THE BAND
TYLER
JOSH
Twenty One Pilots is an American musical duo from Columbus, Ohio, formed in 2009 by Tyler Joseph. The band was originally a trio consisting of Tyler, Nick Thomas and Chris Salih who both left in 2011. Josh Dun would join shortly after as the bands drummer.
The band has its own lore, starting with their 4th studio album, Blurryface. (i go into more depth in the lore section!)
The name Twenty one pilots derives from Arthur Millers play All My Sons, that revolves around a businessman who willingly ships faulty airplane parts during WWII, which leads to the tragic deaths of twenty-one pilots.
Tyler Joseph is the lead vocalist and songwriter for the band. He was born on december 1st, 1988.
Before twenty one pilots, Tyler released a solo album, No Phun Intended. It was recorded during 07 - 08. Some songs from this album were later reworked into official twenty one pilots tracks.
Joshua Dun is the drummer of the band. He was born on June 18th, 1988.
Prior to being in twenty one pilots, he was the drummer for the band House of Heroes in 2010.
Josh actually quit his job to join the band and attended one of their concerts prior to joining, invited by ex-drummer Chris Salih.
LORE
The story, created by tyler, spans across 5 of their albums. The story officially concluded with their latest album, Breach, released in 2025.
The story takes place in the continent of Trench, and a city on the continent called Dema. Dema is ran by the nine bishops, it is split into nine sections with each bishop ruling a part of it.
Dema from the outside is very dark and depressing, nobody is allowed to leave.
The religion enforced in dema by the bishops is called vialism, the belief in vialism is that the goal in life is to take ones own life.
The banditos are a group of rebels who have all escaped dema located in Trench. They help others escape and help them realise Demas way of life is wrong and there is hope on the outside. They live in camps and wear yellow tape,
as yellow is a symbol of hope and also a way of camouflage as bishops cannot see the colour.
The main character of the whole story is Clancy, played by Tyler. He is a resident of Dema famous for writing letters detaliling his life in the city. He spent an amount of time as a prisoner of Dema -
forced to make propagranda (Album Scaled And Icy, which is an anagram for clancy is dead. isnt that rly cool). He is the only non-bishop who can use the power of psychokinesis with the use of Ned antlers.
Neds are creatures living in Trench, whos antlers can be removed. Ned stands for Neural Expansion Device.
Torchbearer, played by Josh, is the leader of the banditos. His character has the power to appear elsewhere to guide people without physically being there. He wears tape across his chest to help protect his heart.
He is one of the only things Clancy can remember outside the city of dema.
in short, the whole story is about fighting mental health, these issues are represented in blurryface and the city of Dema. a big part of the story is self-sabotage. Each cycle with a new Clancy is a new bout of depression. It gets better, then worse, and so on. But it gets easier each time.
this is a very very brief summary (not even) of the lore, i reccomend this google doc, and of course watching the lore music videos if you really wanna get into the details of it all.
