Not all bands hit it out of the park right away…they need a few albums and a couple of long tours before things start to fall into place…

Take the Red Hot Chili Peppers, for example…their career really didn’t start to blossom until their fourth album…same thing with Muse—at least in North America…they might have been playing arenas in Europe…but when it came to their fourth album, they were still playing clubs on this side of the Atlantic…

Same thing with R.E.M...they had a strong cult following through four records before they were able to cross over into mainstream consciousness…

And for The Black Keys?...it took until albums number six for them to have their big breakthrough…

These success stories underscore the need for patience and foresight on behalf of record labels, managers, and everyone else associated with the welfare of a particular artist…if you honestly see potential, then you gotta play the long game, one that may stretch out over years…

And then you gotta look at things from the artist’s perspective…is the band prepared to live through some lean and dark times on their way to some kind of success?...

This brings me to Twenty One Pilots…they blew up with the “Blurryface” album in 2015…but before that were six years of really hard slogging when almost no one knew who they were…let’s get caught up on that part of their story, shall we?...Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices