Twenty One Pilots

Twenty One Pilots turned a self-released Columbus project into a major alternative-pop crossover act, pairing Tyler Joseph’s vocals, keyboards and genre-fluid songwriting with Josh Dun’s drumming. The duo’s music moves between rock, rap, electronic production and pop, while Joseph’s lyrics often address personal insecurity. Their concerts are equally central to the group’s identity, with costumes, on-stage acrobatics and a close relationship with their fanbase. Several albums also form part of an interconnected alternate-universe narrative.

The band began in 2009 with Joseph, bassist Nick Thomas and drummer Chris Salih. That original lineup independently released its self-titled debut, Twenty One Pilots, in 2009. Salih was replaced by Dun in May 2011, and Thomas left the following month, leaving Joseph and Dun as the continuing duo. After independently releasing Regional at Best in 2011, they signed with Fueled by Ramen in 2012.

Their label debut, Vessel, arrived in 2013 and became the second album in history to have every track receive at least a gold certification. Twenty One Pilots broke through on a much larger scale with 2015’s Blurryface, which produced “Stressed Out” and “Ride.” Blurryface became the first album whose every track earned at least a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America. “Stressed Out” won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards.

In 2016, “Heathens” extended the duo’s mainstream reach. Its release made Twenty One Pilots the first alternative artist to hold two concurrent top-five singles on the Billboard Hot 100, while also making them the third rock act, after the Beatles and Elvis Presley, to place two songs in the chart’s top five simultaneously.

The group followed Blurryface with Trench in 2018, Scaled and Icy in 2021, Clancy in 2024 and Breach in 2025. Across their career, Twenty One Pilots have scored 14 number-one songs on the Alternative Airplay chart, tying Linkin Park for the second-most.