10 Music Bands Who Had An Extra Member You Never Knew About

9. Twenty One Pilots - Nick Thomas & Chris Salih (Bass/Drums, 2009–11)

For close to 10 years, most people have held the belief that Twenty One Pilots have been a two-piece. It's not the case: When they first started out in 2009 they were a three-piece, made up of singer/guitarist Tyler Joseph, bassist Nick Thomas and drummer Chris Salih. Tyler came up with the band’s name whilst studying the play All My Sons, in which 21 pilots are killed.

Nick and Chris appeared on the group’s self-titled debut album in 2009, but were gone by the time their second album, ‘Regional At Best’, was released. Nick said in his statement regarding exiting the band:

"I've done a great deal of soul-searching and future-watching and have concluded that, as much as I love to play music and as much as I love being a part of this band and as much as I love my bandmates, I don't believe that this is my life's work. Twenty One Pilots is something that may very well be what its members spend the rest of their lives doing, and that is no longer what I see for the rest of my life. I'm ready to go back to college and start working toward a career of my own. The rest of my life is not here, being a musician."

In his own, Chris said:

"There are absolutely no hard feeling in this. It is purely a financial decision. It is my goal to stay closely involved with Twenty One Pilots in the months and years to come.” He would express later in an interview how his father was pressuring him to get a full-time job. “For me to continue playing in Twenty One Pilots would have been a middle finger to my parents, because they cosigned on my student loans. It would have been like 'You pay my student loans and I'll play with my band’."

After Nick and Chris left, drummer Josh Dun, who was working at Guitar Centre at the time, came aboard and became a full-time member, making them the two-piece you know them as now. They endlessly toured and plugged away until they hit the mainstream with their breakout record ‘Blurryface’ in 2015.

So I guess the lesson here is: be sceptical if you’re in a band and your Dad tells you you’re going nowhere in life.