will definitely be in the band biopic in thirty years, but it’s also just a very thoughtful reflection on Tyler’s part about how unfair a feeling it can be to realize that our labor and time are so commodified.

Tyler used to be real annoyed that Josh didn’t like Russel Crowe as an actor, mainly because he admitted that he didn’t have a good reason for it (Tyler Robert Joseph always has a reason). Josh deciding one day that he’d like Russel Crowe because not doing so aggravated Tyler seems like a pretty neat microcosm of their entire personal and professional relationship.

Tyler and Josh haven’t noticed any bands “copying” them, no matter what music press looking for an easy descriptor might say because all they have to copy is “freedom to write whatever kind of song they want”.

Josh keeps himself grounded by searching “21 pilots” on Twitter. Tyler agrees, but also points out that their relationships to their families also play a big role (“our respective families, to clarify”).

Finally, on social media, Tyler keeps hopping on social media to troll fans and his own band account. I hate him so much.

Chart Performance:

Things continue to be a little quiet for Twenty One Pilots on the US charts. The tracks from Trench are slowly sliding off the Hot Rock Chart, with “My Blood” being the only track to gain traction in any region- radio. With that said, however, “My Blood” also managed to sneak onto the very bottom spot of the Hot Pop chart, suggesting that we are approaching a potential crossover moment. We’ll have to wait and see if that happens. (I can only assume until then that Tyler’s having to ignore a lot of phone calls about a radio edit that cuts that slow first verse to keep the general listener’s attention; watch for that.)

Upcoming Shows:

(Can you believe that all of Tyler’s meticulous planning for the marketing and promotion of this album cycle has been totally supplanted by Josh’s cute dog?)

On topic, there’s another host of important shows this week, so let’s get into it!

Show 13: State Farm Arena, Atlanta, GA (11/2)

Capacity: 21,000

After visiting his hometown with Josh yesterday, Tyler rejoins the touring crew today to play a show for the folks in Atlanta at the newly-renamed State Farm Arena. This is bound to be a special one: though the band has headlined the huge Music Midtown festival in the city, this is their first ever arena show in this major metropolitan market. It’s sure to be a real special show.

Show 14: Amalie Arena, Tampa, FL (11/3)

Capacity: 21,500

The band’s next stop is at a more familiar ground. The band played Amalie during the last arena leg. Twenty One Pilots actually has a pretty extensive history of playing shows in Tampa stretching all the way back to college shows from before they were signed. Tyler has some relatives in the Florida area, so expect some more cute moments from this show.

Show 15: BB&T Center, Sunrise, FL (11/4) 

Capacity: 22,300

The touring crew continues their journey south to the outskirts of Miami. Again, they’ve played BB&T before, but if there’s one thing this band has proven time and time again, it’s that they’re not ones to ever get complacent.

Show 16: Toyota Center, Houston, TX (11/6)

Capacity: 19,3000

It might surprise you to learn that the band has never played an arena show in Houston, despite the city being one of the biggest metropolitan centers in the United States. That oversight will be corrected on Tuesday with a show at the NBA Rockets’ home venue.

Show 17: American Airlines Center, Dallas, TX (11/7)

Capacity: 21,000

The last show before our next Update will be held in Dallas. Once again, this marks the second show Twenty One Pilots will have played in the space. Texas will continue to get plenty of love after this show, but we’ll get into that more next week!

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Power to the local dreamer!

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