A band formed in Columbus, Ohio, Twenty One Pilots, is soaring to new heights on the broad-backed wings of their rule-breaking talent, but also thanks to their down-to-earth, grassroots approach to music. Tyler Joseph and Josh Dunn didn’t traverse the musical horizon based on antiquated ideals or old-school ways of operating. The pair adopted a progressive approach to songwriting and a precise plan of attack at playing shows. Quickly, Twenty One Pilots went from a small band named after the plot-line of an Arthur Miller play and demoing songs in a basement to one that elicits pride throughout the state of Ohio. “The whole state, they believe in us, and we tell them it’s because of them that we’re getting some more recognition,” said the band in an interview with KROQ.
Unlike many up-and-coming bands who inundate their local music scene with a superfluous amount of shows, Twenty One Pilots strategized a plan to get them known all over the state. Joseph said that he would put together songs, spend some time analyzing and learning about his local music scene, combined his knowledge with social networking and decided that because there’s “so many bands out there” that he was going to “do the opposite.” “If I were to give advice to someone that just started a band and how to get someone’s attention, you’ve gotta have a central hub. For us, it was Columbus, Ohio,” explained Joseph. “Then outside of Columbus, we’d play all these small shows without promoting. If we go up to City A and we play a show for ten people, we make ten fans; you have to have the live show to kind of solidify them. Then you go up to City B.” According to Joseph, the trick was to not promote “City B” so that fans from City A wouldn’t go to the show. The main hub was their city of Columbus. When they’d have a big show in the hub, that’s when they’d blast out their whereabouts on social media, effectively attracting people from all the outer regions they played to one central point.
“When people came out, they were more blown away by how many people were there than on the show. But then we obviously had to capitalize on giving them a good live show. So we did that four or five times, leaving months in between, then by the end of that, we were able to get people’s attention and that’s kind of why we’re here.”
