An incredibly popular American band that has conquered all kinds of music charts and won the hearts of millions of fans is Imagine Dragons. The composition of the group is not the sugary boys that were popular in the 90s, but ordinary guys who simply love to write music and do it very well and with soul. They are called an indie rock band, because it is quite difficult to fit such a diverse and unusual creativity within the framework of a specific genre. The history of the formation of the Imagine Dragons group, by the way, is also not trivial.
From religion to music
Dan Reynolds, the future founder and ideological inspirer of the group, was born in large family Mormons in 1987. He was the seventh son of nine children whose parents were very conservative. This left a strong imprint on the young man’s psyche, and he tried to express his experiences in his creativity. After graduating from school, Dan was sent to Nebraska on a religious mission and also studied at Brigham Young University (Utah), in a town called Provo. It was there that religion took a back seat to music, when Reynolds became friends with Andrew Tolman. The young people founded their own group in 2008, which soon became known as Imagine Dragons. The composition of the group changed at first, while the participants were looking for themselves, their direction, performing covers, trying to compose original music. An interesting fact known to all fans of the team: the name is an anagram, but no one except the participants themselves knows how it is deciphered, although fans have already gone through thousands of options. It is quite possible that there is a true one, but the musicians have not confirmed any of them, and they are unlikely to do so.
Vegas boys
So, by the beginning of 2009, two very talented and ambitious guys began to collect musical group. Soon they were joined by Tolman's schoolmate, guitarist Wayne Sermon. He brought along his friend from Berkeley - bass guitarist Ben McKee. This was the first line-up of Imagine Dragons. Already in September they released their first mini-album of the same name, and for the next two years they also released one EP (mini-album per year). But in addition to working hard to create their own music, the team fought hard for their own survival and took on any performances; once they even opened a mime concert.
Having become famous in Utah, the guys moved to hometown Dana - Las Vegas, where their main concert venues were casinos and strip clubs. There they performed mostly covers, including songs in the program own composition. Soon people started talking about the group, they began to be invited to various festivals. And a little later, one of their mini-albums fell into the hands of the famous producer Alex De Kid (who worked with Eminem himself), who became interested in the unusual group, saw their potential and offered them cooperation.
Staff turnover
During the formative years, the composition of the Imagine Dragons group changed several times. The names of Reynolds and Sermon remained unchanged, but in different times The team also included Andrew Beck in 2008 (specialization - electric guitar and vocals) and Dave Lamk from 2008 to 2009 (specialization - bass guitar and vocals), and even three girls Aurora Florence (2008, keyboards, violin, vocals), Brittany Tolman (2009-2011, keyboards, vocals) and Teresa Flamino (2011-2012, keyboards).
By the way, one of the founders of the “Dragons” (as their fans call them), drummer Andrew Tolman, left the project in 2011 along with his wife Brittany, and a little later they created their own group. At its peak, Imagine Dragons consisted of Dan Reynolds, Wayne Sermon, Ben McKee and drummer Dan Platzman, who replaced the departed Tolman. It remains unchanged to this day.
Climbing the musical Olympus
In 2012, the Dragons released two more mini-albums, which finally began to bear financial fruit. The group prepared very diligently and carefully for the release of a full-length album. And in September of the same year it significant event happened. The album “Night Visions” reached the top of all charts in record numbers, remained at the top for a long time and became double platinum.
Imagine Dragons were named the brightest star of 2013, and the album's release was named the highlight of the year. All kinds of awards rained down on them as if from a cornucopia, including the prestigious Grammy music award itself. The track “Radioactive” became the biggest rock hit of the year according to the magazine It was real finest hour in the biography of the band Imagine Dragons.
Work, work and work again
Not stopping there, the team toured very actively, winning more and more hearts of fans, filming videos and preparing material for a new album. The almost three-year break between album releases was very eventful. And in September 2015, the second album in the biography of Imagine Dragons appeared. “Smoke+Mirrors” did not go platinum like the “firstborn”, but received a well-deserved “gold” and its share of great hits and, of course, brought the team new awards. And less than two years later, the musicians delighted fans with their third album, entitled “Evolve,” which was presented to the general public in May 2017. Less than four months have passed and main topic album, "Believer", has already become " Best song in the Rock/Alternative genre and received an award at the Teen Choice Awards.
Music of Dragons
This unusual team can safely be considered a record holder for the number of uses of their songs as soundtracks. For some projects, Imagine Dragons recorded songs specifically, in others they used existing ones, but, one way or another, the list of the most popular films and TV series where the music of the Dragons is heard is incredibly impressive. “Radioactive” alone is worth it! She can be heard in the films “The Host”, “Continuum”, “The Warmth of Our Bodies”, the series “Arrow”, “The Vampire Diaries”, “The 100”, “ True Blood", as well as in the game "Assassin's Creed 3" and so on. Before the release of their first full-length album, Imagine Dragons released several soundtracks for large-scale cinema projects in the form of singles. Among them were “Who We Are” for the film “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” and “Battle Cry” for the fourth “Transformers”. Also, as soundtracks, Dragon songs are heard in the series “Gossip Girl”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Suits”, “Riverdale” and many others, and among films they can be found in “Insurgent”, “ Iron Man 3,” “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” “Suicide Squad,” “Passengers,” and even “Kung Fu Panda 3,” to name a few.
This article contains the most important information about the group Imagine Dragons: biography, composition, discography. But this is not all that fans would like to know about their favorite musicians, because the personal lives, habits, and favorite activities of their idols interest fans no less. So, some interesting facts about the band members:
- Reynolds is married and has eldest daughter Arrow Eve and two newborn babies Coco and Gia, and with his wife AJ Volkman he is engaged in another music project called Egyptian. This is their family hobby. The singer has struggled with depression all his life, but it is in this state that he writes his hits. He claims that family is his best cure for a long-standing illness.
- Sermon is called "Wing", his wife is Alexandra, and he is the proud father of two sons of the same age: River James and Wolfgang. A musician composes songs at night instead of sleeping (he has insomnia).
- McKee is a hatmaker. Sewing is his hobby.
- The group loves drums, is actively involved in charity work, and loves to hang out in social networks and communicate with fans.
Since entering the music scene with the Platinum-certified hits “Radioactive” and “It’s Time,” few famous group from Las Vegas have quickly become one of the most exciting indie rock bands. Melodic and meaningful songs, along with an exciting live show, have made Imagine Dragons one of the most popular groups of our time.
Although Imagine Dragons' music and lyrics are very open emotionally, there is something that the band keeps hidden: the true meaning of the band's name. Several times the guys mentioned that the name Imagine Dragons is actually an anagram made up of letters different words. They also stated that they have kept these words a secret since they got together.
When literally translated into Russian, the name of the group Imagine Dragons sounds like Imagine Dragons or Imagine (yourself) Dragons. However, the musicians did not intend to put any meaning into it associating the group with flying lizards. “We don’t even tell our families,” Dan Reynolds said in response to another request to reveal the secret, “I’m not sure they would forgive us if we revealed this secret right now.”
"On at the moment There's already so much speculation that I'm afraid any answer we give will be a big disappointment,” adds Wayne Sermon, the band's guitarist. “We could just leave it as a permanent exercise for developing the imagination.” Surely people will have more interesting options than the real answer.”
In search of guesses, a journalist from a music blog from San Francisco managed to “extort” an admission from Reynolds that in order to find original words anagrams, when rearranging letters in the group name, “apostrophes must be added.”
However, in subsequent interviews, the singer says that perhaps this is not so necessary. “I was actually misunderstood,” Reynolds explains. “The journalist asked me if apostrophes were needed there, and I replied that there may or may not be apostrophes there.”
If you skip the name “Imagine Dragons” through online generator anagrams, the result yields 107,000 possible combinations of words that can be made from it, including “Adorning Images,” “A Roaming Design,” and perhaps the most interesting option"Radioman Egg Sin" (Radioman's Sinful Egg).
“What I like most is the guesses from the fans. Needless to say, none of them are actual anagrams, but we will never confirm or deny that fact,” Reynolds laughed. — My favorite is “A Gemini So Grand,” maybe because some of my friends are twins and I love them very much. And “Roman’s Big Angie” also sounds good.”
"I really like 'God Is In The Manger,'" Sermon commented. – This guess made me think. The truth is that all these guesses and assumptions are much more best names for a group than Imagine Dragons. We probably should have taken one of these."
“Honestly, when we rearranged the letters to make Imagine Dragons, I don’t even remember how we came up with that name,” Reynolds said. “It just popped out on its own.” We were sitting there like, “Well, yeah, that sounds kind of cool,” and we had a concert in two days, so we left it.”
“I think this title was just the least bad of all the others,” Sermon added.
“We really had a line that we all agreed on that made sense to us as artists,” Reynolds concluded. “We just thought it would be cool to keep something for ourselves.” Many times I have written about things that are truly dear to me, and this is exactly the case. So it's nice for us to have something private, just between the four of us. We have our little ritual that we do every time before we go on stage, and all sorts of other little things that bring us together. I am sure that the day will come when we will finally become very similar to each other.”
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Composition of the groupCOMPOSITION OF THE
GROUP
DAN REYNOLDS – vocals, drums
WAYNE SERMON – bass guitar, backing vocals
DANIEL PLATZMAN – guitar, backing vocals
BEN MCKEE – drums
Imagine Dragons is an American indie rock band.
formed in Las Vegas in 2008.
In the work of Imagine Dragons, electronic
the arrangements are harmoniously combined with the emotional
vocals and folk-rock motifs, giving rise to a trendy sound that will suit your tastes
to a wide range of music lovers.
The band name is an anagram, the original words
for which no one knows except the participants themselves
DAN REYNOLDS
Hometown – Las Vegas, NVDan, the seventh of nine children of Christene M. and
Ronald Reynolds, born July 14, 1987.
On March 5, 2011, Dan married Aja
Volkman. They have a daughter, Arrow.
The group moved to Las Vegas, where they
success came. When the frontman
Train fell ill shortly before Las Vegas
Festival 2010, Imagine Dragons performed at
hall in which there were more than 26,000
Human. They won "Best Indie Band"
2010" according to Las Vegas Weekly, and were
awarded the “Best Record 2011” award
of the Year" from Vegas Seven magazine. In November 2011
year they signed a contract with Interscope
Records and started working with producer Alex
Yes Kid. In 2014 they received a Grammy Award.
WAYNE SERMON
Sermon was born on June 15, 1984 inAmerican Fork, UT. In his youth Sermon
learned to play like a cello and
guitar. He was determined
being a guitarist even as a child. He
attended the Musical
Berkeley School, where he twice
specialized in performance
guitar and composition, graduated from
2008. While at Berkeley he was
part five-guitar, jazz-fusion ensemble is called eclectic
Electric. Sermon married
Alexandra Hall Wayne described his
The style of play is literal.
DANIEL PLATZMAN
Born: September 28, 1986g., Atlanta, Georgia. In 2006
year he took part in
prestigious Betty Carter Jazz
Ahead program at the Center
Kennedy, Washington. IN
he is currently
drummer of the rock band Imagine Dragons, with
with which he shared the prize
Grammy 2014 for Best Rock Performance. He has a degree
Bachelor's in Voice Acting
films from musical
Berkeley College.
BEN MCKEE
Hometown – Forestville, CABorn: April 7, 1986
He was recruited by the guitarist
Wayne Nagorny and join
to the group in 2009. He is
constant competitor and
winner of the competition
eating spicy food thanks to
to your iron stomach.
imagine Dragons
IMAGINE DRAGONSAt the beginning of 2009, the guys started working in the studio. And already February 1st
release their first EP Imagine Dragons. And April 1 next year
Their EP Hell and Silence was released (the nominee participated in the recording
"Grammy" Mark Needham). Both EPs were recorded at the recording studio
Battle Born Studios. Soon they were invited to perform at
annual festival Bite of Las Vegas, as "The most popular group
2010" on local 107.9FM. They were chosen as headliners at
festival at the Vegas Music Summit, and Las Vegas CityLife called them "The Band
a must see live”, they won “Best Indie Band”
2010" according to Las Vegas Weekly, and were awarded
"Best Record of 2011" from Vegas Seven magazine. In November 2011
Imagine Dragons signed a contract with the American
record label Interscope Records. They worked closely together
with producer Alex Da Kid, with whom they recorded their first
drive in West Hollywood. Their EP was titled Continued Silence and released on 14
February 2012. For the release of their debut album Imagine Dragons
prepared very carefully.
Music
MUSICRadioactive
Tiptoe
It's Time
Demons
On Top of the World
Amsterdam
Hear Me
Every Night
Bleeding Out
Underdog
Nothing Left to Say /
Rocks
Working Man