An incredibly sought-after American team that conquered all kinds of music charts, won the hearts of millions of fans - this is Imagine Dragons. The composition of the group is not the sweet boys who were popular in the 90s, but ordinary guys who just love to write music and do it very high quality and with soul. They are called an indie rock band, because it is quite difficult to fit such a diverse and unusual work into the framework of a particular 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 a large Mormon family in 1987. He was the seventh son of nine children whose parents were very conservative. This left a strong imprint on the psyche of the young man, and he tried to throw out his experiences in creativity. After graduating from school, Dan was sent to Nebraska with a religious mission and also studied at Brigham Young University (Utah), in a town called Provo. It was there that religion went by the wayside, and not music came first when Reynolds became friends with Andrew Tholman. Young people in 2008 founded their own group, which soon became known as Imagine Dragons. The composition of the group changed for the first time, 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’s creativity: the name is an anagram, but how it is deciphered, no one except the participants themselves knows, although fans have already sorted through thousands of options. It is possible that there is also a faithful one, only the musicians have not confirmed a single one, and it is unlikely that they will.
Vegas guys
So, by the beginning of 2009, two very talented and ambitious guys began to assemble a musical group. Soon they were joined by Tolman's schoolmate - guitarist Wayan Sermon. He brought his friend from Berkeley - bass player Ben McKee. This was the first composition of the Imagine Dragons group. Already in September, they released their first mini-album of the same name, and the next two years also released one EP each (mini-album a year). But in addition to hard work on creating their own music, the team fought hard for their own survival and took up any performances, once they even opened a mime concert.
Having become famous in Utah, the guys moved to Dan's hometown - Las Vegas, where their main concert venues were casinos and strip clubs. There they performed mainly covers, including in the program and compositions of their own composition. Soon they 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 an unusual team, saw their potential and offered them cooperation.
Staff turnover
Over the years of formation, the composition of the Imagine Dragons group has repeatedly changed. The names of Reynolds and Sermon remained unchanged, but at different times Andrew Beck also visited the band in 2008 (specializing in electric guitar and vocals) and Dave Lamck from 2008 to 2009 (specializing in bass guitar and vocals), and even whole three girls are 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 the fans call them), drummer Andrew Tolman, left the project in 2011 with his wife Brittany, and a little later they created their own group. To its heyday, the composition of Imagine Dragons was: 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 was very diligently and carefully preparing for the release of a full record. And in September of that year, this significant event took place. The album "Night Visions" in record lines was at the top of all charts, for a long time was in the top and became twice platinum.
Imagine Dragons were named the brightest star of 2013, and the album's release was named the brightest event of the year. All sorts of awards fell on them like from a cornucopia, including the prestigious Grammy Music Permia itself. The track "Radioactive" was Rolling Stone 's biggest rock hit of the year . It was a real high point in the biography of the group Imagine Dragons.
Work hard, work hard and work hard again
Not stopping there, the team toured very actively, winning all the new hearts of fans, filming clips and preparing material for the new album. Almost a three-year break between the outputs of the plates was very saturated. And in September 2015, the second album appeared in the biography of Imagine Dragons. Smoke + Mirrors did not become platinum as the first-born, but received the well-deserved gold and its share of grandiose hits and, of course, brought new awards to the team. And less than two years later, the musicians pleased the fans with the third disc called “Evolve”, which was presented to the general public in May 2017. Less than four months later, the main theme of the album, “Believer”, has already become “The Best Rock / Alternative Song” and received an award at the “Teen Choice Awards”.
Dragon Music
This unusual team can be safely considered the champion in the number of uses of their songs as soundtracks. For some projects, Imagine Dragons recorded songs on purpose, in others they used the available, but one way or another, the list of the most popular films and TV shows where Dragons music sounds is incredibly impressive. Radioactive alone is worth it! It can be heard in the films “The Guest”, “Continuum”, “The Heat of Our Bodies”, the series “Arrow”, “The Vampire Diaries”, “Hundred”, “True Blood”, as well as in the game “Assassin's Creed 3” and so on . Before the release of the 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 movie “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” and “Battle Cry” for the fourth “Transformers”. Also, the soundtracks of the Dragon songs are in the series “Gossip Girl”, “Beauty and the Beast”, “Force Majeure”, “Riverdale” and many others, and among the films you can find in “Insurgent”, “Iron Man 3”, “Good be quiet "," Suicide Squad "," Passengers "and even in" Panda Kung Fu 3 ", and this is not the whole list.
Interesting Facts
This article contains the most important information about the Imagine Dragons group: biography, composition, discography. But this is not all that fans would like to know about their favorite musicians, because the personal life, habits, and favorite activities of idols interest the fans no less. So, some interesting facts about the members of the group:
- Reynolds is married, he has the eldest daughter Arrow Eve and two newborn babies Coco and Gia, and together with his wife AJ Volkman, he is engaged in another musical project called Egyptian. This is their family hobby. All his life, the singer has been struggling with depression, but it is in this state that he writes his hits. He claims that the family is his best cure for a long-standing illness.
- Sermon is called the “Wing,” his wife's name is Alexander, and he is the happy father of two weather sons: the James River and Wolfgang. A musician composes songs instead of sleep at night (he has insomnia).
- McKee is a hatmaster. Sewing is his hobby.
- The group loves drums, is actively involved in charity work, loves to “hang out” on social networks and communicate with fans.