Tyler Joseph
Tyler Robert Joseph (born December 1, 1988)[8] is an American singer, rapper, musician, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the frontman for the musical duo Twenty One Pilots, alongside bandmate Josh Dun. Across his career he has recorded eight albums: one solo, and seven with Twenty One Pilots. He has been nominated for six Grammy Awards as a member of the duo, of which he has won one.
Tyler Joseph
- Rapper
- singer
- songwriter
- musician
- record producer
2007–present
3
- Vocals
- piano
- keyboards
- ukulele
- keytar
- organ
- tambourine
- synthesizers
- sampler
- bass
- guitar
Early life
Joseph was born in Columbus, Ohio and has two younger brothers, Zack and Jay Joseph (the latter of whom is also a musician), as well as one sister named Madison Brett. His mother, Kelly Joseph (née Stryker), was a math teacher in the Olentangy school district[9] before being named Olentangy Orange High School's basketball coach in 2013.[10] His father, Christopher Anthony "Chris" Joseph, is half Lebanese[11][12] and was a coach at Worthington Christian High School from 1996 to 2005,[10] as well as being a former school principal.
Joseph was homeschooled in his childhood.[13] His first real exposure to music was the Christian rap rock group DC Talk.[14] Joseph played basketball from a very young age[13] and went on to play point guard for Worthington Christian.[15][16] In 2008, the varsity basketball team placed second in the Division IV state tournament.[9] Future Twenty One Pilots bassist Nick Thomas also played on the same team as Joseph, the pair having performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" together at one of their games.[17][18]
In 2007, Joseph began uploading short comedic skits and videos to a YouTube channel named "slushieguys".[19] The channel currently has over 122 thousand subscribers as of February 2024, despite not uploading any content since 2013.
After seeing a songwriter perform at a High Street Club, he rejected an opportunity to play basketball at Otterbein University along with a scholarship to the university.[9][13] He began playing music after finding an old keyboard in his closet, a Christmas gift from his mother, and began to mimic various radio melodies.[9][20][21] From around 2007 to 2008, Joseph recorded a solo project titled No Phun Intended in his basement. It was later revealed that Thomas contributed guitar to several songs on the album.[22]
Among Joseph's first performances with Twenty One Pilots, he recounts that his mother would often stand outside Ohio State University giving away tickets to his shows. "She'd be like, 'Come see my son play music'", Joseph says.[23]
Career
2007–2009: No Phun Intended
Between 2007 and 2008, before assembling the band Twenty One Pilots, Joseph recorded a variety of songs. On November 30, 2008, Joseph uploaded six of these songs to his PureVolume account, titling the release No Phun Intended.[24] The album was recorded in Joseph's senior year of high school from 2007 to 2008, in his basement.[25] The six tracks were "Taken by Sleep", "Drown", "Tonight", "Save", "Hole in the Ground" and "Blasphemy", in that order. Some of Joseph's earlier music has been reworked into Twenty One Pilots recordings. It was later revealed that aside from Joseph, bassist Nick Thomas contributed guitar to several songs. The song "Save" off the release, was redone and released as a free download for some time on Twenty One Pilots' official website before it was pulled.[26]
The project became unavailable in 2015 and PureVolume itself shut down in 2018, but the No Phun Intended tracks and other songs from this time period were collected by fans and assorted into compilations. On July 2, 2018, Joseph's song "Going Down" and an untitled demo surfaced on the Internet, years after the initial discovery of No Phun Intended.