By John Ancillotti, Staff Writer
On April 7, Twenty One Pilots, an American musical duo from Columbus, OH, dropped a music video for their new single “Shy Away.” Along with the surprise song release, they announced their next album, “Scaled and Icy,” which will be available on May 21.
The band also announced the launch of the website live.twentyonepilots.com, where they will be performing live on May 21. The website can be used for finding information about the album, buying merchandise and buying a ticket for the live show.
“Think of this page as the line outside of the venue for the show on May 21,” said the band’s drummer Josh Dun.
Other items will be released spontaneously leading up to the show. Item number one was released on Wednesday for ticket holders.
Purchasing a ticket for $20 will unlock access to the live performance, as well as access to additional features on the website for the six weeks leading up to the show.
On Tuesday, they released a behind-the-scenes video of the making the of the “Shy Away” music video. The video was available early for people with ticket access to the website but was released for the general public later.
The behind-the-scenes content showed off the set for the music video, the cinematography and how they created the backgrounds seen in the video. The video also showed Tyler Joseph, the lead singer, and Josh Dun playing with props, such as pretending to talk to someone on a payphone and joking about how their ski masks became tattered.
Within the lore of the band’s story, their iconic ski masks were burnt by Trash The Dragon, according to the Twenty One Pilots Twitter account. Trash is the blue dragon who appears as the cover for the upcoming album.
The band is known to create a deep fictional story through their music, music videos, hidden journal entries online and more. Their story’s universe is made up of characters and detailed locations.
During the album “Trench,” Tyler is trapped in Dema in the world of Trench. The new “Shy Away” song and video gave an impression of relaxed fun. Fans began theorizing the “Scaled and Icy” era may take place before “Trench” or that they are still trapped in Dema and acting content before making an escape.
Since their last album, 2018’s “Trench,” Twenty One Pilots has released two standalone singles. “Level of Concern” and “Christmas Saves The Year” were both released in 2020 and refer to the pandemic.
“Level of Concern” references quarantining and the feeling of losing your mind. The band’s YouTube channel used this song to create a “never ending music video” where the song would loop forever, and fans could submit clips to appear in the video.
The music video ran for 178 days and lasted approximately 4,264 hours. After ending, Guinness World Records reviewed the stats and awarded it the record for longest music video ever.
ancilljm19@bonaventure.edu
