The world’s most successful band

By: Marvei/9th grade

Twenty One Pilots is a musical duo from Columbus, Ohio. The band was formed in 2009, having Tyler Joseph as a lead vocalist along with Chris Salih, and Nick Thomas; both whom left in 2011. Their departure from the band was covered by Joshua Dun; until now, the lineup has consisted of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun.

In 2012, they were signed into a major record label: Fueled by Ramen. They had their label debut in 2013 with their album, Vessel; which had some songs from the unfinished album, “Regional at Best”; as their part of signing agreement in 2012 with Fueled by Ramen, the rights of Regional at Best were transferred to Fueled by Ramen, meaning that Regional at Best was discontinued and removed from digital markets.

Twenty One Pilots reached their mainstream success with the release of album Blurryface in 19th of May, with Fairly Local being their lead single of the album, Tear In My Heart being the second single, and Stressed Out being the third single and the highest selling single of the group, making to the 2nd place of Billboard Hot 100, along with the music video surpassing one billion views on youtube (as posted by Fueled by Ramen’s account).

A year after the release of Blurryface, Twenty One Pilots released the song Heathens as the first Suicide Squad soundtrack on 16th of June 2016, making the song a commercial hit and peaked at the 2nd place of Billboard Hot 100, tying with “Stressed Out” as their highest charting to date, and stayed for 22 weeks in the Hot 100 before dropping out at 31st of December 2016. With “Ride” charting number five and “Heathens” at four in the same week, Twenty One Pilots had become the third rock act with simultaneous top five Hot 100 Singles in the chart’s 58 year history, following only The Beatles and Elvis Presley, as well as the first duo in three years.

On 12th of February 2017, Twenty One Pilots won a Grammy Award for “Stressed Out” in the “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance” category. The band stripped to their underwear before taking the stage, with Joseph claiming in their acceptance speech that this was a fulfillment of a promise the duo had made each other in their early days as a local Columbus band.

In March 2018, 2 years after the release of “Blurryface”, the band’s song “Hometown” was certified Gold from the RIAA, making Blurryface the first full length album to have every track achieve at least gold status. In July 2019, as their album “Vessel” has been certified 2x multi-platinum in the U.S by RIAA. Each of its songs have also been certified gold or higher, making Twenty One Pilots the first and only band or artist to reach this accomplishment on two non-compilation albums after Blurryface passed the milestone the previous year.