Imagine Dragons is an American pop rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada, consisting of lead singer Dan Reynolds, lead guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee, and drummer Daniel Platzman. The band first gained exposure with the release of their 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". Rolling Stone named "Radioactive", which holds the record for most weeks charted on the Billboard Hot 100, the "biggest rock hit of the year”. MTV called them "the year's biggest breakout band", and Billboard named them their "Breakthrough Band of 2013" and "Biggest Band of 2017". and placed them at the top of their "Year In Rock" rankings for 2013, 2017, and 2018.
Imagine Dragons topped the Billboard Year-End "Top Artists – Duo/Group" category in 2018. The band's second studio album Smoke + Mirrors (2015) reached number one in the US, Canada and the UK. The album was preceded by the top 40 single "I Bet My Life", and second and third singles, "Gold" and "Shots". The band then embarked on a ten month long world tour, which led to a brief hiatus in 2016, with occasional performances and soundtrack contributions throughout the remainder of the year.
The band released their third studio album, Evolve (2017) which resulted in three chart-topping singles, "Believer", "Thunder", and "Whatever It Takes", also making them the artist with the most weeks at number-one on the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart. The album reached the top five in many countries.
After the Evolve Tour was completed, Imagine Dragons released their fourth studio album Origins, on November 9, 2018. "Natural" and "Zero" were released as the first singles off the album. Afterwards, "Machine" and "Bad Liar" were also released. A previously released single titled "Born to Be Yours" was included on a deluxe version of the album. While all four albums were commercially successful, critical reception was mixed. Imagine Dragons has won three American Music Awards, nine Billboard Music Awards, one Grammy Award, one MTV Video Music 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. In April 2018, the band was nominated eleven more times for Billboard Music Awards. Imagine Dragons have sold 35 million RIAA certified singles in the US and 20 million albums worldwide. They were the most streamed group of 2018 on Spotify] and are the first rock act to have two songs, "Believer" and "Thunder" to surpass one billion streams each.Imagine Dragons have the top three rock songs of the 2010s on the Billboard charts, "Believer", "Thunder", and "Radioactive".
History
2008–2011: Early years
In 2008, lead singer Dan Reynolds met drummer Andrew Tolman at Brigham Young University where they were both students. 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 year, but Beck and Florence departed from the band's line-up later that year. In 2009, Tolman recruited long-time 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 back-up 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 line-up.
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.
The band released EPs titled Imagine Dragons and Hell and Silence in 2010, both recorded at Battle Born Studios, in Las Vegas. They returned to the studio in 2011. The third EP, It's Time, was made before they signed a record deal.
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. Local accolades including "Best CD of 2011" (Vegas SEVEN), "Best Local Indie Band 2010" (Las Vegas Weekly), "Las Vegas' Newest Must See Live Act" (Las Vegas CityLife), Vegas Music Summit Headliner 2010, and more sent the band on a positive trajectory.
In November 2011 they signed with Interscope Records and began working with English Grammy Award-winning producer Alex da Kid. Eventually the Tolmans left the group and Daniel Platzman was recruited in August 2011 by invitation from Ben McKee, prior to the signing of the band's label deal in November 2011, alongside keyboardist Theresa Flaminio.
2012–2014: Night Visions
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. 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. "It's Time" was certified a double platinum single by the RIAA.
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. 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. 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 band embarked on the Night Visions Tour in 2013.
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. 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.
By the end of 2013, "Radioactive" had already sold over 3 million copies. 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. 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. 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.
Billboard listed them as one of "2012's Brightest New Stars" and later "The Breakout Band of 2013". 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".
In 2013, Imagine Dragons returned to Europe and North America with the Night Visions Tour. The band announced 13 additional US summer tour dates which also sold out. The band then announced a North America Amphitheatre tour. The band also confirmed that they were unable to fulfill the request of acting as support for Muse. 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.
The band released a live album, Live at Independent Records, in April 2013.
2014–2016: Smoke + Mirrors
Imagine Dragons at Verizon Center, Washington, D.C., on the Smoke + Mirrors tour in July 2015
The idea behind the second studio album, dubbed as their "New Year's resolution", was to create music and finish it when the band feels that their work is done.
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. By the time that they entered the studio to work on the album, they had amassed 50 demos to work from.
Prior to the album's release, Imagine Dragons released a number of singles for other projects including a song for the film Transformers: Age of Extinction, called "Battle Cry" (June 2014) and song "Warriors" for the 2014 League of Legends World Championship (September 2014).
On October 24, they revealed the lead single to the upcoming album, "I Bet My Life" via several visual snippets on Facebook and Instagram. It was released on October 27. It was sent to US Alternative radio for adds on November 3.
Working with Metric, which did a three-song acoustic set, Imagine Dragons played at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles on February 5, 2015. The half-hour set included the breakthrough songs "It's Time" and "Radioactive" from Night Visions. The performance was the live debut for "Summer" and "I'm So Sorry", along with "Gold" and "I Bet My Life" from the album Smoke + Mirrors, which was released on February 17, 2015.
The band's 2015 North American summer tour began in Portland, Oregon on June 3.
During the band's tour, Imagine Dragons released two non-album singles. "Roots" was released on August 26, 2015 and "I Was Me" on October 12, 2015 via iTunes.
The band also released a cover of "I Love You All the Time" by Eagles of Death Metal on December 18, 2015, in support of the victims of the November 2015 Paris attacks. The Smoke + Mirrors Tour ended on February 5, 2016 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The band released a one night only concert film, Imagine Dragons In Concert: Smoke + Mirrors, in select theaters on March 2, 2016. The film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray under the title Imagine Dragons: Smoke + Mirrors Live.
2016–2018: Evolve
Imagine Dragons performing at Mohegan Sun during the Evolve tour in November 2017.
On September 27, 2016, Imagine Dragons began teasing their third studio album with a tweet simply saying "studio". The band continued posting cryptic messages on their Twitter account for the next four months. On January 28, 2017, the band started posting a series of videos teasing the album's first single. The time-lapse videos featured lead singer Dan Reynolds drawing surreal images on a drawing pad. Morse code was hidden in the videos and translated to "objects of same color".
On February 1, 2017, Imagine Dragons released "Believer" as the lead single for their next album. "Believer" was used as part of the Super Bowl ad for the Nintendo Switch. Imagine Dragons were part of the Wayhome summer 2017 lineup in Oro-Medonte, Ontario. On April 27, 2017, Imagine Dragons released "Thunder" as the second single from their third album. On May 8, 2017, Imagine Dragons announced their third studio album Evolve, as well as a new track "Whatever It Takes", which was released on the same day. A tour in support for the album was also announced within the same day. The tour was held across 33 countries from September 2017 through September 2018.
Evolve was released on June 23, 2017, worldwide.
The album reached the top five in most countries but was met with mixed critical reception. The band performed in NOS Alive, Portugal on July 8. "Whatever It Takes" was released as an official single off the album a few months later on October 6, 2017. The song won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video in 2018. On February 14, 2018, Imagine Dragons announced a new single titled "Next to Me" on Twitter. The song was released as part of a re-issue of Evolve on February 21, 2018.
2018–present: Origins
On June 12, 2018, Imagine Dragons announced a new single in collaboration with Kygo titled "Born to Be Yours" on Twitter. The song was released on June 15, 2018.
On July 12, 2018, Imagine Dragons announced a new single titled "Natural" on Twitter. The song was released on July 17, 2018. The song was used as the anthem for the 2018 ESPN College Football season.
On September 18, 2018, Imagine Dragons announced a new single titled "Zero", which was released on September 19, 2018. It was used in the end credits of the Walt Disney Animation Studios film Ralph Breaks the Internet.
On October 3, 2018, Imagine Dragons announced their fourth studio album, Origins, which was released on November 9, 2018. "Natural" and "Zero" serve as the lead singles off the album, while "Born to Be Yours" is featured on the international deluxe edition of the album. The band has described this album as a sister album to their previous work Evolve.
On October 31, 2018, Imagine Dragons released their third single off the album, "Machine". Lastly, on November 6, 2018, Imagine Dragons released their fourth single of the album, "Bad Liar".
On January 7, 2019, Imagine Dragons performed the halftime show for the 2019 College Football Championship game. The band performed "Natural", "Bad Liar", "Thunder", and a special version of "Believer" with rapper Lil Wayne. The new version of the song was released on streaming platforms the following day.
In June 2019, Beat Games released a paid downloadable content (DLC) music pack for virtual reality rhythm game Beat Saber, called "Imagine Dragons Music Pack", that includes ten songs by Imagine Dragons.
On June 20, 2019, Imagine Dragons released their fifth single of the album, "Birds", featuring Italian singer Elisa. On July 23, 2019, an animation video for the original version of the song was released.
On January 20, 2020, the band released a music video for "Nothing Left to Say", a song from their debut album Night Visions.