i can feel my saturation leaving me slowly what a way to what a beautiful and an optimistic way to start a brand new album for 21 pilots a wonderfully transparent creative duo featuring of course tyler joseph one of my favorite people to talk to on
the planet when it comes to music art craft and all that goes into it what's up man good to see you thanks for having me man thanks for coming back with you know such a wonderful creative record 11 songs so tight it's
just like everything you need to say right there in between these two pillars i could tell because you're a very aesthetically driven human being that was all very deliberate everything is very deliberate why living songs why the time frame how
did it work out i would say for this record you know usually when you're writing records you have an idea of which song you're writing like this is a number three song or this is towards the back end like to bring it home or
this is the last song on this one i i knew that the song good day was going to be the first song on the record and i knew the song would decorate it was gonna be the last one but everything inside there was very it was more liquid and
available to be moved around as the creation process happened and so um and it's supposed to feel like that's supposed to feel like a you know a flow of creativity rather than something very chronological which i in the past have done some
more chronological stuff so and yet it feels very compact and and like i said as focused as any other record you've ever ever made i suppose for the first time you are able to surprise yourself with that by going into that selection process and
that ordering process with the same sense of kind of wonder as we get when we hear it for the first time because you haven't been putting all those things in place as you've been going along you must have surprised yourself with this album a bit
on the last record on trench i got caught up in the idea of trying to reinvent a wheel when it comes to song structure and different approaches in the songwriting style and the lyrics and how abstract i could get and um and i enjoyed
stretching myself in that way on this record i really wanted to bring it back to the craft of songwriting to stay within the parameters i view it as a picture frame you know what can i what can i put in the into that picture frame what can what kind of
painting can i do it's it's a short record it's like a little over 30 some minutes long you know and for you know to put a year or your life into something and then you have 30 minutes to show for it is a pretty um
humbling experience quality not quantity tyler you know that how did you know this was going to be the first song then how did you what made it so it was so different than every other first song that i've ever done i've kind of developed this formula for
how live shows should feel and i think that because the live experience is so tied to the creation process of the record i've always naturally written a first song that felt like would also be the first song for a live experience
and you know it's got the low rumble it's got the you know the ominous you know we're about to take over your life type of thing and this was um a completely different first this is like a i wanted to feel like i was turning lights on i was like i was i walked into
a warehouse and i you know it was everything it was kicking on section by section and that's what this song felt like and then all of a sudden to go into this piano riff it just was reminiscent of how maybe some older concerts would have started
rather than what what we do today with the big scrim that falls down and the low rumble and the big boom like it's it's a little more walk out on stage turn the lights on and smile was kind of the the vibe for this
first song and so is that the saturation that you refer to to some degree in the opening line which is always a very important moment on any album the idea of over saturating yourself with your own with your own creativity or your own
like you say parameters or desire to reinvent the wheel well i knew that this record was going to be very colorful and so the idea of saturation was one that i was going to compensate for in the branding i was going to make it very colorful we're gonna have
just a flow of different colors coming in and the branding was gonna be very bright and exciting and then lyrically talking about desaturation this song is a is about getting to a place where if i were to lose everything if i lost my wife and my kid
how would i in the first week react to that and i think that what i would be is overly positive like it's fine there's a reason for everything i'm okay i even like put a specific time on it like i feel like a lot of stuff anytime you
go on vacation something weird might happen like someone comes down with some um weird sickness i've had a couple of weird things happen to my family while on vacation and i don't know if that's just me or if other people have experienced
that maybe you're in a new place you don't have your rhythm normal and something happens but the idea of i was trying to put myself there like how would i react to some terrible thing happening over you know a vacation that we were all on
and it was a really dark place to go and the fact that this song is that's what it's talking about is trying to wrestle with you know in the lyrics of the chorus is talking about how um would you say you depend on the weather
because my sunshine is a buzz and a light i'll be singing out i know it's hard to believe me but it's a good day but you know i really do feel like the the vice of drinking and smoking like i would just be like no lid let's go go all in
i would just search for anything i could to compensate for that sorrow i don't know it's a it's a really um powerful thing to try to write about something you know almost projecting something that hopefully never happens as a fellow husband and father
that is the worst thing i can imagine that is my number one figure is is losing my family that'll send me into a spiral and so i know you're a courageous writer it's one of the things i love about your music is that you go there
but that is like a whole other level for you to go in and approach that and then to dress it up in these colorful clothes i feel like this song good day not only is it a great song to start a record but it's also i would imagine that there is a spectrum
of grief people talk about the stages of grief and i would imagine that one of those stages would feel a little bit like this song where you're just convincing yourself you're i mean you're talking to someone absolutely purely in denial absolute
denial yeah i wanted to try to put a time stamp on what that period of of grief might feel like you've spent the last year plus like the rest of us in your situation and everyone's micro is whatever the situation they found
themselves in on day one of quarantine that's kind of it and depending on where you are on the spectrum of wealth and health and all those things that suddenly come into focus will depend on how much you can change your and and alter your scenario right
be spontaneous be malleable in an otherwise very unmalleable scenario you found yourself a home a father and a father to be and a husband and all of that stuff going on at the same time that you were starting to collect your creative thoughts what was
that process like for you looking back on it now now that we can it was crazy i have this argument with my father about he says the best workers are dads you know there's something about when you become a dad you become a harder
worker you become a a better worker the best one to gather a mentality is what they refer to it as right i guess and actually i've always argued with him like well i mean you can't argue dad that when you become a dad you have less time to work on that
thing that you're working on so you think that you become a better worker and this of course this is like pre me being a father i would always argue inevitably dad when you have a kid time gets taken away from what you're able to
pour into your craft there's no way that you're a better worker from becoming a father and so i kind of stood not that i didn't want to be a dad but for him to be so blatant and so steadfast in believing that when you become a dad when you
become a parent you become a better worker i just didn't understand how you could balance the time it takes to be a parent and it's going to be extracted from the time that you would pour into that craft then something hit me during this making
of the record how to justify the philosophy that you become a better worker when you become a dad i realized that uh if i were to go into a parallel universe and we were to split off and the musician you know artist songwriter
tyler would continue down this path where he wasn't a family guy and he just kept on you know creating every single day and then or the path that i'm on right now which is i'm splitting my time between what it is i do for a living working on
songs but also being you know a part of a family i realized that what would happen is yes right in the front end of that timeline on these you know single guy he would probably chug away and get a lot done but i know that inevitably i would burn out i would
hit a wall where i just don't what's the point if i don't ha if i'm not able to answer the question what is the point of me working on these songs what was the point of me creating and i don't have anything to point back to
that is the point i would just i would burn out i know and so this other parallel the universe i'm living right now where i may not be able to chug and grind as hard as i want because i have to split my time up i believe that there's actually a
longevity to that career because i'm able to stop and anytime i'm a slightly burnt out i turn around and i know why i'm doing what i'm doing so in a sense my dad was right all the time and uh and he always tends to be so
i figured that out this year i figured that out that my dad's smart did you feel prepared to become a father was it something that when you became a dad that those instincts came naturally to you or did you have to spend some time
working on yourself in order to identify what how you could play the best possible role in your children's future you know i'm a i'm a father of one she's a little over one years old and one of the first things you have to do as a parent
before you even you even become a parent is you have to name that kid and talk about the beginning of heavy decisions you know like that's just the cusp of decisions you have to make as a parent that's that's number one and so when
someone is thinking about becoming a parent becoming a mom or a dad um or a guardian or whatever and and you start to feel like oh my gosh there's all these decisions that need to be made and i don't know how i would ever be able to rise to that occasion
something happens when it happens and what i mean by that is you know i i knew i wanted to name my daughter rosie but i was up until she was born i was i was just so like is that the right name is she gonna like that name is she
going to become that name is the name going to become her you know how is it going to impact her her decisions you know people have this philosophy that your name can actually change the course of you know your your future um and you know just that being the
number one decision out of a infinite amount of decisions i have to make as a father i was so worked up about did i name her right and then she was born and something clicked where i was like oh that's rosie that that's her it just that wasn't that
you know looking back i remember that it was a tough decision but now that the name is connected to the face it's like there was no other there was no other option and a lot of the decisions that i make as a parent that my wife and i make we
realize leading up to decision moment is the most stressful moment but when the decision is made and you make a certain um turn with them you realize oh that's just who they are that's who it always was gonna be and it really starts to
take the pressure out of becoming a parent and so yeah leading up to being a parent it is it is the most constricting stressful thing but when it happens something clicks i hear you when you talk about leading up to the decision and in that
sense of kind of completion and ultimate relief once the decision is made okay now we get on with living with the decision you know and i sort of wonder whether or not that realization at a pivotal moment in anyone's life when they become a parent
prepared you to handle the decision-making process differently as a creative because i know that you take each decision when it comes to 21 pilots very seriously so in going into making this record was there a correlation between making a
decision as a parent and ultimately moving forward as a creative it's a good question i think that one of the greatest strengths that you can have as not just a songwriter but a a performer and a musician is the ability to
fast forward and put yourself project yourself onto something that's going to happen the ability to just calm yourself and picture yourself there so the question of you know as something as simple as wait that song we shouldn't put it next
to that song on the set list because i just ran around for three minutes and then you want you know then i shouldn't be just sitting down and calmly hitting those vocal notes because i'm gonna be out of breath you know so instead of realizing that
the hard way you put yourself there and then you start working backwards what are the what are lessons that i'm going to learn having done this and so having that being something i'm always focusing on you know whether it's you
know mostly because of concerts you know trying to project and put yourself there before you get up on stage doing the rehearsal before you know in your head even as a parent i've been thinking about being a parent for a long time
you know i've been thinking about how i want to tell her i think she's pretty even at a very young age it's like i know i want to tell her that all the time to answer your question as a creative i've always worked on trying to trying to see
something happen before it happens and that i guess in a sense has helped me be a dad you know i took a video of her she's starting to walk around and um she walked up to me and she said something and i'm videoing on my phone you know and
and then i do the first thing i i've never done this before i play the video for her you can see her connect like that's me and she's looking at it she's very excited about it but then this weird like concerned look looks you know is on her face
like she doesn't understand why that's her and maybe and all of a sudden it hit me like one day she might not like what she looks like and i'm gonna have to help her realize that she's beautiful and she's she's amazing and i want to start that
now even when she's one years old you know and so you start to you start to project things out and try to what are some lessons i'm going to learn and how can i start preparing for them right now and that's one that hit me just the other day