Imagine Dragons’ Lead Singer Dan Reynolds Interview

You’ve not done a full UK tour here since 2013, are you looking forward to coming back?

Oh absolutely! I love it there and it’ll be nice this time because now we kind of have a little more of a feel for the culture and what the people are like, so now it doesn’t feel like you’re new to it. It feels like you’re going back to your old friends house and be able to go and eat at the places you like to eat at and get some good Indian food! It’s a been great experience every time we’ve been there and I’m sure this will be no different.

Imagine Dragons have had a pretty whirl-wind journey with the UK because you started off playing in pubs and clubs with 200-300 cap venues. Now you’re coming back and playing two nights at the O2, one of the biggest arenas in Europe, how does it all feel? Or as you’ve been on the road since 2009, does it feel like a steady progression?
I mean, the truth is it feels like both. As much as that doesn’t make sense it really is what it is! It feels natural in the progression just in the sense that we’ve played the small rooms, and we’ve played the bigger rooms but we’ve just toured incessantly like non-stop. We watched the natural progression of venues, but it happened in a really short amount of time, so it still feels like a whirl-wind in the sense that ‘Wow we’re playing two night at The O2”, but I remember when we played at KoKo and tat feels like it was yesterday!

The main thing with you guys is you’ve always, even playing those small venues, it almost feel like you’re playing an arena every time because you’ve got such a big sound and it’s such a big show. What difference or progression have you seen between your stage show with the small shows and the bigger ones?
Yeah, you know it’s exactly that. I feel like we’ve never got on a stage and felt like, intimidated or like it’s going to be a new experience. I think just because, I don’t even think that it’s because we think we deserve to be on a stage like that. We have never felt like we deserve to have fans. It’s been a happy surprise! I think it’s just because we focus on the music so much, we get on stage and we just play the music and it is a big sound. We’re from Las Vegas, so it’s always been over the top and eccentric and big and larger than life. We always play our hearts out and try to give the best show we could and so it’s all really pretty natural.

One last question – fans in the UK who are potentially looking head down to the shows, what can they expect from the gig?
It’s definitely a very high-energy percussive show. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s so quirky. Imagine Dragons is such a strange entity in my head. When I try to even explain it to people I’m like, “well it’s like rock meets hip hop, meets pop meets like just this weird like smorgasbord of a bunch of different sounds and live shows and just this crazy percussive high and low… Oh man I don’t know how to describe that! I don’t know, I really don’t! You just have to experience and then you’ll be able to describe it better!

IMAGINE DRAGONS – SMOKE + MIRROR UK TOUR

04-Nov-15 London O2 Arena
05-Nov-15 London O2 Arena
06-Nov-15 Nottingham Arena
10-Nov-15 First Direct Arena (Leeds Arena)
11-Nov-15 Cardiff Arena
13-Nov-15 Manchester Arena
14-Nov-15 Newcastle Arena
15-Nov-15 Glasgow SSE Hydro
17-Nov-15 Belfast Odessey Arena
20-Nov-15 Birmingham Barclaycard Arena