Alive: So it started with you just making music in your basement?

Joseph: Yeah. Really, I was really more of a basketball guy all >through high school. And what happened was, without anyone really knowing, I pulled a piano out of the closet, like a small keyboard my mom got me years ago that I never touched. And I remember figuring out that one button worked really well with the other button. That’s all I knew is “these two buttons work well together.” The first song I ever played on the piano was my own song, and that’s something that’s really important to me because I still don’t know how to play the piano very well. I don’t know how to read music at all. And that’s why in college I wasn’t able to go to school for music. Which was weird just because I have such a passion for it. But to get into these schools, you had to do an audition where you would read a piece, and they would give you a piece to read in order to get in. And they didn’t seem to have any room for someone like me who was able to just hear it. So that was frustrating. So I decided not to play basketball in college and pursue music. I did not know what that meant at all. I did not know how to put on a show. So then I met a couple of guys; one was a drummer, and one was a bass player. And they were a part of the project for a couple years, getting it started. And that’s when I got a lot of my learning out of the way. And that’s when I got a lot of my learning out of the way. You know, what cables were what and how to put on a show and, more importantly, what kind of frontman I wanted to >be.

Alive: Yeah, I was wondering how the current on-stage persona came to be.

Joseph: The persona that is Twenty One Pilots on stage came about — my first show that I ever did was at a coffee shop. And I sat down at my piano, and I had these other two guys playing with me, and I just stared down at my piano and I played my songs. I executed the songs. And that feeling that I had after the show was awful. It was this feeling of — I can’t even explain it, but it didn’t feel right. So I started thinking about the antics and the way the music moves me when I’m by myself recording in my basement. Why don’t I let that take over my body when it comes to what a show looks like as well? As opposed to hiding that and just, like, executing the songs, reliving the songs on stage. And the difference between those two things. And the next time we played, I let that happen. Again, it was a small show in front of friends and family. And afterwards, people who really knew me thought there was something wrong. My mom was trying to figure out whether I needed to see someone, you know, for counseling. But what was interesting was the people who didn’t really know me that well, that may have gotten invited by another friend of mine, said, like, “That was awesome.” And that was like, really, I think I could do this. Because hopefully I’m not just playing for my family and friends my whole life, and they’ll look at me and go, “What’s wrong with that kid?” They’ll understand that it’s a part of reliving the songs on stage. So then, fast-forwarding to, you know — the drummer had to back out and the bassist had to back out. And Josh was always a guy I wanted to play music with. I’d known him before we played music together. When I first met him, I just knew he was a great guy. He was very talented. He was actually — when I met you, were you with House of Heroes?

Dun: Yeah.