Yesterday’s Columbus, Ohio, Dispatch carries a story about Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, the alternative-rock band Twenty One Pilots. Tyler is a graduate of Worthington Christian High School, a ministry of Grace Polaris Church (Mike Yoder, lead pastor), a Grace Brethren congregation on the north side of Columbus. He and Dun will begin a series of concerts this week in their hometown. A portion of the story appears below. Click here for the complete article.
Having won Grammy, duo Twenty One Pilots to show hometown the love
When Worthington Christian hosted Grandview Heights last year in boys basketball, Tyler Joseph returned to his high-school alma mater to watch his younger brother play the sport that he played for the Warriors nine years earlier.
Joseph slid quietly into the gym through a back door.
His plan to keep a low profile seemed to work — until the final buzzer sounded, and students in the stands started chanting his name.
The attention Joseph attracted as an ace three-point shooter for the Warriors was nothing compared with the cacophony he stirs nowadays as the frontman for the alternative-rock duo Twenty One Pilots.
“It was like a hornet’s nest,” recalled Kevin Weakley, the Warriors’ head coach. “He stood there forever signing autographs.”
The pandemonium represents but a small slice of the frenzy that’s likely to erupt in Columbus this week as Joseph and drummer Josh Dun, a 2006 graduate of Tree of Life High School, play five shows in their hometown.
(Both musicians, and many of their family members, declined interview requests for this story.)
Dubbed the Tour de Columbus, the concerts — the first here to feature the duo as Grammy Award winners — will start Tuesday night in the Arena District venue where Twenty One Pilots started: the Basement (capacity: 300). In September 2010, the band — then a trio consisting of Joseph, friend Chris Salih on drums and Worthington Christian teammate Nick Thomas on bass — opened there for City Lights.
Joseph, 28, and Dun, 29, will conclude their mini-tour on Sunday at Value City Arena (capacity: 20,000).
Click here for the complete article.