Twenty One Pilots - The 'Frens' interview.
Ahead of our new interview with Twenty One Pilots, we asked some of the band’s 'frens' - that is, pals from bands they’ve toured with (Judah & The Lion, MisterWives), previous collaborators (Watsky), friends (Dallon Weekes, Hoodie Allen), and one of their favourite comedians (Jim Gaffigan) to submit some questions for us to ask on their behalf. Because as well as being well acquainted with the duo, each of these people are also fans of Twenty One Pilots - so who better to ask the hard questions than them?
frens |frɛns|
noun
A person whose heart is full of love for Columbus band Twenty One Pilots, and knows that their unwavering love is mutually reciprocated by band-members Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun - a.k.a. every single one of their fans |-/
• Tyler Joseph says: "You deserve more than a :thank:you: my frens. The ones who hold this thing up. I brace for the fall but you keep on holding."
• And also: "My frens I appreciate you all so much. I use music. You use music. Thank you for letting me be a part of that with you."
Check out their questions (and Twenty One Pilots’ answers) below…
JUDAH & THE LION: Would you rather have a permanent ski-mask over your head, or cheeto-hands for the rest of your life?
JOSH DUN: Cheeto-hands, like the...?
TYLER JOSEPH: I’m going to stay away from the cheeto-hands, to be honest with you
JOSH: Yeah, I’d avoid the cheeto-hands. I think, ski-mask for life.
TYLER: It’s just when you’re eating cheetos... you would get confused and start chomping away at yourself.
JOSH: Can you take the mask off when you’re eating cheetos, because at that point you have cheeto-hands [anyway]…?
TYLER: I like that!
COUP DE MAIN: Judah & The Lion were a part of your U.S. Emotional Roadshow Tour, along with Jon Bellion. How does the process work of you choosing your support acts for tours?
TYLER: We just pick bands that we think are cool, that sound cool, that make good music, and then hopefully they turn out to be good people - and we’ve gotten really lucky 'cuz they’re great.
JIM GAFFIGAN: I’m a big fan. Loved the show I saw in Brooklyn. What do you like most about my stand-up? Just kidding. How do feed your creativity for writing and performing?
TYLER: He’s one of our favourite-- did he really ask this question? Seriously?! That’s awesome!
JOSH: <laughs>
TYLER: Oh, James!
JOSH: James Gaffigan!
TYLER: How do we feed our creativity? A lot of times I like to look up other people doing their crafts, and when they do it really well it inspires me to want to get better at what I do. It doesn’t have to be music necessarily, it makes me even think of when I watch Jim Gaffigan do his stand-up, obviously I like to laugh and just kind of forget about the world and have a chuckle. There’s a skill, there’s a talent there, the decisions he makes, how to transition from one thing to the next, or the lack thereof, which is funny as well, it’s all very intentional. Even the way that a person would move on-stage or how they hold the microphone. So stuff like that I like to pay attention to and try to learn from and understand why it makes sense for them, and realise that that’s someone who honed their craft, and I appreciate that. That inspires me a lot.
HOODIE ALLEN: Well first I wanna ask, hey how you boys doing? Are you eating your veggies?
JOSH: <laughs> <looks at picture> He’s got his hoodie on!
HOODIE: You've gotten to visit so many places in the past two years because of music. Are there any cities that you would have loved to spend more not-tour-related time in and just be a local there for a week?
JOSH: I’ve recently just started putting together a list of places I want to just travel. A lot of people ask me what it’s like on the road and travelling - what’s cool and stuff. There are certain times where we can get out and go explore and check things out, but it’s not all the time. [Our] schedule is crazy being on tour, you’re in a city for sometimes less than 24 hours and you’ve got to sleep during that, and then there is a lot of stuff during the day. You kind of find that you travel and see different cities but you don’t really get to experience them. There’s some places that I would love to just revisit and just hang out in. Auckland would be one, but almost everywhere that I’ve been. But I’ve also started compiling a list of cool things that are tourist-stuff that we’ve never been to, like the Great Wall Of China or the Pyramids would be really cool, just go and see exclusively, or the The Colosseum, things like that. I also just like being out, and sometimes I’ll get home and just want to go travel again, so one of these days, I’ll do it. No veggies though, sorry Hoodie.
DALLON WEEKES: Tyler, I never got an invitation to your wedding. Did it get lost in the mail?
TYLER: Uhhh, yes! <laughs>
DALLON: Josh, did Tyler even invite me to his wedding? 'Cuz I don't think he did.
JOSH: No! <laughs>
DALLON: At what point did you each discover the politics that exist within the music industry, and how has that affected you creatively?
TYLER: There is a lot of politics inside of the music industry - most of it we like to stay away from, but some of it is inevitability going to creep into our lives. When that was?… Maybe when we first started, when we first got signed and started doing music industry stuff.
JOSH: Yeah, I think there are a lot of politics but I also don’t think it’s bad to try and stay out of it sometimes. Some of it, like Tyler said, you have to be involved in regardless, but I think we really try to be intentional about just kind of being genuine as far as relationships and stuff, and friends with other bands. Dallon is a good friend of ours, and Hoodie, those aren’t political friendships or relationships, they’re just kind of-- like, I go to brunch with Dallon.
TYLER: To answer the rest of the question, it doesn’t creep into the creative at all.
DALLON: Who is your favourite bass-player? And would you invite them to your wedding given the opportunity?
TYLER: My favourite bass-player was at my wedding. His name is Josh Dun.
JOSH: <laughs> I’m probably my favourite bass-player too, to be honest. I can’t really think of many other bass-players… They’re hard to come by!
TYLER: They’re a little extinct these days… or endangered at least.
MISTERWIVES: What kind of underwear did y’all wear when you accepted your Grammy? P.S. Were there skidmarks?
TYLER: The question is a great question, Mr., Mrs. Wives. I don’t traditionally leave skidmarks... but I don’t recall not seeing skidmarks.
JOSH: <laughs>
TYLER: Strictly based on percentages of marks of the skid variety that I have left, I would say there were not any, but you never know. What kind of underwear? Three-day-old.
JOSH: Cotton.
WATSKY: What's a song you played on repeat in middle school that you still turn all the way up when it comes on the radio?
JOSH: I guess there is a few. I know that I listened to 'Tubthumping (I Get Knocked Down)' a lot by Chumbawamba, that was like the jam in middle school. I’m thinking of like fifth grade, sixth grade.
TYLER: What’s the song, 'Butterfly'?
JOSH: Oh yeah, that was--
JOSH & TYLER: <singing> "You’re my butterfly, sugar baby! Come my lady, you’re my pretty baby!"
JOSH: That was a good one. We could probably, if we sat out here and thought about it, we could probably come up with a bunch. Who was that?
TYLER: I think it was Watsky.
JOSH: Yeah, it was Watsky wasn’t it? Ol’ George.
JOSH & TYLER: <laughs>
Click here to watch Coup De Main’s 2016 interview with Twenty One Pilots + stay tuned to find out how to enter to win yourself a signed Instax photo in CDM Issue #20 (out April 17th)!
PHOTOS TAKEN WITH FUJIFILM’S NEW X100F CAMERA - click here for more info.
