interview transcript - nos alive 2026
you can watch the video here, or read the transcript under the cut. no questions were presented in the video, only tyler and josh's responses.
[video interlude of festival footage - overcompensate live]
Tyler: We're just really proud of it. I think, uh, it's been really rewarding to put a lot of time and energy into a backstory and watching out fans care enough. I mean, I don't know, I just feel like we're really lucky. I don't know, Josh and I talk about it all the time. Man, I don't know if we could do it again, y'know? Make it today. Y'know? Everyone trying to make it, and somehow we find ourselves in a position where we're headlining festivals really far away from home, and you're asking me about the backstory of some albums? I mean, it's a dream come true, man.
[another footage interlude - the contract live]
Tyler: There's not a feeling like it, to be able to provide someone that sort of an escape, or, y'know, a memory of when a song was really important at a particular time in their life. I saw an interview by Ben Gibbard, one of our favourite musicians in a band called Death Cab. He talked about how, uh, people come up to him and be like, "oh my middle school- i loved you in middle school, when i was younger I loved listening to you" and, um, we get that every once in a while, and he said that he learned to realise that was just someone articulating, like, at one point it was really, really important for me to listen to your music and, y'know, I still take that with me, and so, uh, we appreciate that people use that music in that way. Sometimes we are able to detach from the heaviness of what a song means to the audience because we are focused on execution, and then there's those special moments in the show where we're able to detach from the execution of the show and notice "oh my goodness, like, people are using this now, still", and, uh, those are the moments you remember.
[microphone passed to Josh]
Josh: Yeah, I think-
Tyler: [cutting in] He's not gonna beat that answer.
Josh: [laughing] Yeah, yeah, why do you- you make- you make him go first? I think we're in a culture now that we're constantly distracted by screens. I do think, uh, a- uh- concert is a place where there's a lot of people together enjoying this one thing that, y'know, in theory should be hard to do, or focus on other things, and that's- I think that's always been music for both of us, like, "ah man", because I think we think the way we do, even sometimes on an album it's hard to do anything else because we're like, just kind of like, focused on that music. Playing shows all the time is like, "oh cool", that's my hour and a half to two hours of, of- uh- focus on something that I feel is important, and hopefully important to them too.
[final clip - drum show live] [end of interview]