Dan Reynolds would like you to know that Imagine Dragons didn’t just emerge from the world’s largest algorithm. It came from a Mormon kid hammering Beethoven until his wrists bled. “All my melody work is really classical,” he says. “I was a classical pianist for ten years. I’d pick the most monstrous pieces I could get. If it could be heavy classical music, that’s what I wanted.”
Turns out the real trick was figuring out how to jam that into three-minute arena bangers that half the world streams while the other half plots to erase them from their Spotify Wrapped. “I like poppy melodies. I grew up on hip-hop, pop, Cat Stevens, Paul Simon. Not a lot of rock. Maybe Nine Inch Nails if you’re feeling generous.”
He’s feeling generous these days. “Follow You,” the deceptively breezy single that sounds like Paul McCartney stumbled onto a carousel in Vegas, is a literal love letter to Reynolds’ wife. Well, a post-divorce-almost-happened-then-didn’t love letter. “We were separated for seven months, going to sign the divorce papers. She sent me this long text, and I just sat down at the table like, ‘Why are we doing this?’ The lawyers were mad, we walked out and went to lunch. We started dating again, got remarried. Then I wrote that song.”
Sweet, right? And then there’s Cutthroat, a song Reynolds says his fans “probably hate.” But that’s Rick Rubin for you. “Rick would listen and say, ‘I don’t believe you.’ And I’d be like, ‘Rick, I mean it!’ And he’d say, ‘Well I don’t believe you. Do it again.’ It drove me crazy. But he got me to the place where I actually meant it.”
Imagine Dragons 2.0 is either your worst nightmare or your pop redemption arc. There’s politics (“There’s a lot of corruption that’s coming to the surface”), philanthropy (“Selfishly, it helps my depression”), and lots of gospel organs to keep things sounding vaguely spiritual. “We wanted ‘Follow You’ to feel like a worship song. It’s got purple, cathedral tones. Then ‘Cutthroat’ is all self-hate. It’s like, if you hate it or love it — good.”
Reynolds keeps one eye on the finality of it all — his record scratches at death, mental health, the guilt of being alive. “I’ve lost five people close to me in the last few years. You sit in a hospital room, they’re there with you, and then they’re gone. It shakes you. I just want to make the most of what I do. Be honest. Maybe help the world a little.”
He stops. Then laughs. “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here. I don’t know how much longer I’ll do this. But for now — this is my truth. You either believe it, or you don’t.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the singles below.
