Twenty One Pilots ‘Breach’ Stadiums: Q&A With Tyler Joseph & Josh Dun

by Blake Fine and Sarah Pittman

Twenty One Pilots is flying high, having just wrapped its 2025 tour featuring some of the biggest shows the duo has ever played including two nights at the 24,000-capacity BMO Stadium in Los Angeles Oct. 25-26. The Grammy Award-winning, alternative rock duo is supporting its eighth studio album, Breach, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

A big part of the band’s success is their devotion to and connection with their fanbase. From one mega fan’s perspective, who is a staff member at Oak View Group (Pollstar’s parent company), the band has meant so much that she credited them with changing her life and helping her through a difficult time. In a guest post earlier this year, Blake Fine detailed meeting lead singer Tyler Joseph after a 2015 show and how he encouraged her to keep going. She went on to discuss how the band’s welcoming fanbase has been there for one another, from a shoulder to cry on to providing places to stay when traveling to Twenty One Pilots shows across the country.

Over the past decade, Fine has now seen Twenty One Pilots more than 40 times in 38 states. For this cover story, she conducted the interview with frontman/multi-instrumentalist Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun, along with contributing her insights.

As Fine explains, “To some, their music can come across as dark and somber; to others it’s uplifting with their lyrics reminding you that you’re not alone – and their energetic, interactive live shows are a celebration. Twenty One Pilots bend rules with their performances and their music. They use their platform to break stigmas and discuss topics you don’t get from other artists. Their live shows are masterpieces, highlighted by backflips off of pianos and deep engagement with the audience. Whatever it is you need from the shows and the music, they want you to take and as they make clear in this interview, it’s important to them, too.” 

Twenty One Pilots was last featured on the cover of Pollstar in 2021 as the duo prepared to embark on their creative “Takeover Tour.”  Then, they did a series of residencies in five U.S. markets each featuring shows at a range of venues from clubs to arenas.

This time around for “The Clancy World Tour,” the group played only arenas in 2024 and early 2025 – which included stops in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and Europe. The group returned to the road in September for “The Clancy Tour: Breach” featuring a run of North American gigs in amphitheatres, along with a handful of stadiums including Cincinnati’s TQL Stadium and Hersheypark Stadium in Pennsylvania.

Highlights from reports submitted to Pollstar Boxoffice for Twenty One Pilots’ 2025 shows include $3.1 million grossed at Allianz Parque in São Paulo, Brazil on Jan. 26 (with 40,178 tickets sold), nearly $4.8 million grossed at Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City on Feb. 20 (with 63,836 tickets sold) and $1.3 million grossed at Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany on May 1 (with 16,474 tickets sold). 

Their new album, Breach, was released Sept. 12 via Fueled by Ramen/Atlantic as the follow-up to 2024’s Clancy and a final chapter of the band’s worldbuilding that began with 2015’s Blurryface. It’s Twenty One Pilots’ second LP to hit the top spot on the Billboard 200 and Top Rock & Alternative Albums charts.

The new album marks an ending of sorts of a story arc centered around a fictional narrative addressing issues of mental health, anxiety and depression that Twenty One Pilots have propounded for the last decade. This lore centers around a character named Clancy and his challenges of escaping Dema, a dystopian city along with his own insecurities represented by a character named Blurryface. The narrative just concluded with the Breach album.

The lore has been an added element helping link the band and their fans, building on the connection that CAA’s Andrew Simon and Jeff Krones noticed from the very first show they caught in the band’s native Columbus, Ohio. 

“They were a very talented band from day one,” Simon said. “They really had a sense of being entertainers, it was always based on crowd participation and being very involved with their audience. In the truest form of old entertainers, like it was their job to entertain people for an hour-plus. Tyler had a very natural ability to command the stage and command the audience, and that revealed itself very, very early.”

The duo’s dedication to their fans and their spectacular performances can be be seen in how Twenty One Pilots on this tour approached their shows’ production and stage layout.

“Anytime you only have two people on stage, you really gotta think about how to project something bigger than what that is,” Krones says. “Andrew and I saw that firsthand at the opening show of this tour – they played a stadium in Cincinnati, their home state. Before the show, we walked around the different parts of the stadium seeing where all the different views would be. Andrew and I started looking at the setlist and thinking about all the songs and the different parts of the show. And we’re like, ‘This is going to be a great show for anybody because they really are bringing the show to every part of the stadium.’ I mean they have a flaming car in the back of the stadium. Tyler’s coming out, rolling all over the place. And you’ve got Josh floating around the crowd playing drums.”

The oft-referenced industry mantra of “not skipping steps” has been one of the key factors to Twenty One Pilots’ success as the band has over the years put in the work to deliberately move up in venue sizes. Manager Chris Woltman, owner of Element1 Music, Marketing & Management, notes that it comes down to the band’s work ethic and commitment to this process, along with “amazing music you couldn’t really put into an easy category.”

“While none of it is simple,” Woltman says, “the idea that you have the ability to make an amazing album and an amazing body of work and then you go on the road so that you can build a local community and then ultimately a global community, there’s no secret in that. I think the idea of how hard that really is becomes a deterrent for many and that was something that never became a deterrent for us – the grit of it all.” 

Simon also explained that the team had a very aggressive global strategy early on, booking a show in Korea within the first six months of working with the band.

He says, “The biggest part was to try to get their business to level up in all areas kind of at the same time, meaning you didn’t want any territory to get further ahead or further behind any other territory, because financially and systematically, it’s hard when you’re playing arenas in one part of the globe and then you have to go play 1,000-seaters in another part of the globe. It’s really hard creatively to build those kinds of shows or to think that way.”

And the fans have been showing up, even before the Grammy nominations and accolades that have led to opportunities like the duo covering The White Stripes at the recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in early November. 

“A lot of people don’t know that before Twenty One Pilots had this big hit in ‘Stressed Out,’ we were on an arena run in the US and were 72% sold out,” Woltman says. “‘Stressed Out,’ ‘Heathens’, and ‘Ride’ – all three in that cycle were massive hits. The community was there. The community had been subscribing to not just one song but to the movement. The music and the lyrics were resonating and a fan base was in a massive way emerging.”

Twenty One Pilots never takes this for granted and at every show pays tribute to their fans by showing videos of them before they go into the concert.

“It’s kind of their version of what Deadheads before they go to shows,” Krones says. “And because [Tyler] created these worlds, these characters, everyone’s dressed up differently and associates with different parts of what the story is. You’ve got all these strangers coming together. … He’s meeting kids talking about mental health and anxiety and all these things that kids are dealing with that’s relevant, whether you’re 15 years old or 35 years old. That’s where people [connect] on top of just being great pop or great rock songs.”

With the Oct. 25-26 shows at BMO Stadium concluding the 2025 tour, as well as a decade-long story of lore, the feeling in the venue on those two nights was turbo-charged. Fine says, “The band took advantage of the entire venue and whether you were on the floor or the nose bleeds, the experience was electric with the building literally shaking from all the excited fans. From the first notes of ‘Overcompensate’ fans screamed the lyrics in unison in what seemed a secret agreement to make this the loudest show yet and give this incredible tour and story the biggest send off.” 

Here, Joseph and Dun explain how their shows come together, taking on stadiums and what’s next after their 10-year story comes to an end. 

Q&A With Twenty One Pilots’ Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun

Pollstar: As someone who has followed you for over a decade and has seen you perform live 40 times, your music literally saved my life and helped me through some really dark days. Can you share what that deep and positive relationship you have with your fans means to you? Is there anything you’d say to fans who feel similarly to me?
Tyler Joseph: I don’t take lightly when someone says a song helped them through something. That’s not a statistic to me. It’s a person. The relationship we have with our fans feels less like “audience/artist” and more like co-authors. They finish the sentences we start. Thank you for letting our songs sit with you in the dark until morning.

You’ve said you want your live shows to attract everyone – from fans like myself who’ve seen you live 40 times but also the dads who’ve never heard you. How do you navigate making a setlist that spans eight albums? 
Joseph: I think of a show in chapters. Some chapters are for the lifers who’ve seen us 40 times and want the deep cuts; some are for the dad who got dragged along and only knows one hook but leaves with three new favorites. We map “pillars”—moments we know we want to hit emotionally—and then thread songs from different albums that serve those moments. The test is simple: does this sequence move the room forward? If not, we cut it, no matter how nostalgic I am for the track.

How did you approach the production for “The Clancy World Tour” to help enhance the album’s Dema narrative? How did you conceive of ideas like the burning car? 
Josh Dun: The great thing about “The Clancy World Tour” is that we already had this amazing universe to build off of. Visually, we wanted to capture the emotions, intensity, and scale of Clancy’s story, whether that be through massive towers onstage, pyro, or our own movements onstage. I’m so proud of the music videos we were able to create within this world, so it was really special to be able to call back to moments like the burning car. They’re part of our band’s history.

You have played in all types of venues, including stadiums on this ongoing tour. Does the venue type determine what you are able to create during the live event? Were there any stand-out shows on this tour that have especially meant a lot to you and your career? 
Joseph: Different rooms pull different things out of us. Small venues keep us honest—every lyric has weight because you’re close enough to see the faces you’re singing to. Arenas let the community announce itself; you hear thousands of people choose the same line at the same time. Stadiums remind you to be direct—say what you mean and mean it. The most meaningful shows were the ones where that dialogue felt clear from the first song, and we walked off stage feeling like the room told the story with us.

Who would you like to shout out on your team for helping with all your successes this year?
Joseph: Josh, first—my favorite drummer and co-conspirator. Our families, who make the road possible. Our crew, who build this city every day and tear it down every night. Our management at Element1—Chris and Ashley—for helping us protect the vision and scale it. The core creative team – Mark, Shap and Brandon – and everyone across touring, production design, lighting, audio, video, content, and the people at the doors scanning tickets with a smile. It really is all of us.

“Downstairs” is a 12-year-old demo that’s included on your newest album, Breach. How did you know that this was the right time to resurrect the song? Would you have ever guessed that this demo would become one of the fans’ favorite songs on the album?
Dun: It’s been so cool to see this demo take on an entirely new life on Breach. I always loved it and knew one day we’d find the way to bring it to life, and it just fit so perfectly on this record. I held on to that demo for a long time, it just took us this long to do it justice! I can’t say I predicted it would be a fan favorite, but I always knew it would be special once we finished it. 

Twenty One Pilots has been a big advocate for mental health awareness and suicide prevention. Do you think the stigma around mental health is getting better? How has being in the band helped your own mental health?  
Joseph: It’s a double-edged sword. People have more language now, but shame is stubborn. Being in this band gave me accountability and a megaphone, but it also gave me community. Writing is how I name things; performing is how I release them. If a song gives someone a first step—asking for help, texting a friend, breathing through a panic wave—that’s the win. Keep talking. Keep asking. Keep staying.

There are some themes about the lore that are seen even in Vessel, but most of the concepts from fans’ understanding started to form during the Blurryface-era and on. Is there an exact moment in your career that you knew you were planning to develop this entire narrative, including its characters and overarching themes? Can you share some insight into the significance of the names Clancy and Torchbearer?
Joseph: There wasn’t one lightning-bolt moment; it was a slow construction project. Pieces of the world show up. This was truly a living, breathing story, much of which was a collaborative effort between us and the fans. The themes being told are universal, but as things progressed, we loved getting granular and building out the world. This story is all about cycles. Clancy and Torchbearer act more as titles than as names. There are times where you may identify more with one over the other, we really wanted fans to be able to put themselves in this story and take what they need from it. 

“City Walls” is known as the end of a decade-long story, and between us fans, there’s differing opinions on how the end feels. What does the ending mean to you – both personally and within the compounds of the band?
Joseph: “City Walls” closes a decade-long arc, but it doesn’t slam the door; it leaves it on the latch. Personally, it feels like setting down a backpack I’ve carried for a long time—grateful for what was inside, lighter for what’s next. For the band, it’s closure with a compass: a promise that we can tell new stories without abandoning the ones that got us here.