"Stressed Out" about COVID-19

In April of this year, Twenty One Pilots released their quarantine hit single, “Level of Concern.” The song was written by frontman Tyler Joseph at his home studio in Columbus, Ohio, and was sent to drummer Josh Dun to be completed at his home in Los Angeles, California. Joseph wrote the new song to reminisce on the days before his band was signed to major record label Fueled by Ramen, when he wrote and recorded music in his parents basement. It was also written to be a COVID-19 anthem for their fans. In an interview with Kent Small on Smallzy’s Celebrity Small Talk, Joseph said, “I think my mom made a passing comment to me as all the news was breaking out about how she just needed something a little more positive to take her mind off this... and I thought, ‘man, I feel like maybe that would resonate with a lot of people, including me.”’

The song is a throwback to the 1980’s synthpop, a genre that seems to be coming back in a big way with songs like Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” and The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights.” Joseph tweeted that this is the first electric guitar-centric song he wrote for the band. All of the band’s other songs had been written on piano, ukulele or bass guitar. This seems to give the song a more mainstream sound, mixed with the eclectic, outside-the-box nature of Joseph’s writing style.

The lyrics are hauntingly catchy and fit perfectly with the times we live in. “I told you my level of concern, but you walked by like you never heard,” Joseph sings. The severity of our situation was still in question this last spring. However, he already understood that things needed to get better, but they wouldn’t unless everyone did their part. The song  goes on, “I don’t care what they would say, I’m asking you to stay in my bunker underneath the surface.” Joseph’s wife, Jenna Black-Joseph, stated that he locked himself away in his basement studio to write his band’s 2018 album, “Trench.” Neither he nor drummer Josh Dun were seen on social media for over a year leading up to the announcement of the album. This metaphorical bunker is what he feels will keep him and his family safe, along with the music it provides.

Even their low-budget quarantine music video shows what the band can do without the expensive equipment and crew they had before the pandemic. In the video, Joseph and Dun mailed a USB drive filled with clips for the video back and forth to each other. As it went on, Joseph and Dun, with the help of their wives, Jenna Black-Joseph and Debby Ryan-Dun respectively, created vivid, colorful scenes in their home studios to finish the video.

Twenty One Pilots has always been a band formed with the sole purpose of telling the world to keep fighting their silent battles and never give up. A quote they’ve shared for the last decade simply read, “Stay alive. Tomorrow, too.” This time around, they’ve decided to tell the world to fight this new battle together.