Imagine Dragons

Part 1

0:00Well, I guess we'll just dive into it. I mean, like, I saw you guys play it south by last year because I saw the band name and it's like, oh, that sounds like an interesting name. Let's go. Let's go see what they sound like. And since that point, it seems like you guys have just been on like a path that I don't think any band that played south by last year could have imagined. I don't think any of us could have hoped or dreamed even for where it's gone. You know, this funny because it's really been a four year kind of slow long grind for us. But this last year is just a sky rocket. You know, I feel like we kind of got that precipice where the scale kind of tipped, you know, the snowball effect where whatever it is, it's just, you know, we're extremely grateful for it because, you know, especially when you go to like South by you see man, there's so many talented, wonderful bands that deserve to, you know, be able to pull the bure we are, you know, where, you know, it's it's partial luck and it's partial hard work. And so, you know, it's, it's great.

1:04Absolutely. And I thought maybe we'll go back since you're talking about working at it, you know, working your assets off for three years. I hear you used to like beg hotels in Vegas to just let you guys play just to just to get out there and show. So totally. Yeah, we go ahead. No, no, it sounds like you were going to say something. So maybe I don't need to ask a question. Yeah, you know, we would go to all the hotels and just tried to get as much stage time as we could sit each other and we're able to get as much time on stage together to really have no money and needed to have money to pay rent for this little tiny house that we rented out together before you get to like TV or anything like that because it really prepares you for it.

2:24Yeah. And did that stuff prepare you for the live setup that you guys have now? I mean, it's unusual to see a front man with, I don't know what is it like a three foot 36 inch base room. I don't know how big that thing is, but it's. It's massive. Well, no, that's that's my old one. That's my tiny one. Now we got this one. It's like five foot and 300 pounds. They build them in Asia. Really, really cool. But that's, how did that? No, as well as a concert fund. Right. But how did that, how did that, you know, how do you decide that that's how we want to present ourselves on stage because it is very different than than most bands. Before I sang before I did in songwriting, I was a drummer. I played in, you know, low garage bands going up and took from us since for a couple of years.

3:12Well, you know, I never wanted to leave that behind fully, you know, it was something from here. We beat on something. It was something very masculine. You know, I, we wanted to finish it as well. And it just kind of, it's organically built from the beginning. I was a small Tom drum in the very beginning that I played and that wasn't enough because we wanted a, a deeper base.

4:07And what about when it comes to writing for you? Like where does, do you start with, I don't know, coming from the drumming background, like a programming or a beat? Do you start in a guitar? Like how do you guys, or I guess you, I know you have a little fanatical of a songwriting. So, so how does it start? Since start, percussively, I'll do like, um, it primarily starts on either minor, Wayne's computer, Wayne's guitars. Both of us will either build some sort of beats or kind of with maybe some synths or, or, you know, him with guitar. Yeah, I think that, but Rhythmic, right, it's very, to make you move, you know, or that you feel and when you think, you know, people could maybe not understand who they can understand the rhythm of it.

5:24So, I think it's always been drawn towards it. Is that why you chose Alex to be the producer? I mean, coming from a hip hop background, it must be, I mean, for, I think it might be the first time, I don't know his discography off my heart, but, but as far as I know, I don't think it's- Yeah, it really kind of is. Before. It really, we really are kind of the first rock band. I mean, he, he worked a little bit with Foster the People, I think, kind of following you two, but this was the first album that he had done. No, I think he did. It really, surprisingly, was a perfect match because, when I say, well, it's, you know, we're a rock band, but it's, we try to fuse the organics two worlds together and enabled us one thing to hear something here.

6:56And you do adjust the tricks of production in that sense. The other thing a producer does, and having seen this first-handed studio before, is that they deal with egos a lot. They have to be there for the band to talk to you. It was through, you know, through, through a period, especially for you guys this year, where your song hit before the record was done. So, what was it like, like, was there advice he was giving you? Was there, was there pressure on you? Was there worry from you guys in the band making the record over the summer after already having had success? It's not like you had the chance to, you know, put out the record and then let it kind of go.

7:41Right. Because how everything worked, because Alex came to the band as an honest, just genuine fan of the band. You know, we've written it to let the artist breathe and do your thing. But he also knows how to kind of step in and say, you know, well, here's my two cents, you know, two million. Like, they're, you know, he's very understated and everything that he says.

8:33And I think one of the main things he taught us is how you get it out. It's right. It's correct. And I think before we met him, we really felt like, I will get it to demo, you know, how we look. And now we need to record. It's time to record. Oh, yeah, it sounds good. Your microphone, you know, in my kitchen, right at night, I just found it right. And there's a lot of that on the record.

9:24I love that, man. I love when that, that organic stuff just ends up in there on the records. Totally. So, you're, so to move from the record a little bit to the live show, because that's what you're going to be doing for the rest of your lives. And especially the rest of this year, like it seems like you guys, you've been on the road about a month and it doesn't stop, at least for the foreseeable future. So what have you done to prepare for life on the road? Well, you know, it's really that we've been on the road nonstop. And so, you're in front of us. Yeah, we really have. We've toured the whole four years. We've done together, but this, it's getting more intense. This whole year is already planned ahead. The entire year is already, you know, from the Asia, you know, so things are really fun.

10:19It'd be daunting, I think, to make up the next day. If you look at the schedule, I think you. Yeah, that goes to something Wayne said about you that you're more spur of the moment and he's more of an over analytical person. So I'm sure for him, maybe having that schedule helps him and you just want to stay away from it. Exactly. I've always kind of been in the moment type person and Wayne is pretty. Absolutely. Yeah, the whole London McCartney thing. Not too very to the Beatles for anything, but. No. Yeah. So who's going to go out with it? Well, you're getting there. We'll see how things go. So Ben gets in a lot of trouble, I hear. What have you been able to tame Ben.

11:16Now, now the things are getting bigger. No, the answer to that is a big fat note. No, he, but you know, we love that about him. I don't think I would, even if I could. it but uh... i can get into trouble you know i've done it in the into everything i broke the mother jail of cotton um... how many i want to get into it because for his own reputation but i think that i would have to have interviews he seems to bring up on the high water yeah we all are trying to get our each other in trouble

12:08different pranking each other but that again i was going to ask you about what recent pranks have have gone down but i don't think we have too much time here but uh... but if you got something quickly yeah yeah i'm right now it just happens every night it seems like what are our world wolf is a vegetarian so we're always finding ways to pranking do you think we have to be so mean well we don't go as far as that but as far as we have gone as we took this stage water in marinated ham and it for a couple hours and then uh... we took the ham out of course and then that was the stage water and he uh... definitely drink it and when we got off stage we call about it the second i knew

12:55something to say we're about it and through up all over the place through up that is that it it was pretty gross and actually went through it like i want to throw up and i felt a little bit bad about it but not that bad because he's still each butch and he still needs to be brought you know i mean if you have like broff that's been cooked in the first but he's already gone there itself ham juice though so gross and we and last night we actually we put uh... roast beef all over his keyboard right when he came out art the show he had to take the roast beef but we've done that to him a couple times now but it never gets old that's great alright then before i let you go five quick questions ask everybody one word answers ok rotor studio

13:43londoner mccartney when you hear a song what usually hits you first lyrics melody or rhythm song you've written you're most proud of cool and in one word imagine dragons

Part 2

0:05Hey, we're Wayne and Dan from Imagine Dragons and you're watching MSN exclusives. Imagine Dragons, thanks. Hey, hey, hey. How we doing? Good, man. Doing really good. So we just started with Demons. Little snippet of the video, if you will. You want to talk about that tune? Writing that song? Come on up. Yeah, Demons is a, you know, it's a song about, you know, they're being more than what you see your face value with most people. You know, I think that it's pretty common to meet someone and judge them, you know,

0:54without knowing their full story and kind of what is going on behind the scenes in their life. And so, yeah, that's what that song is about, generally speaking. And the video kind of shows that in a lot, it's from, you know, half of it's from a live show that we played in Vegas at the joint, which is a legendary venue to us because we're from Vegas. So, you know, to play there was really cool for us. That's at the Hard Rock? Yeah. And then we kind of intertwined that with footage that kind of told a story. Well, a lot of individual stories. And then we centered the video around a foundation that we created for Tyler Robinson, who is a friend of ours who passed away battling cancer, and passed away fairly young at the age of 17. And so, we were pretty inspired by his story and wanted to do something to kind of keep his memory alive

1:45and kind of the lesson that he taught us about, you know, being grateful for the life that you have. And he certainly did show us that. And so, yeah, foundation and all the proceeds go towards helping families pay for the bills for, you know, struggling with a child who has cancer. Because those bills can just be ridiculous, especially in the States. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm here too probably. I don't know. But down there, especially. Yep. The joint. Talking, does it, cool venue to talk about? Why not, why not bring it up? So, is that a place that you always dreamed of playing in Vegas? Or is it somewhere you guys used to jam around back in the day? Could you get in the doors of the joint? Yeah. I mean, if we paid 50 bucks, we'd get in the doors. Now, we definitely saw some bands there when we were growing up as a band. And we had aspirations for sure. I don't know if we ever.

2:31We opened for Interpol there. Yeah. We opened for Weezer there in our early years. And so, to actually have headlined there on our own, I think that was a moment in time for us. You know, where we were like, wow. You know, this is cool. This is a place where legendary bands have played. And so, to be, to take that stage, there was something very special about it. Where do you hope to go now? What's that next level? It's funny because we were just talking before, we talked about this on the phone a few months ago too, about just the trajectory of the band over the past year and a half. And what's up at this point? Man, it's just been crazy. We're having a hard time even keeping up with what's going on around us. You know, it's been a four years, a four year climb, kind of very organically, but this last year has been kind of this exponential rocket.

3:16And so, yeah, what's next? I don't really know. Right now, even playing this amphitheater run is pretty crazy. To be doing this overseas as well, you know, it's in, we're, there's places overseas that are bigger than it is, even here in the States and in Canada, and to see that, it's just, it's kind of mind-boggling, you know? But it's great. Our goal from the beginning was to be an international band. And, you know, we were never happy just being a band of the States. We were so inspired by so many bands that, you know, sonically speaking, that came from Europe and UK, and so... Canada, Arcade Fire. Yeah, Arcade Fire is a big, big one for us. So, yeah, to actually be able to travel to these places and bring night visions to, you know, all over the world,

4:01we're going to Australia now, we're going to Asia, we're going to South America, you know, that's, that's incredible. Yeah, so I was just looking at the tour schedule for the next couple of months. Like, you guys are on the road basically until Christmas. Yeah. Yeah. Literally all over the world. Yeah. So what happened, what's in the new year? Have you had time to, are you able to ride on the road? We are. We are. We do a lot of riding on the road, actually. We're either riding in our hotel at night or on the tour bus, you know? And the tour bus, it sounds like, if you walk in, you can hear like keyboards in the back, people on the front on their M.B.C. or in their tour, in my bunk singing, you know, and we're always creating and that's kind of where we thrive is in that environment. of creativity and, but we, we're not, you know, we don't have a specific reason. Like, we're not putting pressure on ourselves. Like, create a second album about a while. We're just, we're just creating and seeing what happens.

4:50I was just curious because a lot of people talk to you. Some can ride on the road, some can't. Right. It sounds like you guys have been able to pull this off. Yeah, yeah. We have all the hecticness. Yeah, I think we find a lot of inspiration on the road because, you know, you're, you're, you're having incredible experiences. You've, you've seen new cultures. You're also going through maybe some mental hardships and great moments. It's a little bit of everything because it's just so crazy in your life. It's so crazy that you want to document that because it's such a big part of our life. We want to document that in the music. And, and so I think the best way to do that is to do it in the moment, you know, to go home the night after you play Japan for the first time and write a song that, you know, from the inspiration that you found in Japan. Do you guys write together? Yeah, we, Wayne and I are kind of the primary, we do the, the work from the, the groundwork.

5:38So Wayne will either create a demo or a guitar riff and they'll send it to me and I write all the lyrics to Melody or, or I'll have a demo and I'll write on it. And then we bring it to the rest of the band and then, and then we kind of put it in the live band setting. But yeah, it always starts on Wayne or my laptop kind of. And I can't remember who said this loud. Oh, you must have been you because I only talked to you before. That, that he's a perfectionist a little over analytical and you're the, the more spur of the moment. Yeah. So it's, that's kind of like a Lenny McCourtney relationship in a way. Yeah, I think we really balanced each other out well in that fact. I think that Wayne is, he definitely is a perfectionist and more methodical and slow. And I can sometimes be a little hasty and just kind of in the moment. That's good though. Because if it was just me, then I would never get any songs done. It always just be, I'd always be working on a song. It's not ready yet. So it's good that he's around.

6:27How do you know, how do you know what a song is done? You have to give it to him. Well, from a production standpoint, I mean, we throw as much of it at the wall as it will stick really. I mean, stuff just sort of, we have to peel stuff away. We, we throw as much as we can. And then when it feels like too much, we, we actually peel stuff back. It's usually what happens rather than adding and adding. It's just like. We're definitely big fans of the editing process. We believe in creating, creating, editing, recreating, editing, recreating. And that's always been, you know, night visions. There was like over a hundred demos that we had that went into kind of the catalog of what could be on night visions. And then we peeled that back and to 15. And then we played around with those songs and traded them up and peeled that back to 20. And then recorded 20 in the studio. And then, and then from that ended up being what made the album, which was like, I don't know, 12 songs or something.

7:17So we really believe in creating, creating, creating. What song went through the most revisions? Like, arrangement changes and everything. Like, what took a long time to make work? Yeah, that one. You know, and I was also thinking just the other day about its time and how that whole thing happened. I remember there, I was just remembering this. The first demo had the lyrics from Amsterdam. Yeah. And the chorus was its time. So that was the very first demo that you wrote. And we decided to actually rewrite the verses to its time. And then we used those verses for Amsterdam. We used that for Amsterdam wrote in the chorus for Amsterdam. So that's pretty typical. Like, we just kind of, that's a good example of the editing process. You know, nothing's ever done until it's done. So we try out, you know, all sorts of things.

8:04Is this the demo with the kitchen handclaps that made on record? Yeah, cool. So we talked about last time. Yeah, still the demo is floating around somewhere. That original one that you wrote. I'm like a Peter somewhere. What I want to talk about. Ben getting into trouble. Last time we talked to this Punch the Norway or something. So what was the most recent Ben story? What isn't? I mean, he's like, he took like one of our fog machines and let it off in some restaurant. Oh, that's a good one. He's like, he's a non-smoking restaurant. He'd have to like put a fog machine on. He put it under the table that he was eating at. So whenever the waitress would leave, he would push the button with his foot. And just, yeah. They thought it was a fire. So it was not great. Time hotels in Vegas went to jail for that. Every time we crossed over to Canada, it's like, it's funny this time. They called our drummer in, like they stopped the bus.

8:54At customs. Yeah, and called our drummer and they were like, I'm not going to give them the specifics. But they were like, so you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, in, you know, 01 or something. And he was like, no, I didn't. And they were like, yes, you did. And he was like, no, I didn't. And he knew very well that they had accidentally pulled up Ben's record in place of him. But he didn't say you didn't put him on blast. They were like, well, it shows right here. They didn't. He was like, no. And then he was like, hey, you're right. Weird. All right. I guess you guys can go. And then he told Ben that Ben was like, whoo! He could easily have been like, no, I'm sorry. You pulled up that. You're just taking me with Ben McKee, all right? So we got in, luckily. But it's always a fight. That's amazing. Yeah. So what have been some of the highlights? I'm assuming Nashville, the other night with the orchestra must have been pretty cool.

9:40Amazing. That was fun. All time highlight. Yeah, it was fun. You know, me and the drummer, Daniel Plattsman, we actually went to school at Berkeley together and we studied scoring and arranging. So it actually used, finally used some of those skills in a practical setting. It was pretty cool. We've been waiting a while to use. So that was kind of fun. And you know, it was different. We always, like Dan said, were always going for bigger sounds. And so having the orchestra behind you definitely makes things sound bigger, which we always like. The real horns. I mean, it was a special night. It was out under the stars and there was a little bit of rain. And some of our family had come down for it. So it was special. Yeah. It was. Is that the highlight of this whole insanity that's been the past year or two? Oh man, it's impossible to say. Yeah, I know.

10:26It's one of the highlights, you know. It's, there's been like, you know, in this last year we played in front of, played in Germany, rock and ring in front of a hundred thousand people. We've, we've, we've, red rocks was a lot of fun. We sold out red rocks. Everyone says red rocks. Yeah, it's crazy. You know, there's, there's been so many moments in this last year where we were like, this is the moment. And then the next day we're like, whoa, this is the moment, you know. So we really feel like this last year has just been incredible. Cool. Well, we can't wait to see what happens in the next year. I gotta let you go. Five quick questions. One more to answer. Cool. See if you answer them the same. Yeah. Road or studio? Road. Road. Landon or McCartney? McCartney. Landon. When you hear a song, it usually hits you first. Lyric's melody or rhythm? Melody. Melody. If someone's never heard Imagine Dragons before, what song do they start with?

11:12It's time. Yeah. It's time. In one word, Imagine Dragons. Growing. Yeah. It's a good one. I like that. I think that's what you said last time too. No way. Really? No beginning is what you said last time. Oh wow. But though that's the same theme. Yeah. It's really amazing. Well done. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Thanks guys. Getting grown. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thanks Wayne. Thank you.