Imagine Dragons is an American rock band from Las Vegas,
Nevada , consisting of lead vocalist Dan Reynolds , lead guitarist Wayne Sermon , bassist and keyboardist Ben McKee , and drummer Daniel Platzman . [1] The band first gained exposure with the release of single " It's Time", followed by their award-winning debut studio album Night Visions (2012), which resulted in the chart topping singles " Radioactive " and " Demons ". Billboard placed them at the top of their "Year In Rock" rankings for 2013 [2] and 2017 [3] and named them their "Breakthrough Band of 2013". and "Biggest Band of 2017." [4]
Rolling Stone named their single " Radioactive", which holds the record for most weeks on the Hot 100, from Night Visions the "biggest rock hit of the year", [1][5][6] and MTV called them "the year's biggest breakout band". [7] The band's second studio album Smoke + Mirrors (2015) reached number one in the US, Canada and the UK. [8][9] After a brief hiatus, the band released their third studio album, Evolve (2017) which resulted in the chart-topping singles, " Believer " and " Thunder ". While all three albums were commercially successful, critical reception was mixed. [10]
Imagine Dragons
Imagine Dragons in 2017
Background information
Origin
Las Vegas, Nevada , U.S.
Genres
Alternative rock indie rock pop rock indie pop
electropop
Years active
2008–present
Labels
KIDinaKORNER Interscope
Associated acts
The Moth & The Flame X Ambassadors Egyptian
Website
Members
Dan Reynolds
Wayne Sermon
Ben McKee
Daniel Platzman
Past members
Andrew Tolman
Brittany Tolman
Theresa Flaminio
Dave Lemke
Andrew Beck
Aurora Florence
Imagine Dragons has won three American Music Awards , five
Billboard Music Awards , one Grammy Award , and one World Music Award . In May 2014, the band was nominated for fourteen Billboard Music Awards, including Top Artist of the Year and a Milestone Award, which recognizes innovation and creativity of artists across different genres. Imagine Dragons have sold 12 million albums and 35 million singles worldwide. [11]
History
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Early years: 2008–2011
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In 2008, lead singer Dan Reynolds met drummer Andrew Tolman at Brigham Young University where they were both students. [12] Reynolds and Tolman added Andrew Beck, Dave Lemke, and Aurora Florence to play guitar, bass, and piano respectively for their band. Their name is an anagram for a phrase only known to members of the group, that Reynolds stated each member approved of. The five-piece released an
extended play titled Speak to Me that same year. Beck and Florence would also depart from the band's lineup that year. In 2009, Tolman recruited longtime high school friend Wayne Sermon , who had graduated from Berklee College of Music to play guitar. Tolman later recruited his wife, Brittany Tolman, to sing backup and play keys, and the band began to play shows together again. Lemke left the band later on, leading Sermon to recruit another Berklee music student, Ben McKee , to join the band as their bassist and complete the lineup. [13]
[14] The band garnered a large following in their hometown of
Provo, Utah , before the members moved to Las Vegas, the hometown of Dan Reynolds, where the band recorded and released their first three EPs. [15]
The band released EPs titled Imagine Dragons [16] and Hell and Silence [17] in 2010, both recorded at Battle Born Studios , in Las Vegas. They returned to the studio in 2011. [18][19][20] The third EP, It's Time , was made before they signed a record deal. [21]
They got their first big break when Train 's frontman Pat Monahan fell sick just prior to the Bite of Las Vegas Festival 2009. Imagine Dragons were called to fill in and performed to a crowd of more than 26,000 people. [22] Local accolades including "Best CD of 2011" ( Vegas SEVEN ), [23] "Best Local Indie Band 2010" ( Las Vegas Weekly), [24] "Las Vegas' Newest Must See Live Act" ( Las Vegas CityLife ), [25] Vegas Music Summit Headliner 2010, [26] and more sent the band on a positive trajectory. In November 2011 they signed with
Interscope Records and began working with English Grammy winning producer Alex da Kid . [27] Eventually the Tolmans would leave the group and Daniel Platzman would be recruited in August 2011 by invitation from Ben McKee, prior to the signing of band's label deal in November 2011, alongside keyboardist Theresa Flaminio . [28]
International success and Night Visions : 2012–2014
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Theresa Flaminio departed from Imagine Dragons in early 2012, leaving them as a four-piece. The band worked closely with Alex da Kid, with whom they recorded their first major label release at Westlake Recording Studios in West Hollywood, California . An EP entitled Continued Silence was released on Valentine's Day (February 14, 2012) digitally and peaked at number 40 on the Billboard 200 . The band also released an EP titled Hear Me in 2012.
Shortly after, " It's Time" was released as a single and peaked at number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 . [29] The music video debuted on April 17, 2012 on all MTV affiliates and was subsequently nominated for an MTV Video Music Award in the "Best Rock Video" category. [30] "It's Time" was certified a double platinum single by the RIAA. [31]
The band finished recording their debut album Night Visions in the summer of 2012 at Studio X inside Palms Casino Resort and released the album in the United States on the day after Labor Day (September 4, 2012). It peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart with first week sales in excess of 83,000 copies, the highest charting for a debut rock album since 2006. [32] The album also reached No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative and Rock Album charts as well as the top ten on the Australian, Austrian, Canadian, Dutch, German, Irish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Scottish, Spanish, and United Kingdom Albums charts. It won a Billboard Music Award for Top Rock Album and was nominated for the Juno Award for International Album of the Year . [33] Night Visions is certified platinum by the RIAA as well as in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. The album produced three tracks that reached the Billboard Top 40 , four tracks in the ARIA Top 40 , and five tracks charting in the UK Top 40 .
The album's second single " Radioactive" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Alternative Songs, Billboard Rock Songs, and Swedish singles chart and has sold more than seven million singles in the United States, smashing a record by spending 87 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. " Radioactive " stayed at No. 1 on the Hot Rock Songs chart for a record-breaking 23 weeks and ultimately became the genre's biggest hit of 2013.
[34] It peaked at No. 3, becoming their first top ten single in the United States and broke the record for the longest run into the top five. It is the best-selling rock song on the Nielsen SoundScan running list of best-selling rock songs in digital history. [35] By the end of 2013, " Radioactive " had already sold over 3 million copies. [36] Rolling Stone called it "the biggest rock hit of the year". It was also the most streamed song of 2013 on Spotify in the United States. [37] It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance at the
56th Annual Grammy Awards, winning the latter of the two. In 2015, it was certified diamond by the RIAA for sales in excess of 10 million copies in the United States. [38]
Third single " Demons " reached No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Songs and No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and has sold more than 5 million copies in the United States to date. [31][39]
Billboard listed them as one of "2012's Brightest New Stars" and later "The Breakout Band of 2013". [40] Imagine Dragons won the 2014 Billboard Music Awards for Top Duo/Group, Top Hot 100 Artist, and Top Rock Artist. Amazon.com called the band their "Favorite Rock artist of 2012". [41]
In 2013, Imagine Dragons returned to Europe and North America with the Night Visions Tour. [42] The band announced 13 additional US summer tour dates which also sold out. [43] The band then announced a North America Amphitheatre tour. [44] The band also confirmed that they were unable to fulfill the request of acting as support for
Muse . [45] Pollstar listed the band in their Top 20 Concert Tours list by average box office gross despite their average ticket price being the third lowest on the list. [46]
The band released a live album, Live at Independent Records , in April 2013. [47]
Smoke + Mirrors and hiatus: 2014–2016
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At Lollapalooza in Sao Paulo , Brazil , the last date on the Into the Night Tour, the band announced a rest, and complemented saying, "This is our last show for a while, and had no better place to end this tour". [48] The conclusion of the Into the Night Tour signaled the end of the Night Visions album cycle. Lead singer Dan Reynolds joked about the end of the Night Visions cycle, saying that "We're always writing on the road, [so] that second album will come, unless we die at the age of 27 next year . Hopefully we don't die and there will be a second album. I don't know when it will be, but it may come". [49]
The idea behind the second studio album, dubbed as their " New Year's resolution", [50] was to create music and finish it when the band feels that their work is done. Reynolds told
MTV in 2014 that the band wanted to "put out an album that we're really happy with". He further said that "we tend to be perfectionists, too hard on ourselves at times, and we don't want to rush anything because we know how we are with things. We don't want to put a record out until we really feel good about it, you know, and who knows how long that will take". [51] Since the beginning of the Night Visions Tour , the band had been writing new material for an upcoming album, and, even as early as the start of the tour, had been recording
demos for the album, before entering the studio. [52] By the time that they entered the studio to work on the album, they had amassed 50 demos to work from. [53] The demos had been described by Reynolds as "definitely different", but added that "it's still Imagine Dragons, but we've got a lot of growth and maturing to do as a
