Twenty One Pilots has rocketed from nowhere to everywhere 

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This is the way it goes sometimes. Even as recently as four months ago, you probably hadn\'t heard of Columbus, Ohio-born electro/pop/rap duo Twenty One Pilots. Now the band is everywhere: entering the charts at No. 1 with its new album, "Blurryface"; playing near the top of Sunday evening\'s Lollapalooza lineup; making the transition from up-and-comers to worldwide pop stars before most people even had a chance to see the group play clubs.

The members of Twenty One Pilots know how you feel. Inside the bubble, the time elapsed between obscurity and stardom feels even more abbreviated.

Mobile cell tower installed in Chicago for Lollapalooza

A common complaint from Lollapalooza over the years has been bad cellphone reception but that could change this year. July 30, 2015. (WGN-TV)

"There are times when we look back and think, \'Do you remember when we had to lug a piano downstairs to a basement of some venue to play for five people?\'" says frontman Tyler Joseph. "We do a lot of reminiscing. It helps us keep our heads on straight."

It wasn\'t long ago that drummer Josh Dun was working at a Guitar Center in Ohio. He met Joseph through a mutual friend.

"We were friends for a year before we started playing music together. We both think it\'s pretty important," says Dun, on the phone from a tour date in Singapore. "Tyler\'s my friend before he\'s a guy in my band, and when we talk to each other about things, it comes from a friend standpoint, not just a business standpoint."

Joseph\'s songwriting can reach emo levels of emotion, insecurity and tortured-id-baring. His friendship with Dun has made sharing these songs in their fledgling state much easier.

"I remember the first time I ever showed my parents a song that I had written," Joseph says. "The content may have been a little darker than they were used to, or really introspective in a way that may have been uncomfortable. I thought they\'d retaliate with some kind of judgment or concern about whether I was feeling all right, but they were proud of it. I realized in that moment that you can use music to get out some of the things that you can\'t have a casual conversation about without it being awkward.

"We have a bond where, whatever we\'re going to come up with, we\'re not going to be judged."

Lollapalooza guide: Greg Kot\'s day-by-day picks

At about 7:45 p.m. Friday, expect something of a seismic test as the world discovers whether 100,000 people standing in front of a single stage (for headliner Paul McCartney) will make Grant Park tilt in that direction. It\'s the Lollapalooza Festival, when you and 99,999 of your closest friends...

At about 7:45 p.m. Friday, expect something of a seismic test as the world discovers whether 100,000 people standing in front of a single stage (for headliner Paul McCartney) will make Grant Park tilt in that direction. It\'s the Lollapalooza Festival, when you and 99,999 of your closest friends... ( Greg Kot )

Dun and Joseph are equally honest about what they see as their musical limitations. ("I wish I had a better voice/ To sing some better words," Joseph worries on the hit "Stressed Out.")

"There\'s been many times when a producer will say, \'I don\'t think you want to say that,\'" Joseph says. "We were told we shouldn\'t be so brutally honest about songwriting or radio or the industry."

Twenty One Pilots self-released two albums, in 2009 and 2011, then signed to Fueled by Ramen for the group\'s official debut, "Vessel," released in 2013.

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"People think that we released four records, when really the first few were on our own, kind of like a mixtape," Joseph says. "We\'ve only ever been in the studio before \'Blurryface\' one other time, and we learned what to stick up for, (and) when to let a producer speak about what direction we should take our sound.

"But at the same time, you have to go into the studio with a sense of confidence that we\'re making it good. That confidence really came from Josh and I sitting down and being honest, saying, \'What do we like? What do we want?\' When Josh says he likes a song, I like a song. Even though there\'s only two guys in the band, when both of us are on the same page about something, you can\'t really change our minds."

Performing at Joe\'s Bar on Friday will be the "X-Files" and "Californication" star. That’s right: Duchovny sings. Rolling Stone described his debut album, "Hell of Highwater," which was released in May, as "moody, alt rock."

For the second time in four years, Wycelf is part of The Underground’s Lollapalooza after-parties. Prepare for a high-energy, nostalgic set when he performs at the club Friday. You don\'t realize how many hits Wyclef has had during his lengthy career until you see him live -- at least I didn’t.

What they want isn\'t always what their label or producers want. More than is usually the case, the band\'s sympathies are divided between the sort of tight, catchy pop songs that used to be called "radio friendly" and harder to classify sonic experiments; "Blurryface" may be the only album this year to prominently feature rapping, reggae and ukuleles.

Joseph and Dun have dedicated themselves to the science of being popular, setting up cameras in the back of the room at shows so they can critique their performance afterward and using a timer to analyze the length of hit songs.

"I really dove into what makes a song aerodynamic enough to be popular," Joseph says. "It was a bit of shock when we realized there was a formula to being successful."

The duo spent a fair amount of time trying to coax some of the songs on "Blurryface" into those potentially chart-topping patterns. It\'s not something they\'re proud of.

"You kind of have to celebrate the moment that you get to create something that you love that falls into the parameters of a 3-minute-and-20-second song, to try to be creative inside of those parameters," Joseph says. "But a lot of the record is going … and doing everything we want to do. There is a bit of self-awareness as to which songs are which. Self-awareness is not the greatest characteristic for anyone in a band, so trying to balance that is something we\'re trying to do."

Where: Grant Park, enter at Michigan and Congress

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