People don’t really understand going on tour and what it’s like to have our band explode and just like be in the middle of that experience. I mean, we’ve been through everything together and we are the only people who can relate to the bizarre way that our life is. We are, I think, closer to each other at this point than we are with our families. “It’s brought us closer, absolutely,” McKee said. The stresses faced by McKee, Reynolds and bandmates Wayne Sermon (guitar) and Dan Platzman (drums), though, did have a benefit in one important respect. He hints at battling depression on “It Comes Back to You.” Reynolds also ponders success on “Gold,” questioning who and what he can trust “when everything turns to gold.” On some songs (“Hopeless Opus” and “Shot”), he shows considerable guilt, blaming himself for relationships damaged or lost. Reynolds, a former BYU student, has detailed some of his struggles in interviews - and the lyrics on the “Smoke + Mirrors” reflect the roller coaster ride of emotions that came with Imagine Dragons’ rise to arena-filling popularity.
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I think he got to go and be there for like the day before and the day after his child was born, and then he had to go and fly away for a weekend to do promo in Europe.” “He had, his (first) child was born right in the middle of everything going completely insane. “I think it was extra hard for Dan also having a kid and a wife,” McKee said. The band member, though, who probably struggled most with fame and life in a fast-rising rock group was singer Dan Reynolds. It makes you miss that sort of normal life that you crave, but you just don’t get when you’re on the road.” “It’s like keeping in contact with those people makes staying on the road so much harder. You kind of have to turn off the part of yourself that is a person and just get into the motion of the machine. I haven’t gotten to see my family as much. “Over the last few years of touring, there’s really been a detachment from the people who were my close friends. “It’s definitely been a struggle to keep any kind of connection to people,” he said in a mid-May phone interview. And while the success felt very rewarding, bassist Ben McKee said it also changed the lives of the band members in ways that were not so welcome or easy. Going from being virtually unknown to one of rock’s biggest bands in the space of just a couple of years was obviously quite the whirlwind. The band returns to Utah on Tuesday with a concert at EnergySolutions Arena.
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With its huge success, Imagine Dragons found themselves headlining arenas before the touring cycle for “Night Visions” was over and now the band is headlining one of the summer’s most anticipated tours. 1 upon its release in February (with first-week sales of 172,000 copies) and the singles “Shot” and “Bet My Life” have been top 10 rock hits. The band appears to be sustaining its success with its followup, “Smoke + Mirrors.” The album debuted at No. The band won Top Rock Album honors at the 2014 Billboard Music Awards, one of 14 nominations the band received from Billboard magazine. And as Imagine Dragons, which got its original start in Provo, continued to build momentum in 2014. With three multi-chart hit singles - “Radioactive” (which won a Grammy for Best Rock Performance), “It’s Time” and “Demons” - “Night Visions” became 2013’s fourth-best selling album. The Las Vegas-based group’s 2012 major label debut “Night Visions” caught on in a big way. In a time when rock bands have struggled to sell albums and get radio play, Imagine Dragons have quickly blasted into the forefront of the music scene.