Twenty One Pilots listening event big success for Indy’s Luna Music

Twenty One Pilots listening event big success for Indy’s Luna Music

By: Kevin Vickery

I recently got to mark a couple more firsts off my list as I had never before attended an album listening party at a record store nor had I ever visited Luna Music, a cool CD & vinyl record store located near the campus of Butler University in Indianapolis.

The listening party was for my two daughters’ favorite band, Twenty One Pilots new album, “Breach” which was to be released the following week.  My girls absolutely love this band and I’ll admit that I’ve also grown to appreciate their sound and skill even though I am definitely not their target demographic.

I’ve spoken with fans who describe the Twenty One Pilots sound as “too broad to be defined” and I understand where they’re coming from as the group has evolved over the course of their eight album catalog spanning 16 years. Band founder, primary singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Tyler Joseph pulls from a variety of styles when creating their music.  His vocal style lends itself equally to emotional ballads and straight rock tunes as it does to his frequent rap segments, reggae vibes, and occasional scream-style singing. After discussing it thoroughly, my oldest daughter, Alice and I agreed that they could be described as equal parts alternative-rock and indie-pop-rock.

Though Twenty One Pilots was originally formed as a power-trio when they recoded and debuted their self produced album, “Twenty One Pilots” featuring founding members Nick Thomas and Chris Salih, who both departed the group in 2011.  After their departure Tyler Joseph went on to recruit drummer and fellow Columbus, OH native, Josh Dunn and the two have remained as a duo ever since.

In the recording studio, Tyler handles the lead vocals and plays everything from guitar, ukulele and bass to piano, other keyboards and synthesizers as well as samples and programming.  Josh Dunn’s primary role is carrying their variety of beats and percussion on drums complete with intricate tempo changes and complex fills but he also adds some backing vocals, trumpet and additional keyboards and programming.  He’s also been known to treat the crowd at live performances to some of his acrobatic moves like back-flips from the piano and drum riser.

The duo is most know for their hits, “Ride” and “Stressed Out” both from their extremely successful  2015 album, “Blurryface” which sold over 1.5 million copies, reached number one on the Billboard 200 where it managed to chart at various positions on the list for a record breaking 4 years without leaving the chart.  It is also one of the most-streamed albums in the world and won the duo a Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for the song “Stressed Out”.

The duo’s name, Twenty One Pilots, has an interesting origin.   Tyler Joseph got the band’s name and meaning from reading the 1947 theatrical play “All My Sons”, by American playwright, Arthur Miller. In the story, Joe Keller is a defense contractor who builds military aircraft parts.  Keller discovers some faulty parts and must decide whether or not to recall them.  Though he wants to do what’s right, Keller is afraid to lose the money needed to support his family, and decides to send the parts to Europe anyway during World War II.  Twenty-one pilots died as a consequence of his decision and at the end of the play, Keller takes his own life.  Tyler has explained that the story’s themes of moral dilemma, between choosing between the easy and the right decision, resonated with him and inspired the name and formation of the band.

The bands fan base refers themselves as “The Skeleton Clique” or just the “The Clique” referring to the duo’s skeleton-like logo.  These fans are heavily steeped in certain looks of the band’s imagery and even immolate them, wearing  jumpsuits and bandanas associated with different periods of the band’s career when attending their shows.  The song, “Jumpsuit” itself from their album, “Trench” spawned the beginning of the group’s “lore”.

The members of The Clique can enlighten  you in great detail all the lore associated with Twenty One Pilots.  If you’re not familiar with this concept, I can only explain it as a long backstory with common themes told through their music videos, album and song titles, performances and within many of the song lyrics.  In their case the lore centers around exploration of mental health, oppression, and identity through the fictional city of Dema, surrounded by a wilderness called, Trench. Dema is controlled by nine bishops, with the head bishop being Nico, also known as Blurryface.  The bishops enforce Vialism, a religion that keeps Dema’s citizens captive.  There’s also the rebel group, “The Banditos” lead by Josh Dunn’s character, The Torch Bearer as well as additional characters like Clancy, and a small creature named Ned who’s horns give the power of psychokinesis.

To be honest, that’s about as deep as my knowledge runs in the Twenty One Pilots lore department.  It seems like the whole story might make a good sci-fi book or movie.  I do know that my daughters could tell you every detail of the lore and my oldest in particular was shocked at the way they wrapped up the storylines in their new 10 minute music video for, “City Walls” from the new, “Breach” album.

The listening party event for “Breach” was an interesting, yet still cool experience. I believe the record store staff was genuinely surprised by the size of the turnout for the event.  We got there about 45 minutes early and made our way to the end of a line down the sidewalk and more people filed in behind us.  Eventually the line started moving but was then stopped when the store had reached maximum capacity. I was expecting a major meltdown to occur but crisis was averted when the manager told us all to come around to the side of the building where he opened another big door that also had a wooden screen door.  The staff placed some speakers by that side entrance and the 60 or so people who couldn’t fit inside the store gathered around  and listened from outside with ease.  The girls still both got their limited edition Twenty One Pilots posters of the album Art and  bracelets featuring the band logo.  I actually think listening outside made for a better experience since it was standing room only inside the store as well and at least we had a little bit of breeze outside.

We all three enjoyed listening to the “Breach” album and the girls thought it was particularly cool that there were also sound clips of Tyler Joseph talking between tracks and giving some back story about the individual songs. He told us that the high pitched screaming on the song, “Rawfear” was recorded by having his daughters scream into his iPhone.  We learned that, “Downstairs” was a 14 year old demo that he had basically forgotten about but drummer, John Dunn had saved it on an old hard drive and encouraged him to re-work the tune.  He also got a laugh from the listeners when he mentioned that “Center Mass” was his favorite song from the new album but said, “You’re not going to like it – There’s a lot going on but if you give it time to grow on you, you will eventually love it.”

My personal favorite song on the album was, “Drum Show” and found myself very impressed with Tyler’s bass playing on not only this track but others throughout the record as well.  His bass is up heavy in the mix making it easy to hear the raw, semi-distorted tones of the instrument and I found that his sound and approach to playing it reminded me of some bass greats like legends, John Entwistle and Geezer Butler.

Luna Music, located at 5202 N. College Avenue in Indianapolis is a hip place to shop if you’re into new and vintage vinyl, CDs and tapes.  They also have a good variety of their own t-shirts and other swag plus they even sell turntables.  They’ve been around for over 30 years and have won several awards in magazines like, “Nuvo” and “Indianapolis Monthly”.  We made it inside for few minutes after the listening party and found the staff there to be very friendly and helpful.

I asked both my daughters what they love about Twenty One Pilots and Alice Vickery (14) said, “I have listened to them all my life and I really like the music that they make – I like how they play in a lot of different genres so if you’re in the mood for one type of music, you can listen to certain songs but if you want to listen to a whole different type of thing you can because they play a lot of different styles.”  Her younger sister Delia Vickery (10) echoed that sentiment adding, “I especially like the drums because he plays really, really fast but it’s not just upbeat music or sadder music – it’s a mixture of both.”

On the listening event experience at Luna Music Alice added, “I thought that it was really cool because I’d never been to a listening party before – I also thought that it was cool that there were so many people there that it reached capacity and some of us had to listen outside – I’m really glad we were able to go.” She also mentioned that her favorite songs from the , “Breach” album were, “City Walls” and “Downstairs”.

Delia also enjoyed the experience saying, “It was cool seeing a bunch of people that you know like the same stuff as you do and knowing that they’ve been at the same shows that I have”.  She mentioned that her favorite songs from “Breach” are “Cottonwood” and “Downstairs” and added, “I thought it was really funny when Tyler said that we wouldn’t like the song, “Center Mass” until it grew on us but I heard it and thought, this is actually pretty good!”

I would agree with both of their assessments of Twenty One Pilots ability to pull from a lot of influences to create a wide variety of music that spans over a vast multi-genre territory.  However I believe that what truly sets them apart from the vast majority of their alt-rock-indie-emo-pop peers is Tyler Joseph’s unique approach to songwriting, particularly in his lyrics.  His style is honest, emotionally intense, and focused on relatable themes like anxiety, overthinking, and faith. His writing frequently features narrative storytelling, and abstract or symbolic imagery.  Tyler’s lyrics show vulnerability and an ability to communicate complex ideas, that seems to make his work deeply personal and even validating to listeners.

More simply put, I believe that he’s just a better songwriter than most artists you will find on the same radio formats that play Twenty One Pilots music and he’s armed with an arsenal of well crafted thoughts and ideas that when transformed into lyrics and put to music make the rest of the pop world’s songs about hook-up culture, being rich & famous, and dancing at the club all just look like pop drivel.

For more information about Twenty One Pilots, you can find them on all social media outlets, stream their music on all major platforms or for tour dates and merchandise visit their official website at https://www.twentyonepilots.com

To learn more about Luna Music and keep up with their events and specialty merchandise find them on social media or visit Luna music.net.