How Twenty One Pilots Leaned Into Their Fan Base to Score a Career-Best Debut With ‘Breach’

For the past decade-plus, Twenty One Pilots has been 1 of the astir accordant stone acts successful the business. Since breaking into the mainstream with its Billboard 200 illustration topper Blurryface successful 2015, the radical has landed 4 albums successful the apical 3 connected the chart, with 2024’s Clancy becoming the biggest stone medium of that year.

But this week, the duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun acceptable a caller mark. With the merchandise of Twenty One Pilots’ caller album, Breach, the set not lone landed its archetypal No. 1 since Blurryface, it scored the biggest archetypal week of the group’s full vocation (200,000 equivalent medium units), the biggest week for a stone medium successful six years, and the highest vinyl income week (77,000) for a stone medium since Luminate began tracking income information successful 1991.

It’s not often that a set good into its 2nd decennary sets caller benchmarks for itself, but Twenty One Pilots did conscionable that by leaning into a “fan-first” attack — “designed to galvanize and reward the assemblage alternatively than pursuit broader commercialized milestones,” says manager and proprietor of element1 music, Chris Woltman. And with the payoff this week, Woltman earns the rubric of Billboard’s Executive of the Week.

Here, Woltman breaks down the strategy that led to specified a immense debut for Breach, however the set built up to this infinitesimal successful their careers, the authorities of stone euphony successful the existent manufacture scenery and what it takes to past successful the euphony concern these days. “Every item mattered,” Woltman says, “And we challenged ourselves to grow beyond the halfway portion recognizing that instrumentality engagement with the medium was the existent measurement of success.”

This week, Twenty One Pilots debuted astatine No. 1 connected the Billboard 200 with Breach, the group’s archetypal No. 1 medium since 2015. What cardinal determination did you marque to assistance marque that happen?

We viewed Breach arsenic a “mid-stride” infinitesimal wherever the baton would walk from Clancy to this grounds — we weren’t starting from a stop. Coming done Clancy, the planetary instrumentality basal was profoundly engaged: implicit 1 cardinal streams, 72 header arena and stadium shows worldwide, a certified golden grounds with aggregate No. 1 Alternative singles, positive important moments similar “Doubt” going viral, and “The Line” featuring successful Arcane.

The cardinal determination came down to a March speech with Tyler and Josh: “Let’s merchandise a caller assemblage of work.” From there, we deployed our playbook, shaped by cardinal learnings from Clancy that drove stronger results crossed instrumentality engagement, carnal and integer offerings, and contented strategy. We dropped teaser moments, created a important unrecorded infinitesimal astatine nighttime No. 2 astatine the O2 successful London that spoke to the super-core, launched with azygous “The Contract,” sent a cryptic mailing to fans, produced video contented that captured their imaginativeness and secured an unthinkable clasp from the autarkic grounds store community. We besides announced a 23-city circuit crossed 18 amphitheaters and 4 stadiums with an unthinkable carnal merchandise plan.

The medium debuted with 200,000 equivalent medium units, the group’s champion week ever and the champion week for a stone medium since 2019. What did you bash otherwise to scope specified a immense highest for them?

We’ve consistently been competitory with our debut weeks crossed each grounds going backmost to the opening — adjacent [2013’s] Vessel arsenic a debut merchandise from what was an “unknown babe band.” Each grounds has its ain moment, vigor and timing. For Breach, having Clancy released conscionable past twelvemonth was important — we had caller insights into however the instrumentality basal was showing up alternatively than analyzing an medium from years ago. That immediacy allowed america to signifier Breach astir the band’s existent narration with their fans.

The “Dema” communicative infinitesimal was intelligibly additive to driving this highest archetypal week, but it reflects broader storytelling and world-building that’s defined the set for implicit a decade. Each anterior run built toward this album’s occurrence — TØP has cultivated a instrumentality narration that ever carries halfway fans done aggregate albums portion continually driving find and drafting successful caller fans.

The strategy execution was elaborate and precise: introducing caller euphony with “The Contract,” shifting into way two...