Q&A: Twenty One Pilots drummer talks about chart glory with ‘Stressed Out’

TORONTO – If you haven’t heard of Twenty One Pilots you’re not alone.

The Columbis, Ohio-based duo seemingly came out of nowhere recently with their bouncy rock and hip-hop-influenced single “Stressed Out,” which soared to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart earlier this month.

Even the band didn’t see it coming.

Twenty One Pilot’s fourth album “Blurryface” was released last May to relatively little attention.

But the band managed to rack up millions of YouTube views on the “Stressed Out” music video by last summer, even though the song wasn’t being played on the radio. It’s now past 190 million views.

Drummer Josh Dun talked with The Canadian Press about the band’s unusual rise to fame ahead of a stretch of concerts in Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

CP: Have you sat down with lead singer Tyler Joseph to assess how the song climbed the Billboard charts seemingly out of nowhere?

Dunn: We haven’t really sat down and really processed it. I don’t know man, it’s such a crazy thing…. For the past five years we’ve been on the road pretty much constantly. We’re so close to this thing every day — all the way zoomed in — and there’s not really a chance to zoom out and look at what it is, as a whole. That makes it tougher to process sometimes.

CP: As “Stressed Out” catches fire you must be feeling that growth in popularity at the shows you’re playing.

Dunn: As I landed here in Canada, I was with my manager, and was like, ‘What sort of venues are we playing?’ I was surprised because in Canada it’s way bigger venues … it kind of has always been small venues. Now we’re talking about the scale of a hockey arena in one of these cities, as we lead into our U.S. tour that’s all arenas.

CP: “Stressed Out,” and many of the other songs on “Blurryface,” have unusual structures. When you think the song is going in one direction you suddenly switch it up. It’s quite the opposite of most Top 40 songs. Do you intentionally try to make your songs unpredictable?

Dunn: I’ve always described our sound as a mixture of ignorance and intentionality. Some of it is not really being aware there’s rules or guidelines. We don’t want somebody to turn on our album, listen to the first song and know what the rest of it is going to sound like. I’ve always wanted to be a part of something that mixed a bunch of different sounds — a little experimental but also riding a balance.

— This interview has been edited and condensed.

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