Tyler Joseph On The Inspiration Behind twenty one pilots' Level Of Concern

Following the release of twenty one pilots' first new single in two years, Level Of Concern, frontman Tyler Joseph has revealed that the track came about from a suggestion by his mum, describing how she was craving an "upbeat song" to distract her from coronavirus and everything that's going on in the world right now.

When asked if Level Of Concern was something that was already floating around before COVID-19, Tyler tells Sirius XM’s The Morning Mashup in a new video interview: “I didn’t have that one in the hopper ready to go. Actually, my mom made a comment to me in passing as all the news was breaking about the virus, and she just said, ‘Man, I could really use an upbeat song to distract me from all this.’ And I guess that speaks to the danceability of the track.”

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While we've got Tyler's mum to thank for the musicality of the song, his wife Jenna inspired the lyrics, with the musician revealing how he threw things back to when they first started dating, and their differing feelings about getting into a relationship.

“When I first met my wife, I was ready to date her; I was ready to dive right in and she was a little more hesitant,” Tyler explains. “And not to compare a pandemic with the uncertainties of a relationship, but in that moment, for someone who maybe isn’t getting, you know, their feelings reciprocated, in their world it does kind of feel like… starting to bubble over and become a little anxious. So I wanted to kind of pair those two stories and move them down the lane at the same time.”

And though Level Of Concern is another fascinating personal insight into Tyler's life, it's also doing more good in the world than just providing a welcome distraction from coronavirus: twenty one pilots are donating proceeds of the song to Crew Nation – a charity that is providing funds to people in the music industry who are finding themselves without work.

"This is such a weird thing for us to be home for such a long period of time," the frontman says. "We started this [band] saying, 'We want to go out and play as many shows as we can. We'll play for anyone and do any type of show.' And through that journey, over the past 10 years almost now, we've met so many great men and women who travel with us and tour with us. And right now their worlds – just like a lot of people's worlds – are kind of just uncertain, and on hold. Seeing Live Nation creating this charity just felt right, because we knew it was going to impact so many people that we knew directly."

Watch the full interview below:

And see some more clips of their chat below – the first with Tyler answering (or not answering…) the question of, 'Did Josh Dun secretly get married?' and the second with him discussing his baby daughter Rosie.

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