Tyler Joseph

Growing up, money is important. And now I have a career where I'm making enough money to live. But I really want to give it to my parents, my family, charities, and people around me.

Sometimes you go to a show, and you see someone and think they're not there right now. They're performing, but it's muscle memory. There is no memorising some of the ways we put on a show.

A lot of bands have an unfortunate past; we've dodged a lot of bullets when it comes to that.

We're past the self-doubt. We just have fun with it and just try to make the best music that we can make.

I've forgotten what it feels like to be in one place for more than a day... But we signed up for this. This is our dream. We sat down and said this is what we want to do, play music and touring.

I had to make 500 shots every day, and when my mom wasn't looking, I'd get up closer to the basket and do lay-ups and count them, and she'd be at the back window at the kitchen and knock. Then I'd have to go back and shoot from longer.

There are times when we look back and think, 'Do you remember when we had to lug a piano downstairs to a basement of some venue to play for five people?' We do a lot of reminiscing. It helps us keep our heads on straight.

Our palette is wide and eclectic. That's why we crank out a lot of different styles. To some people, it makes us seem disjointed or scattered. But when we play live, it makes sense to us.

We had so many friends who did the band thing, and one of their first moves was to go on tour, and they'd just blow all their money.

There's variables at every single gig. I look forward to those every night. We have a lot of things that happen in our show, a lot of people from the outside watching the show might think it's one schtick after the next. We promised ourselves we have to be there mentally. We have to be aware. We are forced to be aware.

We've been lucky. Even as a young, local-level band, we were able to rise out of the local scene without having any debt, without having signed the wrong deal with the wrong manager or the wrong booker or a small label.

Here in Ohio, the hardcore scene is a big thing, so some of our good friends are in hardcore bands. So we've had to figure out how the heck we get these people to respect us.