I’m always looking for a positive
Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds tells ALEX GREEN how intense grief inspired their sprawling new album, and how he finds the strength to perform it live
IMAGINE DRAGONS are one of Las Vegas’ greatest musical exports, so it felt fitting that they would use the music video for recent single Sharks to pay homage to the city.
But frontman Dan Reynolds, a fourth-generation Las Vegan, was shocked to discover what his creative team had in store.
“The hardest part was surfing the Bellagio fountains,” he laughs. “That was terrifying.”
In the madcap video, the 34-year-old skates across the surface of the famous hotel’s 8.5-acre man-made lake on a self-propelling surf board surrounded by sharks – computer generated ones, that is.
For all their high drama and camp, Dan and his bandmates – Wayne Sermon, Ben McKee and Daniel Platzman – have always explored the darker side of life. Their new album, Mercury – Act 2, is the second part of a quasi-concept album exploring grief.
“It’s all dealing with death, which sounds very morbid, but it’s also dealing with life – and the recovery after losing someone you love,” he explains.
Dan video calls from his hotel room in Stockholm, where the band is in the midst of a European tour. “When you lose someone that you love there is the shock. There’s the next day. But then there is the next year... the following two years.
“How do you memorialise this? How does it affect you? Especially when it’s a family member or someone that was very close.”
Before the pandemic, Dan lost a number of people in the space of three years. His best childhood friend killed himself and his sister-in-law, business manager of 10 years and ex-girlfriend all died from cancer.
“It was just like, when it rains it pours,” he observes. “I feel like this happens to a lot of people. You meet those people where their dad dies and then the next year their mum dies. It changes the way that you see the world. It really changes the way that I live every day.
“Mercury – Act 1 really focused on the shock and the songs were written right in the moment of those things. Act 2 is more of a look at life after and post-grief,” he continues.
“I’m always looking for a positive because I feel like my mind gravitates towards darkness and depression. My therapist is always like, ‘It’s all perspective’ so I am always trying to find the positives,” he adds with a chuckle.
Mercury – Act 2 continues in the vein of Imagine Dragons’ previous albums but deviates enough to keep fans guessing. Part of this is down to working with Rick Rubin, the legendary American record producer and co-founder of Def Jam Recordings, who has worked with the likes of the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy.
“Your fifth album, we were at a point where we wanted to change,” Dan reflects. “So we thought, well, let’s try something new. And who’s our dream producer? We unanimously said Rick Rubin and reached out to Rick and he wanted to take it on. It was an arduous task, but it was very rewarding.”
Dan first met with Rick, 59, over Zoom and they instantly clicked. “We immediately connected on a really deep level with music and just life,” he remembers. He describes him as a “mentor of sorts and a dear friend”.
As suggested, the subject matter on the album is tough, with Dan pulling no punches about his mental state on tracks like Crushed and I Don’t Like Myself. But he has a talent for taking the downbeat and repackaging it into stadium-sized choruses, like on the band’s 2012 hit Radioactive.
But how does he stand in front of thousands of fans and sing about his demons every night?
“When I was on stage last night I was thinking about this,” he reveals. “It was one of those nights where I was feeling... just taxed. I couldn’t quite get myself in the state of mind that I needed to be in, and I was like, ‘Come on Dan, you have the best job in the world’.
“I was like, ‘Come on, get yourself going’. I was thinking, ‘Why do I feel this?’ And it’s not a ‘woe is me’ story. The truth is what I think about every night is... I don’t know how to sing songs other than [by] going to these places that I was in when I wrote it. That’s how I perform.
“And a lot of the songs are heavy, so every other night you’re going to this heavy place.”
Dan says the band want to turn their concerts into a celebration, especially after the isolation of the pandemic.
“I try to turn the focus to the opposite, which is life and being present and appreciating the now.”
A lot of the songs are heavy, so every other night you are going to this heavy place. Dan Reynolds
Mercury – Act 2 by Imagine Dragons is out now.