is Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun -- a two-piece, rock, alt hip hop, electro, indie pop, dance, and everything else band out of Columbus, Ohio. Working from the ground up, TOP parlayed a background in local shows and self-released albums into a record deal with Fueled By Ramen, international touring and festival appearances, and two well-received and top selling albums released on the label. Their latest is 2015's Blurryface, a concept album that works as a sort of character study for the titular fictional character -- a proxy for the songwriters' own experiences of frustration, isolation, and insecurity. Here's the first single from that, "Fairly Local". And here's the latest single, released just a few days ago and already ganering a million clicks. Twenty One Pilots is playing Shanghai for their first show every in the PRC at the QSW on July 28. SmartShanghai's got tixxx if you want to go. Click here to order. ***

SmSH: Standard first question: How did you guys get together?

Josh and I met through a mutual friend that I was working with at the time. He came out to one of my shows and we met afterwards. He came up and said "Hey, my name is Josh" and I said "Yeah, I know who you are..." So it sort of happened naturally. Coming out of Columbus, Ohio...

SmSH: How is Columbus these days?

Columbus is great. It's where we were born and raised. We always love going back. We've become a little disconnected these days from there, and the music coming out of there because we've been traveling. But we started out in the local scene there. I'm sure it's changed a lot since then, since we were playing as a local band there. It's a very creative city. Very artistic. Very unassuming. A lot of people wouldn't expect that there is a lot of talent coming from there but there is.

SmSH: I imagine this is your first time coming to China. Have you had a chance to experience any of the music or culture coming out of this part of the world?

Yeah, this is our first time coming to China. We're really excited about it. Since it is our first time, we haven't really had the chance to hear much coming out of there. But we're always really excited to immerse ourselves in the culture of places we get to visit. I think that's something we're both looking forward to -- trying new things, listening to new things, and seeing new things, you know. Hopefully, we'll get some people to show us around and show us cool stuff to do and check out.

SmSH: What are you best shows that you've played in recent memory? Any anecdotes from the road?

We've been in Asia for the past week or so, and it's really cool for us because the first time we'd actually left our own country and traveled to a different one, it was in Asia. So, for us, it's really special to come back and relive those memories of, you know, the first time we were able to travel overseas. So these past shows we've been doing have been memorable. We've been making new memories, I guess, to add to our other ones. The Asian shows have been great. From TOP performance in Manilla on July 18

SmSH: Can you discuss the songwriting? How do these songs come together? Is there a process?

Yeah, the last record was all written on the road while we were touring. It was a bit of a challenge to write while traveling, but it also made for some great inspiration, to be on the road and playing all these shows as well. That's one of the biggest influences on our new music, the traveling.

SmSH:Where do you find inspiration for your lyrics?

All of our lyrics are based off personal experience. It's the personal part of what we do. A lot of bands will write lyrics based on if they rhyme or sound good, but one of the things we try to do is take advantage of our experience. And we're trying to say something. And trying to mean something. So all the lyrics are very personal...

SmSH:It seems like you're drawing on lots of different disparate genres of music. Is that a conscious goal in the songwriting, to incorporate different styles and techniques with one another?

I don't think that it was necessarily the goal. Tyler and I just grew up listening to so many different types of music that it was sort of inevitable. Also, it's the culture now. No one is really listening to just one genre of music. We talked about what we wanted to do musically, and we were on the same page. I couldn't imagine not being able to play some form of hip hop or some form of electronic. For us now, I think every night we perform we have a blast because we get to play a bunch of different things… I think it's safe to say we've been influenced by stuff from all across the board. Different styles, and just like anyone growing up, you go through some phases. It's like you spend a few months listening to rock, and then a few months later all of a sudden you're into rap music. I think a lot of it has to do with the sort of friends you're hanging out with, or you're own circumstances growing up. We'll always draw from what we're hearing around us and then work it into our music.

SmSH:What sorts of music are you listening to these days?

A month ago, I was listening to really upbeat electronic EMB sort of stuff but now it's more relaxed, minor key stuff. It changes all the time, I guess. I'm still constantly on the streaming services finding new stuff, finding new artists that I hadn't known about before.

SmSH:What do you guys have coming up?

Well, we're going to continue touring. See as many places as we can. Our ultimate goal is to get our music to as many ears as we can to show people what we've created. So to do that, we're traveling. On the road. And then when the time is right, we'll write a new record and do the whole thing all over again. Right now the future seems to be pretty good… full of new shows and hopefully full of new music. photo by Brad Heaton *** Twenty One Pilots is at QSW Culture Center on July 28. Advance tickets are available right here.