It means Twenty One Pilots, the logo does. Why it means Twenty One Pilots, is it really goes along with one of our songs called "Kitchen Sink". The whole concept of that song is that I feel that humans are always struggling all the time when it comes to purpose, trying to figure out what their purpose is, what purpose even is, what's the point, justifying your own existence. A lot of kids and people my age struggle with "what's the point", and with the logo, what it really means is it's an encouragement. When someone asks me what the logo means to me, the logo means something to me because I made it mean something to me. That's the point. The point is that I created something that only I understand and whether or not I decide to disclose the meaning of it, that's the beginning of purpose for me. The meaning of purpose for me, is by creating something, if it be by writing lyrics, painting a picture, by expressing yourself through art if it's photography or music or theater, or whatever it is. It doesn't have to be artistic, but if you create something and only you know the meaning of it, that's the beginning of purpose for you. When you're in the room by yourself trying to decide whether to stay alive, you can tell yourself "I should probably stay alive because I'm the only one who knows the meaning of that thing", so the logo is an encouragement for people to create. That's what it means.
Twenty One Pilots became only the third rock act to have two singles simultaneously chart in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100, joining the Beatles and Elvis Presley, in addition to becoming the third duo to accomplish this feat, after OutKast in 2003 and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ten years later.
Joseph began playing music after finding an old keyboard in his closet, a Christmas gift from his mother, and mimicking radio melodies. After seeing a Songwriter perform at a High Street club, Joseph rejected an opportunity to play basketball at Otterbein University, along with a scholarship to the university. From around 2007 to 2008, Joseph recorded a solo album entitled No Phun Intended in his basement. Nick Thomas contributed guitar to several songs on the album, and collaborated on the song "Trees", which was to become a signature Twenty One Pilots song.
Now going by "Twenty One Pilots", the group released their debut, self-titled album, Twenty One Pilots, on December 29, 2009, and began touring the rest of Ohio. Their initial marketing was very grassroots; Joseph's mother would stand outside of Ohio State University giving away tickets to his shows. During this time, the band participated in "Battle of the Band" contests at The Alrosa Villa and The Basement, important Columbus music venues. In 2010, the band posted two officially unreleased tracks to their SoundCloud account. These included a cover of "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri and a remixed interpretation of Con te partirò (Time to Say Goodbye) by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman, which was the first song local Drummer Josh Dun heard from the group.
In November 2011, after months of cultivating a fan base in the Columbus area via social media interaction and constant touring, they played a sold out concert at Columbus' Newport Music Hall. This notable accomplishment from an unsigned local group caught the attention of several record labels interested in seeing if the band's appeal could stretch outside of Ohio.
On November 12, 2012, the official music video for "Holding on to You", directed by Jordan Bahat, was released on YouTube. On January 7 and April 19, 2013, the band released music videos for "Guns for Hands" and "Car Radio", respectively, both directed by Mark Eshleman of Reel Bear Media.
The members Joseph, Dun, and Salih all have associations with local Columbus, Ohio church Five14 – Joseph and Dun contributing four of fourteen tracks to Five14-produced album Clear by Artist Travis Whittaker (known as simply as "Whittaker") and the gospel band "New Albany Music". In 2011, Joseph was also the lead star in Five14 Church's three episode mockumentary entitled "The (moderately inspiring tale of the) Longboard Rodeo Tango". According to the mockumentary, Joseph was an intern at the church at the time. On December 24, 2013, Christmas Eve, Joseph participated and sang "O come, O come, Emmanuel" at Five14 Church's Christmas With the Stars in New Albany, Ohio. The official video of the performance was uploaded to YouTube on February 14, 2014. He also performed a magic segment with the church's host and emcee, David McCreary for the show.
On December 31, 2014, the band released a music video for the song "Ode to Sleep". Composed of footage captured by the band's creative Director Mark C. Eshleman of Reel Bear Media from three concerts from the past three years, the video depicted the band's rapid growth from their origins as a small local band to a nationally-popular alternative act, an upward trend that would continue into the next album cycle.
Twenty One Pilots performed "Stressed Out" on Late Night with Seth Meyers on September 14, 2015.
In an interview with Alternative Press in November 2016, Twenty One Pilots stated that after their last show, they will be "going dark" to focus on new music. Joseph stated that he would like to focus on lyrical content of the music, and bring the music back to the "authenticity, lyrics, delivery, and fearlessness of songwriting" similar to that of the self-titled album. The band is currently taking a self-described hiatus; their last activity came in July 2017 in the form of posts on social media depicting an eye closing over lyrics from several of their songs.
During the 2017 Tour de Columbus, Twenty One Pilots hosted a public art show, dubbed "Artopia", exclusively for Clique-related artwork at the Nationwide Arena.
