Dan Reynolds

Reynolds was born and raised in Las Vegas; he has said he comes from a large family of eight boys and one girl and that family is at the forefront of Mormonism. He served a Mormon mission in Nebraska.⁠[1][2]

At Brigham Young University in Provo he and drummer Andrew Tolman recruited fellow students to form Imagine Dragons, which won the university’s Battle of the Bands in 2008; Wayne Sermon and Ben McKee later joined.⁠[3]

The band then moved to Las Vegas, played local clubs and recorded its self-titled EP (2009) and Hell and Silence (2010) at The Killers’ Battle Born Studios.⁠[3]

Reynolds recalled the band members sharing a tiny rented home in Las Vegas, and said one of their first goals was to become a global band.⁠[4]

He said the band met Tyler Robinson, a young fan with cancer, in early 2010, when it was still playing small clubs.⁠[1]

On March 5, 2011, Reynolds married Aja Volkman, the singer of the band Nico Vega.⁠[5]

In September 2012 Interscope Records announced that Imagine Dragons’ full-length debut Night Visions had entered the Billboard 200 at No. 2 with first-week sales of 83,213 copies; it was the first album released by producer Alex Da Kid’s imprint KIDinaKORNER, and its first single was It’s Time.⁠[6]

After Tyler Robinson died in 2013, the band and his parents launched the Tyler Robinson Foundation to help families bear the emotional and financial burden of children fighting cancer, offering support such as rental assistance and groceries; by December 2021 it had supported some 2,000 families, and that year’s Las Vegas fundraiser brought in more than $2.5 million.⁠[7]

In January 2014 Imagine Dragons won the Grammy for Best Rock Performance with Radioactive; the lineup at the time was Reynolds, Wayne Sermon, Ben McKee and Dan Platzman.⁠[8]

Radioactive peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and left the chart after 87 weeks, breaking the 76-week record of Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours to set the chart’s longest run.⁠[9]

The band’s second album, Smoke + Mirrors, was released on February 17, moved 195,000 units in the week ending February 22 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, the band’s first chart-topping album.⁠[10]

The album was released in 2015.⁠[11]

In May 2017 the band announced that its third album, Evolve, would be released on June 23 through KIDinaKORNER/Interscope, led by the single Believer; the announcement said Night Visions had sold more than 5 million copies worldwide.⁠[12]

Evolve debuted atop Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums charts with 147,000 equivalent album units; each of the band’s previous studio albums had also topped both charts.⁠[11]

The world tour that followed Evolve sold more than 1.7 million tickets; Thunder and Believer were among the hits of this period.⁠[4]

In August 2017 Reynolds staged the first LoveLoud Festival on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, with proceeds going to LGBTQ charities including Encircle and The Trevor Project; he said the concert was his idea, and at the time he still identified as Mormon.⁠[13][14]

That year he created the LoveLoud Foundation, which aims to spark a conversation about unconditional love and supports LGBTQ teens in Utah.⁠[15]

On January 20, 2018, Believer, a documentary about Reynolds wrestling with his faith and organizing the first LoveLoud festival, premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival; it was directed by Don Argott, and HBO Documentary Films had acquired it before the festival.⁠[16]

Produced by Live Nation Productions, the film debuted on HBO on June 25 and also tells the stories of LGBTQ Mormons and their families.⁠[17]

In July 2018 the second LoveLoud was held at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City.⁠[15]

It drew a crowd of more than 30,000 and raised $1 million for groups serving LGBTQ youth.⁠[18]

In October 2018 the band announced its fourth studio album, Origins, for release on November 9, including the alternative-radio No. 1 single Natural; the announcement said Evolve had been certified double-platinum within a year of its June 2017 release and that the band had more than 40 million monthly listeners on SpotifySpotifySpotify is an audio streaming subscription service offering on-demand music, podcasts, and audiobooks through a free ad-supported service and a paid Premium subscription. Its parent company, Spotify Technology S.A., is incorporated in Luxembourg, has its principal operations in Stockholm, Sweden, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker SPOT). It helped move the recorded-music business from buying and owning music to on-demand streaming and is one of the largest audio streaming subscription services by users.Open the full entry.⁠[19]

On June 29, 2019, the third LoveLoud was held at the USANA Amphitheatre in the Salt Lake City area, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots; performers included Kesha, Tegan and Sara and AJR.⁠[18]

That edition of LoveLoud awarded nearly $1 million in grants to local and national charities.⁠[20]

In June 2021 the band announced that Mercury – Act 1, executive-produced by Rick RubinRick RubinRick Rubin is an American music producer and record label founder. He built the hip-hop label Def Jam with Russell Simmons out of his New York University dorm room and in the 1980s produced records for LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Run-DMC, Slayer, and others; he went on to work across hip-hop, rock, metal, country, and pop with artists including Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Adele, served as co-head of Columbia Records from 2007 to 2013, and had won nine Grammy Awards as of 2022. In 2023 he published The Creative Act: A Way of Being, a book on creativity.Open the full entry, would be released on September 3 through KIDinaKORNER/Interscope, featuring songs including Follow You, Cutthroat and Wrecked; the band said the record explores love, faith, pain, passion and loss.⁠[21]

In October 2021, Enemy, a collaboration between Imagine Dragons and rapper J.I.D, was announced for Arcane, the animated series set in the League of Legends universe and produced by Riot Games with Fortiche Productions, which premiered on Netflix on November 6.⁠[22]

After a two-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, LoveLoud returned in 2022, and that edition resulted in $550,000 in grants.⁠[20]

He appeared on episode 290 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, whose description calls him the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, one of the most popular bands in the world; topics included programming, Las Vegas, spirituality, making music, a lesson from Rick Rubin, the song Believer, LGBTQ issues, religion and the meaning of life, and the episode ends with him singing.⁠[23]

On July 1, 2022, the band released the 32-track double album Mercury – Acts 1 & 2, executive-produced by Rick Rubin and including the singles Enemy, Bones and Sharks, and announced a US stadium tour beginning in August; the announcement said Enemy had 4.6 billion combined streams across two versions.⁠[24]

On September 16, 2022, Reynolds announced on Twitter that he and Aja Volkman had separated, saying that being great parents to their children was their top priority; the couple had also separated in 2018 and reunited the following year.⁠[25]

In April 2024 the band announced its sixth full-length album, Loom, for release on June 28, produced entirely by the band with longtime collaborators Mattman & Robin, and a North American tour opening July 30 in Camden, New Jersey; the announcement cited cumulative sales of 74 million album equivalents and more than 160 billion streams, and called the band the only one in history with four RIAA Diamond singles.⁠[26]

Loom was released in June 2024. Reynolds said he wrote the record when a lot of change was occurring in his life; drummer Daniel Platzman went on indefinite hiatus, leaving the band a trio, with original drummer Andrew Tolman filling in on tour. He has left the Mormon faith.⁠[27]

The world tour for Loom ran from North America to Asia, Europe and Latin America and ended in São Paulo, Brazil, on November 2, 2025; it grossed $249,345,624 and sold 2,189,366 tickets, placing the band No. 8 on Pollstar’s year-end top touring artists chart.⁠[28]

X: Public account: https://x.com/DanReynolds (opens in a new window)⁠[23]

Imagine Dragons: Official website: https://imaginedragonsmusic.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[23]