#thatmomentwhen you remember this post from Reddit, though…
When Twenty One Pilots signed to Fueled By Ramen, Tyler and Josh signed over the rights to Regional At Best. The intention of Tyler, Josh, and FBR was to remake songs from Regional At Best for a new major label debut. The legal process was made easier by handing over the entire album rather than specific songs. To make this more palatable on a personal level, Tyler secured the copyright for the self-titled album under his name. I would hypothesize that this also allows the former members of TOP to continue to receive royalties from sales/plays online.
Regional At Best’s versions of songs that went onto Vessel are pretty different in several ways. The easiest way to prevent confusion was to market reworked and fresh versions of the songs. This also allowed Tyler and Josh to re-record the songs to better match what they do with them in their live shows.
Regional At Best is still floating around online. You can dig it up if you really want it. I got my hands on the files and burned a CD. It’s a great surprise for my fellow fans when they find it in my car. 🙂
Also, No Phun Intended and Regional At Best are both unreleased, so it’ not really pirating, just finding it where it can be found…
