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The following is a conversation with Dan Reynolds, the lead singer of Imagine Dragons, one of the most popular bands in the world with over 75 million records sold and with four songs being streamed over a billion times on Spotify.
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Given all that, Dan is one of the most down-to-earth, kind, thoughtful, and fascinating human beings I ve ever met, grounded in part by his lifelong struggle with mental health.
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The darkness, the love, and the creative brilliance are all there in this one humble mind.
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For this reason, and many others, we became fast friends.
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Plus, he recently started his journey in programming, which, funny enough, is where we start this wide-ranging, deeply personal, and fun conversation.
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And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor.
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Check them out in the description.
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Choose wisely, my friends.
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And now, on to the full ad reads.
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As always, no ads in the middle.
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I try to make them interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors.
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I enjoy their stuff.
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Maybe you will too.
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This show is brought to you by Brave, a fast, privacy-preserving browser that feels like Google Chrome, but without the ads or the various kinds of tracking that ads can do.
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I love using it more than any other browser, including my probably second favorite browser, Chrome.
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It does all the things that Chrome does, but better.
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Anyway, it s just so inspiring to me that Brett and Ike and all the other folks involved are able to innovate in this space.
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the history of technology, or at least the history of the internet is largely told through the battles of the way we access the internet.
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And there s been a couple of browser wars with Internet Explorer, Netscape, with Firefox and all those kinds of things.
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And the different HTML, CSS, JavaScript, all that kind of stuff that s operating through the browser to create the thing that we know and love called the internet.
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Now,
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The fact that there s new players in the game that can become super popular and can bring new innovations to the table is really exciting to me, and that s exactly what Brave does.
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They also have a bunch of other things, like the thing I do want to mention is Brave s search engine.
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They have that too.
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You should use it.
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It has a lot of other exciting benefits over the alternatives.
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All of this at brave.com slash Lex.
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This show is brought to you by Mizanin Maine, the maker of comfortable, stylish dress shirts and other menswear.
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I wear their black dress shirt and I love it.
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It combines comfort and flexibility of athletic wear with the fit and style of a custom dress shirt.
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It s lightweight, breathable, and moisture wicking.
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They have a bunch of...
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super cool looking styles that is almost too intense for me, because as you may or may not know, all I wear is either a white or a black dress shirt with a black tie.
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That s in terms of dressy, kind of stylish, classy wear, that s all I wear.
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And for that purpose, they have exactly the thing I go to, which is their black dress shirt.
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It feels kind of incredible.
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So first of all, look-wise, it looks like you would think a dress shirt looks like, but it fits your body well, or at least mine.
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It just feels right.
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And that s not a trivial thing to find, funny enough.
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Something you feel great in, something you feel both comfortable and just...
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feel badass in.
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Right now, if you go to MizInTheMain.com and use promo code Lex, you ll receive 35 bucks off any regular price order of $125 or more.
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It replaced the multivitamin for me and went far beyond that with 75 vitamins and minerals.
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It s the first thing I drink every day.
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I drink it twice a day now.
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After a long run, which is what I m about to go on, I ll come home, I ll mix an Athletic Greens AG1 drink, I ll put it in the freezer, jump in the shower, and by the time I m out, it s nice and chilled, which is just perfect, and I go to the zen place where I can think about how amazing life is, I can think about anything at all, or nothing at all, and most of the time it s nothing at all.
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the clarity of mind that comes after a long run, listening to audiobooks, or listening to brown noise, or just listening to nothing.
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It s a part of life that brings me joy, and most things in life bring me joy, but this is one of the intense constants of my joyful life.
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Anyway, they ll give you one month s supply of fish oil when you sign up to athleticgreens.com slash lax.
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This show is also brought to you by Indeed, a hiring website.
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I ve used them as part of many hiring efforts I ve done for the teams I ve led in the past.
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And quite honestly, some of the hardest things you do in life is with the people you work with.
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And for many of us, if our work is our passion, or at least some elements of our work is our passion, some of the most passionate hours of our life is spent with the people we work with.
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So we should find the right team, whether you re the person hiring,
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or you re the person being hired.
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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here s Dan Reynolds.
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So we were talking offline that you re not just getting into programming.
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What s the most beautiful program you ve ever written?
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Something that brought you joy?
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I really love completion.
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It s the reason that I m addicted to songwriting.
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I like there being nothing and then having some blocks or tools and building them into what you want it to look like.
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And then I find it incredibly rewarding to stand back and look at what you did at the end.
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It could be anything.
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For me, it was as simple to begin with as just, you know, because it s object-oriented.
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making a cube move, like as simple as that, understanding that and knowing that I built that and made it do that is really rewarding.
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And I think it s the thing that drew me into wanting to learn more.
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But as far as what is some grandiose, like some big piece of code that I ve done, like absolutely not.
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It s more, I m still at a level where it s more like, what is a tutorial that I followed and got, you know, and then, you know,
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Yeah, so I couldn t say I m at a level where I ve done anything beautiful at all in code.
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But you re also interested in potentially, like your heart is drawn to creating games.
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Creating anything.
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And completing it.
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Yeah.
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That s the good, the feel good is it s done.
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Yeah, I mean, I ve been working over the last two years with actually a team out of Kiev on, and we can get into that, it s a whole other story, but on a computer game.
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And really have kept that kind of under wraps, but yeah.
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Yeah, we re kind of getting to a point now where we have a prototype that we can play and it s a lot of fun and thankfully all the team members are in safe places now.
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Things have obviously been on hold for a little bit, but you know when that started is when I really decided, okay, I need to understand
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base level coding in C sharp.
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So I m not an idiot talking to these people.
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And so it s, you know, we ve been doing that for a couple of years.
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Is there any parallels between the final completion that you feel with programming, which I think is a little bit more definitive.
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Like there s debugging, the code doesn t work, it s messy and so on.
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There s the early design stages.
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You re not sure like how to have functions and classes, how it s all going to work.
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And then it comes together and it s really done because it works.
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And there s a cube moving in the screen.
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Is there any parallels between that and music?
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Because are you really ever done done with a song?
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It s exactly the same thing for me, just in that it s art.
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I really believe that we have not fully encapsulated artists.
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Like when we say art, I think most people think, okay, the medium must be painting or drawing or music or writing.
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But I really believe anytime you re creating something, engineers, for instance, you re creating something with tools that you have and it can be incredibly beautiful.
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And so yeah, I think, and it s never done.
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I feel like I look at songs that I ve done and I never felt
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you have to let go or I have to let go.
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And that s all I ve, I m just continually making myself let go.
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But I look at songs that I ve done and wish I had done more or kept going down that road and what would have happened.
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And I m really contained to because of what our band is and what our fans expect.
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And there s so much more to it that it s like,
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I m fitting in a box always.
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You know, it s like, this song shouldn t be longer than three minutes and 30 seconds.
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And I don t know if I remember the chorus after I heard it.
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Maybe I need to hear the chorus three times instead of those two times.
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It s like, there s certain, especially in pop music, it s really hard to...
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Yeah, it feels like there s confines, even though people are like, well, there s no confines, but still everybody s writing a pop song that s a few minutes.
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Are those explicit in your mind, or are they just kind of, the gut is, like you said, chorus.
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Should you have chorus once, twice, or three times?
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Is that a gut thing, or is that a rule thing?
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You know, I think it s a rule.
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I mean, it s obviously a rule I impose on myself.
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Nobody s nobody s in my house saying, hey, Dan, if you don t do this, I m going to punish you.
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There s no major label president that s like Imagine Dragons needs to make pop music, Dan.
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You know what I mean?
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My manager doesn t even tell me that.
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I do it because it s what I perceive to be enjoyable.
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I grew up listening to a ton of pop music, and then I ended up being in what is quote-unquote a rock band, which I ve never perceived it as that.
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That s kind of what the world has called it, and that s fine.
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So you re a prisoner of a prison that you yourself constructed.
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There you go.
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The confines are yours.
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I guess what I m trying to say is I m a happy prisoner of the prison that I have created for myself, and I made that prison thinking that it was a mansion.
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So you worked with Rick Rubin.
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What does Rick think about your prison?
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Rick was, you know, it was interesting to hear his outside opinion when we first met, because my biggest focus for so much of my life, my biggest fear was, and this stems from, I think, middle school is when it started, but everyone being in on a joke except for yourself.
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Like the thought of,
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Thinking you re good at something and really you re terrible at it and you re surrounded by people who are saying, yeah, you re good at it.
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And then by themselves, they re like, he s terrible at this.
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Just kind of, and not just in regards to music or art, but anything in life.
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And I think maybe from having six older brothers, it stems from that too, like always feeling
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inadequate and like the annoying younger brother.
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But anyway, so Rick s, and that s something I ve learned to let go of as I ve gotten older and had life experiences.
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But one of the things that Rick said really early on that has stuck with me was he said, yeah, we re resuming the first time we met.
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He said, I d really like to work with you because I feel like
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You don t, you re not confined to a sound.
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You ve done a lot of different sounds.
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And so it s exciting because I feel like your fans are forgiving more than other rock bands or bands because most people when they hear, you know,
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When they hear a band, it s like, there s a very specific sound with it.
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It s like, they do folk music, or they do like California rock, or they do surf, or they do, you know, like, there s, and your fans kind of want that.
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Like, they want them to do that thing, and then they don t do it.
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And sometimes that goes well, but a lot of times it doesn t.
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And people, you know, critics and everybody is like, go back to the thing that you did good and do that.
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Rick felt, whether he was right or wrong, that we hopped genres so much.
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And that s been to our benefit and detriment, I think.
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Why detriment?
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Because people want you to be something.
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It s more, you can believe it more.
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It s like... It s more authentic if you never change.
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I guess, I don t know.
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I mean, certainly it s not something I subscribe to because I create music, but I also grew up listening to a lot of different genres.
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I would listen to Cat Stevens,
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And the next song would be like Biggie.
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And then the next song would be Nirvana.
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And it was like, I like a lot of, and then Billy Joel and then Enya.
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It was like, you know what I mean?
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I was a product, and I was a product of the 90s, which if you listen to 90s music, it really was, a lot of reason that people say, well, 90s were terrible.
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Like a lot of people say that.
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I love the 90s, they re my favorite decade of music.
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Was there was a lot of,
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genre hopping.
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And I don t know, I love that.
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She had the 90s, had the boy bands, and it had Pearl Jam and Nirvana.
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And it had a lot of... Women of the 90s is probably my biggest influence.
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Kind of that angry rock women of the 90s, like Alanis Morissette.
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Jagged Little Pill is one of my favorite records of all time.
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The lyrics were so intimate, and I don t know if she was angry or not.
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Sorry if she wasn t.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but there was an anger to it.
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SPEAKER_00
There was angst.
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Yeah, it was like angstiness.
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And
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That and hip hop of the 90s influences me, and then my dad.
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So anything my dad listened to, which my dad didn t listen to any of that.
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SPEAKER_00
My dad listened to like Harry Nelson, The Beatles, Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Billy Joel.
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SPEAKER_00
It was very much like singer-songwriter.
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SPEAKER_01
Do you mind if we, throughout this, listen to a few songs?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because you mentioned hearing this, and I was actually, yesterday and the day before, listening to a lot of his stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s just like,
1
SPEAKER_01
Damn, he s good and not as known as He should be like I was getting uh, do you mind if I play?
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, please?
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t know Not to not to open this conversation with a love song.
1
SPEAKER_01
I would like that actually looks But without you is an incredible song oh man, that s yeah and the heartbreak in the in the longing and
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SPEAKER_00
What?
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SPEAKER_00
He s the best to do it, in my opinion.
1
SPEAKER_00
In my opinion, he s the best to do it.
1
SPEAKER_01
The vocal range.
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And just the sadness of, like... There s something... I don t even want to talk over him because this is one of my favorite songs too, but... I think people have a really good bullshit indicator.
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And music, in my opinion, whenever I meet a young artist and say, well, I m trying to make a new band and I want to do something like how to be successful, I really think understanding that people have a really good bullshit indicator is the most important part of being an artist.
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And I ll explain what that means, at least to me.
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I think that in order to have success or be a leader, or whether it s an art or anything, people need to believe that you believe what you re doing.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think the best actors, really when they re doing their thing, it s like they, it s not acting.
1
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in it and it s how they feel and they re expressing that sorrow or joy or whatever it is.
1
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Harry for me, Harry Nelson, I just believe it.
1
SPEAKER_00
He sings that and I feel it.
1
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And whether he s the greatest bullshitter of all time or I don t think that s the case, I think he probably was singing that song and he just could transport himself to wherever he was.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s what makes a great live act.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s what makes a great song.
1
SPEAKER_00
And someone could be the best actor and sing that in the same timbre, same EQ, same compression, same everything.
1
SPEAKER_00
And there s some unknown there that I, you know, I don t, I think hopefully it will be known at some point.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s some scientific thing, but there s something there that the energy or something that people can perceive it and say,
1
SPEAKER_00
True or false?
1
SPEAKER_00
And if it resonates as true, it s so much more meaningful and it lives on.
1
SPEAKER_00
And if it doesn t, that for me is what is good art or bad.
1
SPEAKER_00
For people to dispute over, well, sonics should sound like, that s silly to me.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a song or even a painting.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s just the truthfulness of it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the truly great art goes, has to go to that place where you really are feeling it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like you forget that you re being recorded.
1
SPEAKER_01
You forget there s an audience.
1
SPEAKER_01
You really are feeling it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, which I totally agree with you.
1
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One of the things that I love about the internet is it s brought the bullshit detector of the masses.
1
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to power, which is beautiful, because then the masses uplift the really authentic.
1
SPEAKER_01
And even if you didn t write the song, I think it helps a lot, probably, if you wrote the song.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I was a little bit, maybe a lot, since we re in Vegas, a little heartbroken to find out that Elvis didn t write his songs.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I like, for example, Rocketman by Elton John,
1
SPEAKER_01
Like to find out that Elton John didn t really know where the words of Rocketman came from, meaning like the depths of it, it s interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
But nevertheless, he s super authentic because for Elton John and for Elvis, there s something in the fun and the darkness and the entertainment of it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like he goes to someplace in his mind that might not be deeply connected from where the lyrics came from.
1
SPEAKER_01
But he relates it.
1
SPEAKER_01
He relates it to whatever is in his mind and goes to that place emotionally.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and that s what I think it is.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that s why an actor, like I said, can be completely honest to me.
1
SPEAKER_00
Maybe they didn t write the script, but I ve always written all my own lyrics.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a really personal thing to me.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I will say,
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I see people all the time who are performers like Elton John, for instance, who didn t write the lyrics that I believe that it means just as much to them as what I wrote, because they find the meaning in it for themselves.
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SPEAKER_00
At least the greats do, and I think that s the difference maker.
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And I think you can perceive, and I m sure you ve seen art that doesn t move you,
1
SPEAKER_00
And maybe it moves someone else.
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But for you, for some reason, you perceive it to be uninteresting to you.
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SPEAKER_00
And I feel like a lot of the time, I m saying that it s, of course, sonically, maybe it s uninteresting to you.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I think the majority of the time, for myself, I can find inspiration in any sonic value or painting as long as I see it and I feel truth from the person that created it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, but for me, the lyrics, maybe not the entirety of the lyrics, but a few words can do wonders to take you to a place.
1
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes those words don t need to be connected with the other words.
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That s the beauty of music.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re allowed to float in the space of mixed metaphors.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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They re allowed to just jump around, and somehow it paints a picture without actually
1
SPEAKER_01
What is it, glycerine by Bush?
1
SPEAKER_01
Right.
1
SPEAKER_00
But it s also how the person says it, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s the feeling of exactly, and the same person could say that word 10 other ways and you don t care, but someone says glycerine or whatever it is, and it s like,
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you know what, I feel that.
1
SPEAKER_00
The way he said that, he meant it to me.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
1
SPEAKER_01
No, I can t forget this evening or your face as you were leaving, but I guess that s just the way the story goes.
1
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You always smile, but in your eyes, your sorrow shows.
1
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Yes, it shows.
1
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Let me ask you to analyze this song.
1
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So there s a lady, possibly, who s leaving him.
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Do you think he s leaving her or she s leaving him?
1
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If you want to.
1
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When I think of all my sorrow, well, I had you there, but then I let you go.
1
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And the chorus is, I can t live if living is without you.
1
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Can t live, I can t give anymore.
1
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He s got a voice on him.
1
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Yeah, he does.
1
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And if you really, there s been some incredible documentation on his life and the end of his life.
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So my answer to this is probably skewed based on what I ve seen about his life too, but he was a real alcoholic at the end of his life and it destroyed his voice and ended up killing him as well.
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And so when I hear that, I perceive it as
1
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someone who is destructive and in a destructive place in life and can t love someone properly.
1
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And so they can t live with them, but they can t live without them type thing, which is really something that I really identify with and I think is
1
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One of the struggles of life is loving yourself enough, forgiving yourself for things, and letting yourself love someone else.
1
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And at least when I listen to Out of Your Hair, you re being like, and maybe I m wrong, but this is how I perceive it at least is.
1
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not loving himself and feeling like he s deserving of this person.
1
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Like, I have to let you go.
1
SPEAKER_00
I hear that, of course.
1
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And people always say, oh, well, he s breaking up with her.
1
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But there s so much more complexity and nuance to relationships than that.
1
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And my wife and I went through a really difficult separation.
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And that s a story for another day or a different question or something.
1
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But the nuance of it makes me think of this when I hear this, which is,
1
SPEAKER_00
There s just more to being with someone or not being with someone than, hey, I think that person s really attractive, or hey, that person makes me laugh or not, or I love them and now I don t love them.
1
SPEAKER_00
Love is such a complex, nuanced thing that a lot of times there s just more going on behind the scenes, I think.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, on a small tangent on that, just as a curious question, have you paid any attention to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trials?
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I have watched quite a bit of it, because my wife really loves it, and she watches it in bed at night.
1
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So it s raw, like to me it s really, because you ve mentioned how complicated love can be.
1
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And it s, I ve never seen, I don t care about the celebrity nature of it.
1
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I don t care if it was, I don t care who it is.
1
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But it s just laid out in such raw form.
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For the world to see it.
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For the world to see the toxicity, but also the passion and the clearly sort of the drugs and the drinking, but also like the longing and the dreams and I will always be with you, I will die for you.
1
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the places, the rollercoaster of love, and it s all there.
1
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at the end, past the end.
1
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So it s like, I ve also recently reread The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich about Hitler and Nazi Germany.
1
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It s the rise and the fall.
1
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And it s interesting to look at the entirety of that process after it s all over, many, many decades after it s all over.
1
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That book in particular written by the person that was actually there.
1
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And so here we re seeing two people in the context of the courtroom analyzing this rise and fall of a love affair.
1
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It s fascinating.
1
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You know, the truth is, I was telling my wife this actually just the other day, because she was asking me what I thought about it.
1
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It makes me really sad.
1
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It s humorous, don t get me wrong.
1
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There s a lot of parts in it that are just really funny.
1
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But I look at it and I also see the internet.
1
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Someone s always the villain and someone s the hero, which is such a funny thing.
1
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And we talked a little about this offline before we got on this, but I have a real firm belief in life that
1
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it s just more complex than you think, always, always.
1
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And Johnny, for instance, is very charismatic, and you love him, and he s funny, and the way he does things, and he looks certain ways, and he says things.
1
SPEAKER_00
He s just, you really love him, and I feel like, and maybe I m wrong on this, but it looks like the internet has really been like, Johnny is the winner, Amber is the villain, and I kinda look at it, yeah, and I kinda look at it, and I feel like,
1
SPEAKER_00
Were any of you in their bedroom?
1
SPEAKER_00
Were any of you there for these things?
1
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And I m not saying one way or the other.
1
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All I see when I look at that is two people with a lot of deep-seated hurt, anger, and that anger is so poisonous to both of them, and they re getting through it in the way that they only know how.
1
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I m not saying we shouldn t be able to look at parts of it and laugh about it and stuff and be virtuous or something.
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Just that there s not a hero.
1
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It s more complicated.
1
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Yeah.
1
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I think unless you ve been living with Amber and Johnny, you don t know.
1
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And just because one seems more charismatic in the moment or funnier or more believable even, doesn t mean that their truth is the truth.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like there s still love there too, which makes.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s the hardest part.
1
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He won t even look at her.
1
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He looks down the whole time.
1
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And maybe people say, well, it s cause anger or hurt or whatever.
1
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But the way that she looks and stuff, it feels, it just feels like there s so much hurt there that it hurts me to watch it.
1
SPEAKER_00
I just feel like, oh, my heart just like aches for them and for both of them.
1
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And I don t know either of them personally.
1
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And you know, I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve never seen sort of love laid out in this raw kind of way.
1
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It makes me feel better about
1
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Like it almost gives you, seeing people have gone through a struggle in this sort of mundane kind of way, gives you room to struggle yourself about the messiness of love.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like you re supposed to, like relationship is supposed to be simple and whatever, but this like, oh man, this- It s like art.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
1
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And for the record, I don t feel like it shouldn t be shown.
1
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I think it s actually really beautiful art, and I agree there s gonna be a lot of people who walk away from it and are changed in certain ways or look at things different.
1
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I m not saying it s changing the whole world, the Johnny Depp trial, but it s art.
1
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It s just like you would look at a painting and it might affect you.
1
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My only commentary is more that
1
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There s not, I think it s silly when people say who s right and who s wrong and who s the clear villain and who s the, like we love as humans, we have to have an answer for everything.
1
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We have to put everything in a box.
1
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And it s like, well, we re looking at this and we re deciding you re right and you re wrong.
1
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And I just think it s silly unless it s your life.
1
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So speaking of heroes and villains and highs and lows, you grew up in Las Vegas and you said that Vegas is a performing town, a town of high stakes, drama and eccentricity.
1
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It s a town of high highs and low lows.
1
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And I ll be damned if my therapist didn t point that correlation out to me personally a long time ago.
1
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So to me, Vegas, from the outside, is romanticized by certain movies.
1
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The lows define the beauty of this town.
1
SPEAKER_01
And certain movies, so to me, Casino,
1
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It was Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Sharon Stone leaving Las Vegas with Nicolas Cage here in Lothing, Las Vegas with the Johnny Depp play, Hunter Thompson.
1
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First of all, what s your favorite representation of Vegas from a darker side?
1
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And do you draw any wisdom insight from the darkness, the lows and the highs in those movies?
1
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Or is it over romanticized?
1
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So I grew up in a really conservative Mormon family and Vegas was established by the Mormons and the mob.
1
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Those were like the two very different worlds that created what Vegas is.
1
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And if you live in Vegas, it really shows in a lot of ways because Vegas has
1
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the strip and the parties and the craziness, but it also has very like neighborhoods and big families and conservative people and liberal people living together in a really interesting way.
1
SPEAKER_00
And for me, growing up here, for instance, was a lot of like driving on the freeway.
1
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My mom being like, children, close your eyes.
1
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There s a naked woman on that billboard and everything.
1
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Okay, mom.
1
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on our way to church, you know what I mean?
1
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It was like, but also being like, whoa, this is crazy.
1
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This is, you know what I mean?
1
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Like taking in whatever I could when I could.
1
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So I saw, and I m grateful for that.
1
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Like, I really love that I didn t grow up as a Mormon in, for instance, like Utah or something, like the typical place, because I saw both sides and I appreciated something from both sides.
2
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and now who s not religious but just spiritually minded.
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I m grateful for that divergent character, that juxtaposition, dual-edged sword that Vegas is, and I try to apply that to everything in life, which is like Johnny Depp and Amber.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like there s two sides to every story.
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There s always two sides to every coin, and there s something to be said for both.
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SPEAKER_00
I try to see people.
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Yeah, I try to apply that to life.
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As far as a movie that personifies Vegas or something in that medium that personifies Vegas in a way that resonates with me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Don t say Hangover.
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No, no, yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
I also, like, I wasn t even allowed to watch PG-13 movies growing up.
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SPEAKER_00
So a lot of the movies that you re saying, like, I either didn t see, I didn t have cable television, you know, I wasn t like a pilgrim, but I had a really, really conservative upbringing.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it didn t define your intellectual, like, development?
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SPEAKER_00
No, no, I just, I can t think of any movie that comes to mind where I m like, that s my Vegas movie.
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SPEAKER_00
You know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_00
Like, I m sure, I ve seen some of the movies you ve said now, but I don t,
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I can t think of one that I m like...
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actually personifies Vegas in a way that feels honest to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wasn t there a Chevy Chase?
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SPEAKER_00
Was there a Chevy Chase?
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SPEAKER_00
I think that s maybe the only one I thought of that came to mind where I was like, because I love Chevy Chase so much that maybe it s one of his Vegas vacation or something.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but that s more like lighthearted, absurd, that kind of stuff.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, it s not like, I guess what I would say is there s no truth that I ve seen of Vegas.
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SPEAKER_00
Because what I see of Vegas is,
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SPEAKER_00
There s obviously the parties and stuff and the nightlife, which I m not a big party person, so I haven t really experienced much of that.
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But there s also drugs, and I have a strange relationship with drugs.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve lost a few friends to drug overdoses, and so that s not romantic to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean you asked for a dark reflection of it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I guess I certainly see a dark reflection to Vegas and I don t – I feel like Vegas is typically personified as like at the tables and there is this but it s also like…
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SPEAKER_00
I have friends who ve lost all their money to gambling addiction.
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SPEAKER_00
And so it s like, what I guess- The dark underbelly to the whole thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, somebody maybe needs to make, maybe that s an open spot.
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SPEAKER_00
There needs to be a dark side to Vegas.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s about Mormons in Vegas dying of drug overdose or getting shot by the mob.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you mentioned your spirituality.
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You ve said that having a crisis of faith, or just the philosophical question of asking who is God, does God exist?
2
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Or in thinking of the flip side of that, of mortality, what happens when we die?
2
SPEAKER_01
Those kinds of things were extremely difficult, deep,
2
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things for you in terms of your development, the whole process of figuring that out.
2
SPEAKER_01
Why does it hurt so much to lose faith in God?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I would say that the seeking of God, let s say that.
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is an obsession for me and has been since I was young.
2
SPEAKER_00
I really feel that I m a deep, deep, deeply committed to finding answers in life.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there s some answers that I don t think there s an answer to.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m also very OCD by nature, so I just don t give up to that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like, well, there must be somewhere in Tibet, there s some teacher or there s somebody out there that has the answer.
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SPEAKER_00
or maybe it s yet to be found, I m going to find it.
2
SPEAKER_00
My life has been, to date, probably unhealthily committed to finding answers about God or the lack thereof and mortality.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s all I sing about.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s all our records have been about.
2
SPEAKER_00
Who do you think is God?
2
SPEAKER_00
Have you ever gotten a glimpse?
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, I will say the closest I feel like I have been to experiencing God is, and this sounds so
2
SPEAKER_00
Maybe, I don t know, I don t know how it sounds, but it s through ayahuasca for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s my honest answer for you.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel like I had pretty much given up all hope of there being anything greater than, you know, us being, you know, evolving and being here and then dying and you re gone and that s it and nothingness and from nothingness we came and nothingness we go.
2
SPEAKER_00
To where I am now, which is there are answers to be found.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know them.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, I don t know what God looks like or if God is anything to do with the word God in the way that we say it.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I do believe pretty fervently that there is more to be found.
2
SPEAKER_00
Is it motion sensor or no?
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know what that was.
2
SPEAKER_00
Looked like they have all died actually.
2
SPEAKER_00
Chinese problem.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah
2
SPEAKER_01
How many people does it take to, what is it, unscrew a light bulb?
2
SPEAKER_00
A light bulb.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was hot, too.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was doing the two-finger technique.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m glad you survived that.
2
SPEAKER_01
Thanks.
2
SPEAKER_01
That d be pretty ironic if we were talking about mortality and then this would be it for you.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve never done ayahuasca, so it s a mixture of two plants.
2
SPEAKER_01
One of them is DMT, but a lot of people I really respect, very, very intelligent people,
2
SPEAKER_01
had profound experiences with ayahuasca.
2
SPEAKER_01
What is that?
2
SPEAKER_01
Where do you go?
2
SPEAKER_01
Where does the mind go?
2
SPEAKER_01
What the heck is up with that?
2
SPEAKER_00
I ll first say that I can t even smoke weed.
2
SPEAKER_00
I really do not enjoy it because I hate to let go of control.
2
SPEAKER_00
If I feel out of control in life, it s one of my biggest weaknesses.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s very scary for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And some people really enjoy letting go in that way.
2
SPEAKER_00
I really don t.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I was pretty terrified to make the jump then to ayahuasca.
2
SPEAKER_00
But my wife, who I deeply respect, made a profound change through ayahuasca.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I saw it.
2
SPEAKER_00
She led the way.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it wasn t a strange, like, I think most, we have a thing in America that s like a misconception, a stigma on psychedelics where, you know, it s like, it s a drug and it makes some people crazy.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then you re going to be on the street and you re going to be out of your mind or you re going to become like,
2
SPEAKER_00
you know, a crazy person, basically.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think I really bought into that notion because, again, I was raised, I wasn t even raised with cable TV, you know what I mean?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, ayahuasca is very, like, I didn t, you know, you can imagine what that was like for a Mormon kid.
2
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know anything about it and never touched drugs at all and never even touched a cigarette, you know?
2
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, so I think we have this misconception about it where Americans are quick to go to their doctor and take,
2
SPEAKER_00
any medication or drug, but, you know, whoa, when it comes to like psychedelics.
2
SPEAKER_00
Anyway, that being said, so I had that trepidation going into it, but I really love and respect my wife and I saw it make a profound impact in her life where she suddenly was able to,
2
SPEAKER_00
heal from a lot of trauma that she had.
2
SPEAKER_00
She went through a lot in her life and it really helped her heal.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it also set her in a new path spiritually that seemed really like a place that I wanted to be.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I did it, and I did it twice.
2
SPEAKER_00
The first time it didn t really have an effect on me, which happens to a lot of people, I guess.
2
SPEAKER_00
I drank this little thing, and there was this shaman who came over from overseas that had been in the plant world for decades and was a really incredible
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t even know if he likes to be called shaman, but... So it s supposed to be like 30, 60 minutes to take effect and a few hours, the journey lasts... About four hours.
2
SPEAKER_00
Four hours.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so the second time I took it, I took it in, I would say, 20, 30 minutes in, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
I started to feel like...
2
SPEAKER_00
I was like the dimension of what is reality.
2
SPEAKER_00
The curtain was pulled open and there was a lot more to discover.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it really blew my mind in a way that I think it would probably blow anybody s mind if, for instance, God descended or some Christian God or whatever it is.
2
SPEAKER_00
We all think it d be this beautiful thing, but in reality it would probably make people super fearful and think that they ve lost their mind.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve always joked that if the Mormon God came down and told my mom, like,
2
SPEAKER_00
If God himself came down and told my mom, Mormonism is incorrect, she would say, Satan.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think our minds are just not prepared for a lot of anything that s really extreme, and it was very extreme.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was like the curtain of life was cut open, which scared me, but then I felt very much, and a lot of people that I ve talked to have a similar thing where I felt very much like I was either communicating with
2
SPEAKER_00
something that was perceived as God to me, or highest sense of self, or mind, or Mother Earth, or you know, it s called so many different names, but it s really, it s very, a lot of people have a very spiritual, similar experience with ayahuasca.
2
SPEAKER_00
And just in that it s like this kind of profoundness.
2
SPEAKER_00
It wasn t like, there was nothing, at least for me, that felt like just like psychedelic, funny cartoons or something.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was like, I m about to go on a journey and I m communicating with something that feels incredibly wise.
2
SPEAKER_00
Showed me a lot of things in my life, kind of almost like from a bird s eye, almost like I was looking through a video camera at a younger me.
2
SPEAKER_00
There was a particular thing that it communicated to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I really have a hard time with accepting success and not feeling undeserving or something.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can t quite put it into words, but of my position and what I ve been given, I ve been given so much.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it showed me this thing from when I was young and explained to me why I am where I am now.
2
SPEAKER_00
And to this day, it did not feel like myself telling myself that.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s the only way I can explain it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there was a lot more that it showed me and that was incredibly healing for me.
2
SPEAKER_00
But just to put it into a short thing, because there s so much to this.
2
SPEAKER_00
I walked away feeling very convinced that there is more to be known for sure.
2
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of my deep things that were traumatic for me didn t feel traumatic anymore, specifically crisis of faith.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was very angry at my parents and my community for raising me in what I perceived to be
2
SPEAKER_00
falsehoods.
2
SPEAKER_00
I felt like the bedrock of everything I believed was ripped out for me in my 20s, and then it was like, good luck in life.
2
SPEAKER_00
But really, my parents had given me everything that they could, and they believed that very much so still.
2
SPEAKER_00
But a naive young me was angry and felt like they had been duped, and thus I had been duped.
2
SPEAKER_00
But Ayahuasca really showed me this roadmap of, like, this is truth, and you re concerning yourself about a grain of sand, which is Mormonism or whatever it is.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there may be some truths in that tiny grain of sand, and there may be falsities.
2
SPEAKER_00
But so is all these other grains of sand.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, focus on the truth.
2
SPEAKER_00
Stop focusing on these little details that are meaningless, and forgive and let go of people believing in those things to begin with.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if that makes sense, but that was like the core thing I was taught and to let go of control, stop needing to control everything.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it felt like the wisdom was coming from elsewhere.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like it s really, I do not believe, at least in my current self, I don t have that, the mindfulness that I believe that exists in me to, to reach a lot of the conclusions that I did.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there was a lot more to it that would be for like a late night conversation with you, but it s so hard to put it into,
2
SPEAKER_00
You feel like a crazy person.
2
SPEAKER_00
At least any time I talk about ayahuasca to someone who hasn t done it, I m like, I don t even know where to begin.
2
SPEAKER_00
How do you explain to someone that you felt like a multiple dimension type thing happened in a way that, putting it into words.
2
SPEAKER_00
And none of it was words, by the way, that was communicated to me.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was like, you know how people talk about telepathy, and if it existed it would be like,
2
SPEAKER_00
I could communicate to you in such a deeper way.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m so confined by me having to articulate these words and put them in a sentence to you, Lex, and then tell you, like, if only I could just be like... Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And emotions do that sometimes, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You could see my emotions and be like, oh, that communicates a lot.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that s what it felt like to me with ayahuasca is it felt like...
2
SPEAKER_00
It was communicating to me very clear things, but it wasn t like, Daniel, it s me, Mother Earth.
2
SPEAKER_00
Let me relax, sit back, let me show you.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it was very clear to me what was being said.
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And no, it did not feel like me, but maybe smarter people than me who ve done it would say, well, it was you, and blah, blah, blah.
2
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I don t know, but it was very convincing.
2
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There s a lot of stuff in that subconscious that
2
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we haven t explored, like we haven t explored the depths of the ocean.
2
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We haven t really figured out what s that, the younging shadow, what s going on underneath the surface of our conscious mind.
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And what is that connecting to?
2
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Is that just inside our mind or is it some kind of, is there some kind of collective intelligence going on where all humans are connected to one kind of,
2
SPEAKER_01
a greater organism, like what is consciousness?
2
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We have a lot of hubris in thinking we understand any of it, like how the mind works at all, like what is it, like where, what is the origin of consciousness?
2
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What is the origin of intelligence?
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There s a lot of hubris about this.
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We give each other PhDs and Nobel Prizes and congratulate ourselves as if we figured it all out.
2
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but humility is helpful here.
2
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Nevertheless, that is the question that humans have been asking for ever since humans were humans, which is the question of mortality, the question of God.
2
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So whether it s Hamlet to be or not to be, I think that s the hardest and most important question.
2
SPEAKER_01
Albert Camus asked, why live?
2
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So in terms of crisis of faith, in terms of your search for truth, in terms of some of the dark places you ve gone in your mind, what s a good answer to this question?
2
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So for Camus with myth of Sisyphus, it was the question of suicide.
2
SPEAKER_01
is what s the purpose?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, what s a good answer to why I keep going?
2
SPEAKER_01
Especially when you re struggling, especially when you re not, when you re feeling hopeless, when you re feeling like a burden, in this search for truth, where you feel like you re surrounded by lies, what s a good answer to why I live?
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I think- You have a final one?
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Well, it s just the simple answer right now is to say for, it s very easy once you have kids to say, the right answer is you just, of course you brought these kids into the world.
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So you have a responsibility that I feel deeply as a father to them to always be there for as long as I humanly can and to take care of them and protect them.
2
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It s the most innate sense in me.
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It s wired in my animal existence.
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So if I take that away, right, because that s kind of cheating.
3
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Let s put that aside because it is cheating.
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It s cheating.
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There s still some fundamental way in which you re alone.
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Yeah, and to that, that actually has been a real struggle for me for many years.
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I had a real turning point early in my career where
3
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We were flying somewhere overseas and we re in a really small plane and the lights went out and like all these red lights were flashing and the plane just started to dive.
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completely like scariest plane experience I ve ever been in.
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My manager was next to me, who s my brother.
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He was crying and texting his wife a goodbye.
3
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That s how like crazy this moment was.
3
SPEAKER_01
Was it real, like genuine death?
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Genuine, like genuine engine went out, plane is going down, pilots looking like crazy in the front.
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And it was a really tiny jet.
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And like I said, my brother next to me crying, typing a text to his wife, really, really scary.
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And I felt nothing.
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I genuinely sat there and I was like, this might actually be nice.
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Like I really felt like this goes down and like,
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Oh man, life sucks and it s hard.
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And that sounds so ridiculous, I know, to say, because I, again, I m in a different place now, and I see my life for what it is.
3
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But at that moment, I did not.
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So life was primarily defined by suffering, it was a burden.
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It was, I felt, I was incredibly depressed.
3
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I had been trying different medications since I was young, and I just had not found anything that was working for me.
3
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And then I was in a faith crisis, lost all my faith.
3
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started a band that just became, I wasn t ever thinking that this band, I was like, when you call your band Imagine Dragons, you re not thinking that band s gonna be big, okay?
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It was like, I was like, this was like a side project that was fun for me.
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It was like art in college.
3
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I was in school and I was like, man, I hate this biology class.
3
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I m gonna write down band names.
3
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Like, you know what I mean?
3
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Like, it was not, hey, put everything aside,
3
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this is my career, let s go.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like it just, it happened.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I m an introvert by nature.
3
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I m really not an extroverted person who likes to go out and like, I like to be at home with a couple friends and have a late night conversation over good food.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like that to me is a perfect night.
3
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Read a good book, listen to a podcast, go on a walk.
3
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You know, those are things that I really, really enjoy.
3
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And suddenly I m in this life where I m like supposed to be something that I really don t wanna be.
3
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except for on stage, which is a really fast and strange thing to me, which is on stage I feel so free and exuberant and like an extrovert.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I come off and I just feel like shriveled back into a shell.
3
SPEAKER_01
Music does that for me and performing on a stage does that for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can we take a small tangent on that?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, of course.
3
SPEAKER_00
What s the high
3
SPEAKER_00
Can we go through that, the introvert that wants to cuddle up and read a book, you re the front man of one of the, if not the biggest rock bands today, playing in front of huge crowds.
3
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What s the high of that and how can you land back on earth?
3
SPEAKER_01
The high of it
3
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It s incredibly beautiful to walk on a stage, sing these songs that you wrote, and see it resonate with people around you and sing with them.
3
SPEAKER_01
Different cultures, different places.
3
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celebrate life, it s suddenly the world seems like a fantastic place.
3
SPEAKER_01
It feels like we re all on the same team.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like one big hug.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like everybody in that room gets it and they all like, it just, it feels like what you want the world to be, which is just like this coexisting unit of people.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s not even about like,
3
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You know, I just it s incredible.
3
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It s for sure.
3
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It s incredible and I love it and I wouldn t do it unless I loved it and Then you walk off stage and you turn on the news and it s like you see, you know We re all against each other.
3
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Everybody hates each other and if it feels that way in the world, so music really That s why live music is so important to people That s why music is so important to people because even if it s just you and that person that wrote the song you re listening to it and the two of you feel connected and
3
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You know, it s like you re hearing Tracy Chapman sing like Fast Car or something.
3
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You re just like, oh my gosh, like, yes, I get it.
3
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And you feel connected to that person.
3
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You don t feel alone.
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So that s the high of it for sure.
3
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And then you get off stage and then, you know, as my, like my uncle s a heart surgeon, incredible heart surgeon who like writes the book, like he s like the guy that the heart surgeons talk to.
3
SPEAKER_01
He s out of Nashville, Tennessee.
3
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He s just incredible genius, man.
3
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He, um,
3
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always worries and always reached out to me.
3
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He s like, musicians die all the time.
3
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The reason they die, you know, is because you re getting on stage and your heart s doing this and your cortisone levels are doing this.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re getting off stage and then you re just doing this.
3
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And it s a really real thing.
3
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Like you get off stage and you feel like you need drugs because you re like, I, the world feels like, Oh, incredibly daunting.
3
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And it s also, I m sure it has to do with like some, some like health things in your heart and the cortisone levels that are so crazy.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you come off and it s like,
3
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I know people are like, well, then nothing s enough except meth.
3
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Nothing s enough except heroin.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s why a lot of artists turn to that stuff.
3
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And I don t say it in a preachy way.
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I ve struggled with drug abuse in my life.
3
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And I really, I understand why artists turn to it.
3
SPEAKER_00
But also the fact that you re an introvert.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the other side of it, the fame, that s something that you also said is a double-edged sword for you.
3
SPEAKER_00
The interesting thing about fame, as you also mentioned, is it s something you can t take back.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s a thing, you can t just go on vacation to Hawaii and just consider do I like it or not.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, you re staying in Hawaii for the rest of your life and you ve never been there before, whether you like it or not.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what s that like being loved by millions and millions and millions of people?
3
SPEAKER_00
which is perhaps the best kind of fame in terms of you have to choose the kinds of fames there are.
3
SPEAKER_00
And still being an introvert and all that kind of stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do you feel alone, more alone being famous?
3
SPEAKER_01
Is there a loneliness to it?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, it s such a funny thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay, if you had asked, if we were having this conversation a couple years ago, I d be incredibly guarded about this because
3
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The last thing I want to ever do is sound ungrateful or unaware of how much I have.
3
SPEAKER_01
And woe is the famous celebrity with money.
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, is your life hard?
3
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Is it really telling me about how hard it is?
3
SPEAKER_01
But I m also at a place in life now where I just like, I m gonna always just speak my truth because that s the only reason I m here is I m here to speak my truth to you.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I m gonna tell you my truth, whether it s whatever it is.
3
SPEAKER_00
But you re human and feelings are real.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so, that s the interesting thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
You win a lottery, what s that gonna feel like?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not about complaining, oh, it s so hard to win a lottery because you get a lot of money.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, it s still, you re human.
3
SPEAKER_00
You get to experience these feelings.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s fascinating.
3
SPEAKER_00
You put humans in different situations.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s also fascinating because a lot of people think, well, I would like to be famous.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s a big thing now on social media, on Instagram and so on.
3
SPEAKER_00
or rich or famous, and then it s very interesting to think, all right, well, once you arrive, are all the problems solved?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, yeah, so I will tell you, according to me, what the pitfalls are, whether it s true or not, and there are certainly some pitfalls.
3
SPEAKER_01
One, it s once you re there, you can t go back.
3
SPEAKER_01
Whatever, maybe that s fine, because maybe you love it.
3
SPEAKER_01
But the real pitfall for me is that
3
SPEAKER_01
You re now, you re Lex, and you re what everybody s perception is that Lex is, and that s what you are.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now, Lex is probably a lot more complex and complicated and has a lot more to Lex than the Lex that is the celebrity.
3
SPEAKER_01
So, but anybody who meets you, that s who you are to them.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you may not feel this way, but you may feel confined to actually have to be that person to that person.
3
SPEAKER_01
Early in my career, for a long time, anytime I met someone, I suddenly felt like I had to be Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons anytime I met someone, including my family now, who are also like, whoa, this is crazy.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re like Dan Reynolds from Imagine Dragons.
3
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And I wanted to just be the goofball that I have been my whole life.
3
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with my brothers and family, but suddenly I found myself feeling like, no, I have to be this.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, cause that s who, that s who this is.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you re almost like playing a role.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s like, I ve heard a lot of actors talk about this, where they ll take on a role and then it s like, they feel like they have to, they like become that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s a really scary thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And like, you alter who you are almost to fit the notion of other people.
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause especially if a lot of artists are empaths,
3
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A lot of people who get into art in a deep way are empaths, and so you feel a lot of what people are feeling, and you re never wanting to burden people, and you re always wanting to deliver to that person what they want.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like people-pleasing.
3
SPEAKER_01
It goes hand-in-hand with a lot of...
3
SPEAKER_01
these famous people and they get to where they were because they know how to do that.
3
SPEAKER_01
They know how to be in a room with someone and look them in the eye and make them feel like they re the only person in the room.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then now they got that role in that movie because they sat with the casting director and they were like, oh, you re so funny.
3
SPEAKER_01
Anybody put on the charisma, do it all.
3
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, I m going on a different tangent here, but long story short, there s a lot of things that are really unhealthy about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then a lot of people who want the fame, and the second it starts to go away, then they re like, who am I anymore?
3
SPEAKER_01
That was everything, and now I m on the down, and now I m not a famous person anymore, and now I hate myself.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now I m gonna do drugs, and it s like this vicious cycle.
3
SPEAKER_01
You could never be famous enough.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re always gonna get, there s just so much to it that I ve just, and again,
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve lost friends in this career to that, for sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s a certain element to sort of just on the losing fame.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve interacted with a lot of folks, especially young folks, like on YouTube.
3
SPEAKER_00
So fame is a thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
that has levels, you re always trying to be a little more famous.
3
SPEAKER_00
A lot of folks who are chasing fame, it doesn t matter how famous you are, you re always trying to chase more.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when you start to lose it, interesting things can happen if you re not self-aware, which is like, like you mentioned, you might be trying to grasp back
3
SPEAKER_00
where you were by leaning into the formula that got you there.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so the constraints of the image that you mentioned becomes the thing that you re now trying to lean into.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s actually walking away from who you really are.
3
SPEAKER_00
You lean further into being that person.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s true for acting, that s true for, even on YouTube, which is people acting, they have a role, they got them to the table somehow.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s dark, but I think those are, that s just put for everybody to see, but that s a very human struggle, even when you re not famous, of finding yourself, of being yourself, of not letting, not doing the people pleasing at any scale.
3
SPEAKER_00
And being trapped by that.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and also feeling like it s never enough.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think that s something all, like,
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not just a famous thing, but it s like everybody deals with feeling like, when I m here, I ll be happy.
3
SPEAKER_01
When I get that job, I ll be happy.
3
SPEAKER_01
When I have that money, then I ll be happy.
3
SPEAKER_01
When I get that surgery and my nose looks like this, I will be happy then.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like a constant chase of happiness instead of,
3
SPEAKER_01
happiness.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like the opposite.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s opposite of self-love.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s the opposite of happiness.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s no presence to it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re never going to find it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re never going to arrive, and you re just going to live your life, and then you re going to be on your deathbed and be like, I was chasing the wrong thing my whole life.
3
SPEAKER_00
I should say that podcasts are interesting in that way.
3
SPEAKER_00
So for me personally, because you just talk a lot, you can t, people that meet you, they know you and they know the evolution of you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s the same thing for like you right now, Dan of Imagine Dragons, just being on a podcast, like long form reveals a side that liberates you more to be yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
People see, oh, there s a human.
3
SPEAKER_00
They, cause they, you know, music, they have a deep connection with you.
3
SPEAKER_00
They have experiences with you the way they experienced it.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s who you are with them through the songs.
3
SPEAKER_00
But now you get to see, oh, that s a, that s a, there s a human being.
3
SPEAKER_00
He probably gets angry.
3
SPEAKER_00
He gets sad.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s excited.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s hopeful.
3
SPEAKER_00
And there s a core, there s a good human being, but the whole rollercoaster of emotions is all there.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s a giant, beautiful mess.
3
SPEAKER_00
And podcasts reveal that.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s why I love podcasts, like long form.
3
SPEAKER_00
You get to hear some artists and actors and so on.
3
SPEAKER_00
And some of them, you get to see, oh, you ve lost yourself in the,
3
SPEAKER_00
in the surface, that s a tragedy with some actors, some great actors.
3
SPEAKER_00
They ve left so much of themselves in the roles they ve played that they can no longer be the thing they were before those great roles.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s for sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s hard to see.
3
SPEAKER_00
You get to see that with Johnny Depp with, I don t know, Pirates.
3
SPEAKER_00
He was talking about that with Pirates of the Caribbean.
3
SPEAKER_00
That was a shift.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, he s not that guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s forever that guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
But the point is to remember that you re not, and to your family, which is interesting you said with your family.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I see people close to me, they also, there is an element like that while you re that, they start treating you like the famous person.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I m fortunate to have my manager, who s my brother, my older brother, and my lawyer is my other older brother.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that s been helpful because it s weird.
3
SPEAKER_01
It gets weird with everyone no matter what.
3
SPEAKER_01
One of the best advice I was given was by…
3
SPEAKER_01
Charlie Sheen.
3
SPEAKER_01
You got advice from Charlie Sheen?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we were playing... The wise sage of our generation.
3
SPEAKER_01
The wise sage, Charlie Sheen.
3
SPEAKER_01
But it was, it was really wise.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was sitting next to him and we were playing some late night television and he said, this was right at the beginning, and he just said, boys, just mark my words, your life is about to get really weird.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s all he said.
3
SPEAKER_01
But it stuck with me forever and it s Charlie Sheen, so of course it sticks with you.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I remember being like, right, okay, Charlie Sheen, I m not Charlie Sheen, it s not gonna get weird.
3
SPEAKER_01
But it got really, really weird, really quick, because suddenly you ve existed your whole life in this way where everybody just, everything you get, you achieved, it was because you got it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And every conversation you had, if someone liked you at the end of that conversation, well, it s because they liked you.
3
SPEAKER_01
If they didn t like you, it s because they didn t like you.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you can make complete peace with that.
3
SPEAKER_01
At least I could my whole life.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like, life is a challenge and be myself and I m gonna go through it and find some people along the way that I connect with and others know.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that social integrity is so important to us.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we think it would be nice to have this.
3
SPEAKER_01
And this is going back to the pitfalls of fame.
3
SPEAKER_01
We think it would be nice to walk into a room and have everyone be like, and you could be like,
3
SPEAKER_01
Dumpster fire, and everybody s like, oh my gosh, dumpster fire, that was amazing.
3
SPEAKER_01
You said dumpster fire was amazing.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like, it s incredibly, incredibly lonely.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it just breaks everything that you knew about humanness.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it sucks.
3
SPEAKER_01
So then you re seeking out people that it doesn t exist with.
3
SPEAKER_01
And family s the closest you can get to that, for sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
But even your family, it s gonna take a little bit where they re like,
4
SPEAKER_02
This is a little weird.
4
SPEAKER_02
All my friends at work are now asking about you and you re my young stupid brother, but now you re suddenly the young stupid brother that they want an autograph from and stuff.
4
SPEAKER_02
It still makes – they have to get over that and figure that out.
4
SPEAKER_02
Then you meet people too who know about this whole concept and they re like, well, I m going to be an asshole to him to show him that I don t subscribe.
4
SPEAKER_02
You re dealing with people who are like, dumpster fire, the person who s like, oh,
4
SPEAKER_02
you know, you could say something actually profound and nice and they d be like, that s stupid and you re an idiot.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because it s like an actual attempt to like show you how much they don t care.
4
SPEAKER_02
So you live in this very like.
4
SPEAKER_00
And still, nevertheless, even when nobody knew you, you were seeking for deep human connection with a small number of people.
4
SPEAKER_00
And now when a lot of people know you, you re still looking for deep connection with a small number of people.
4
SPEAKER_00
The struggle is the same.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can you speak to, because you mentioned some of the dark moments, what advice would you give to people who are struggling with depression?
4
SPEAKER_00
And maybe for the people who love the people who are struggling with depression.
4
SPEAKER_02
So what I have found to be most successful for me,
4
SPEAKER_02
it s back to the basics of everything that the therapist or psychologist will tell you, psychiatrist will tell you right when you meet them, which is exercise every day, eat healthy for sure, find time, make time every day to do something that you love, whatever that may be, whatever brings you joy, and when you re really depressed, that actually feels like nothing.
4
SPEAKER_02
Because the things that brought you joy don t bring you joy anymore, when I m really in the thick of it.
4
SPEAKER_02
But for me, this is the cycle that I ll go through, is I ll look at my life and I ll say, okay, what can I clean up?
4
SPEAKER_02
All right, well, for me, it was cutting out alcohol actually helped me a lot.
4
SPEAKER_02
I know that sounds like a big, I m not judging anybody for that, and I still drink on occasion, but I have felt like alcohol has been very unhelpful to my mental state.
4
SPEAKER_02
I feel less drive and less happiness the next day for things that I wanna do.
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I feel like it plays a lot with your serotonin.
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So look for stuff to change.
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Clean living, yeah, clean living, but also understanding that sometimes it just is.
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and you just keep breathing and it will get better with time.
4
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This too shall pass?
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This too shall pass.
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I really think that in the winter, I m pretty sure, I mean, I ve had a lot of, I ve seen a lot of therapists and all of them say the same thing, which is like, you have major depressive disorder and this is what it is, but it s certainly worse for me in the winter months.
4
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So I know there s like, I can t think of the term for it, but there s a term for like seasonal depression, there it is.
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So I ll get to the winter and suddenly I m like, geez, everything really sucks on a deeper level.
4
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And then, you know, so it s like this too shall pass is another thing.
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It s like just practice those things.
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Absolutely see a therapist.
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That s my big, like my biggest emphasis of life is to like on stage, like my goal, like I have a few things that I really, really care about.
4
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One is, is, is mental health, health and de-stigmatizing therapy.
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Cause for me, I didn t go to therapy for a long time because I felt that it would be admitting that I was broken.
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He d be admitting that I was weaker than Lex, who doesn t have to go to a therapist because Lex is stronger, so be strong like Lex.
4
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I would look at all my older brothers, and I looked up to them so much, and there were all these incredibly successful people.
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Plastic surgeon, an anesthesiologist, a dentist, two attorneys, Stanford, NYU, just incredible high standards, Eagle Scouts, valedictorians, they just did it all.
4
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So for me,
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I was very, really did not want to admit, and none of them went to therapy.
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So it was like, what are you going to be?
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Are you, are you broken?
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Are you like the weak one who can t hack life?
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And I think that s incredibly dangerous.
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And I feel like it almost cost me my life because I took so long to finally go to therapy.
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So I really want kids to know.
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hey, the great people that achieve great things, that are doing amazing things, they probably have help, almost all of them.
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It s like going to the gym, but it s a mental gym.
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I wanted to be a psychiatrist when I was growing up.
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Maybe that s why I like podcasts, maybe that s... I think you d be a good one.
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SPEAKER_00
I think you are a psychiatrist, pretty much, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Sounds like you re a psychiatrist.
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SPEAKER_00
I think I need more, I think actually to be a good psychiatrist, you also need to be seeking therapy, you also need to have some stuff to work through in your mind.
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I think, yeah, you have to have gone to some dark places.
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Empathize.
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The empathy.
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It s this ability to empathize, and especially if you ve directly experienced it, you can go to those places in your mind.
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Like you said, it s with the music.
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To be authentic, you have to really go there.
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Why did therapy help so much?
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What is the process of therapy, if you can just educate a little more?
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Is it...
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Are you basically bringing to the surface and talking through things that you, because of the momentum of life, you just never allow yourself to speak through, to think through?
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Is that what therapy is?
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Or is this a more systematic thing?
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So I ve been to a lot of strange different kinds of therapy.
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So I ll tell you my first therapist.
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If I could interrupt, how hard is it to find a therapist that connected with you?
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It is – it s actually pretty hard I think.
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I think for – well, actually I have a skewed view of that because
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Going back to the beginning of my therapy was with a Mormon therapist.
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So it was very much like, well, are you reading your Book of Mormon?
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And are you praying at night?
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You know what I mean?
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That was a big focus of my therapy to begin with.
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And you re having a faith crisis in the distance somewhere.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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I was like, well, and then- You re making it worse.
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Yes.
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The next therapist I went to was,
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a Scientology therapist.
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I met my wife, and she was Scientologist at the time, and she s not anymore.
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It s such a funny thing to look back on, because we met, and I was like this Mormon missionary who had just got home from his mission, and I met her, and she s a Scientologist.
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I was like, wow, that s batshit crazy.
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That stuff s crazy.
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And she s like, what are you talking about?
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You re crazy.
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You re a Mormon.
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That s batshit crazy.
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And the two of us were like, huh.
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Maybe there s something to this, to both of us here.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, the tension actually forces you to think through like, oh, well, what is true?
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Yeah, and we really fell in love through that, which was like, maybe we re both on the wrong track.
4
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Let s figure this out.
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But before that happened, we went to a Scientologist Therapist,
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who that therapy consisted of, what have you done wrong to Asia?
4
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And they would ask me that question over and over and over and over until I m like thinking of the deepest, darkest things that were in the recesses of my mind.
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This was marriage therapy.
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Anyway, I m not gonna get into that, but it was Scientology therapy, so that was a different thing.
4
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And then I went to therapy therapy.
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Like, no, not attached to any religion.
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And that was a really great experience for me.
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And since then, I ve been through a couple different therapists, but that was more because where I was, and moving, and things like that.
4
SPEAKER_02
So, is it that hard to find a great therapist?
4
SPEAKER_02
Probably not, but maybe don t go to your Mormon therapist first.
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SPEAKER_02
That s my top therapist.
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SPEAKER_02
Or maybe that s the route for you.
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SPEAKER_02
Maybe it s the route for you, I don t know.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but what is, so is it bringing stuff to the surface, basically?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, sorry, I didn t even answer your question.
4
SPEAKER_00
Why is it so effective?
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SPEAKER_00
Is there something you could put words to?
4
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Yeah, I mean, I think it s obviously there s the common things you would think of, which is like, Oh, I ve been holding these things in that I don t want to tell anybody.
4
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And then I tell this person and there s relief in that.
4
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But that s really not where the real work comes from.
4
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I think the real work is meeting with someone who is well versed and educated and understands
4
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It s like, it s like coding.
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It really is.
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It s like someone who like, they listen to you and they re like, well, that was a trigger.
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And then this became this trigger.
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And you re probably every time you re hearing that thinking of this thing that happened earlier in your life, and they just will walk you through scenarios.
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And maybe some of them aren t.
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But some of them you ll be like, it ll resonate sometimes.
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You re like, wow, I am feeling that because of that.
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And that did happen.
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And maybe if I call my mom and say this to her, it will make me feel better.
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Hey mom, this happened.
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It s like work.
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You put in work and you have hard conversations and do difficult things.
4
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So if your therapy s not difficult, I actually think that s not good therapy.
4
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Good therapy is, it s gonna be a little difficult.
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It s work.
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Like- During and after.
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Yes.
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I had this incredible therapist who I told him when I was going to do ayahuasca, he was like, geez, he actually was a doctor before and a really well-educated, studied person who had walked away from brain doctor.
4
SPEAKER_02
What s the word for that?
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Brain doctor.
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SPEAKER_02
Brain surgeon?
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Neurologist.
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Oh, yeah, neurologist.
4
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And he said, well, basically his belief was that ayahuasca was like
4
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basically doing therapy like 50 sessions.
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He was like, it s like really intensive.
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He was like, I don t know if you wanna do that.
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If you do, you can make some big steps forward, but I prefer just to do one, one session at a time.
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And so yeah, it s hard work.
4
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And I typically like, it s really hard for me to even talk about ayahuasca, by the way, going back to that, because I m not looking to tell everybody to go do ayahuasca.
4
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It s incredibly hard.
4
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It was the scariest experience of my entire life.
4
SPEAKER_02
It felt like I went to heaven, but it also felt like I went to the darkest, deepest hell that was incredibly scary.
4
SPEAKER_02
Incredibly scary, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you told the story of how you wrote the song Believer, or like your childhood friend, I guess, Donald, like bullying and that kind of stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
This song, a lot of your songs are super interesting.
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SPEAKER_00
In terms of percussion, super interesting.
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Super interesting lyrically, just how it flows.
4
SPEAKER_00
And also
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Pain is at the center of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, a lot of, like you said, the crisis of faith, some of these existential questions are basically behind a lot of your songs, funny enough.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe they re covered in metaphor, so it s hard to see, but it s there.
4
SPEAKER_00
And this song is really interesting in that way that it puts pain, you made me a believer.
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SPEAKER_00
You break me down, you build me up, believer.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s so interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
Maybe can you tell the story of how the song came to be?
4
SPEAKER_00
I d love to listen to it too.
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SPEAKER_00
I have some questions musically about it too.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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Yeah, I mean, it s exactly what we re talking about with therapy.
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I just feel like the greatest things in my life have come from the deepest hurt.
4
SPEAKER_02
Losing someone that you love is maybe the hardest part of the human path for me, at least thus far.
4
SPEAKER_02
When I think of, okay, what was the hardest thing?
4
SPEAKER_02
There s like, you think of physical pain or maybe going through financial pain or whatever.
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I think losing someone that you really love to death is one of the hardest.
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For me, I would say it was the hardest, but it also makes you look at your life completely differently.
4
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and alter your life, at least for me, in ways that were really healthy.
4
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Being more present, letting go of things that were meaningless, trying to control what other people think about you, wasting your time on things like that, and you suddenly see, wow, I got a small amount of time.
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How do I want to spend it?
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I m going to spend it in the best way I know how, and that s it.
4
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It s a basic concept that s been said a million times over in a million different ways, but that s pretty much what I was trying to say with Believer, which is like I ve lost faith in everything at that time period, or previous to that time period, and then I was rebuilding my faith or my spiritual thought process.
4
SPEAKER_02
It was after ayahuasca.
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you know, finding, being a believer, and that s not necessarily like a believer in God or a believer in heaven and hell or anything like that, but a believer in more, believing in goodness, believing that there is some light, like, and again, those words, like, they re just words, and I wish there were better words to formulate the thought that I m trying to express, but just more, like, the thought of,
4
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Me dying, for me, I don t fear it.
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SPEAKER_02
I don t fear it.
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SPEAKER_02
But actually, I really fear not seeing my kids again.
4
SPEAKER_02
I ll say that.
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SPEAKER_02
That is fearful for me.
4
SPEAKER_02
I feel like I love so deeply these children that the thought of leaving them, for me, is a scary thought or something.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re kind of good reminder how much you love life, actually.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
And you don t always remember that.
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, and I think having kids is not for everyone, absolutely for sure.
4
SPEAKER_02
But for me, and especially you shouldn t be having kids to give yourself a reason to live.
4
SPEAKER_02
I feel like dying, I m gonna have a kid.
4
SPEAKER_02
You might feel more like dying after having a kid, actually.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s pretty stressful.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it is a place to, I ve changed a lot of people that I ve known, that it gave them a new intensity of gratitude for life, for sure.
4
SPEAKER_00
Guy, do you mind if we, I ll return to the pain of the believer.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you mind if we listen to a little bit of the songs?
4
SPEAKER_00
No, it s fine.
4
SPEAKER_00
Did you write the music first or the words first?
4
SPEAKER_02
The same time, which is very typical for me.
4
SPEAKER_00
By the way, just the way it opens, like how, you know, intensity of openings.
4
SPEAKER_00
You ever think about what the first few seconds sound like?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is that something that... Like when you imagine a song, is it the opening you imagine?
4
SPEAKER_02
No, it s kind of a... I never think opening, I never think final, I think...
4
SPEAKER_02
soundscape of how I m feeling right now.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it could be the middle of the song for all I know when I m doing that.
4
SPEAKER_02
But my process for me is very much lyrics and melody and music really come at the same time.
4
SPEAKER_02
By same time, I mean as I m expressing maybe I m feeling like,
4
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Like, it s not that simple, but it s like, I ll, I ll hear it.
4
SPEAKER_02
Like, it s like, here s all the orchestra and you re kind of just pressing all the buttons at once.
4
SPEAKER_02
And melody and my voice is just one of those instruments.
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You know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_02
It s just utilizing one instrument.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you ve seen the landscape and that landscape includes melody, includes percussion, lyrics a little bit or lyrics.
4
SPEAKER_02
I will be words to begin with, like a word here and there.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, I ll be like,
4
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I m like, what s a word that I m thinking of when I m feeling this soundscape?
4
SPEAKER_02
And I always create with no theme in mind.
4
SPEAKER_02
I m never, for better or for worse, just my process is I m sitting down.
4
SPEAKER_02
and I m writing a journal entry.
4
SPEAKER_02
Simple as that.
4
SPEAKER_02
It s like when you sit down to write a journal entry, are you sitting down and you re like, okay, I ve had all these words here that I m gonna put on the page and I m gonna order it in this way.
4
SPEAKER_02
My theme for my journal entry today is gonna be this.
4
SPEAKER_02
Maybe some people do, but I don t.
4
SPEAKER_02
My journal entry is,
4
SPEAKER_02
I don t know what I m going to say.
4
SPEAKER_02
Oh, how was today?
4
SPEAKER_02
Well, man, today was this and feeling this.
4
SPEAKER_02
And now that I think about that, I m really angry about that.
4
SPEAKER_02
That hurt my feelings when this happened.
4
SPEAKER_02
You re like, you re formulating it as you go.
4
SPEAKER_02
And that s the joy of it.
4
SPEAKER_02
And for me, that s what music is.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I ll sit down, not thinking, hey, I ve been wanting to write a song that has a hard beat, or I ve been wanting to write a song that s anthemic, or I ve been wanting to write a song that s, it s like, how am I feeling right now?
4
SPEAKER_02
And is joyful, is the feeling joyful to you, or is it struggle?
5
SPEAKER_01
You just made it sound like it s joyful.
5
SPEAKER_01
Or at least fulfilling.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, fulfilling is the word I was kind of looking for.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because a lot of artists talk about writers.
5
SPEAKER_01
Cathartic.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s the word I was looking for.
5
SPEAKER_01
It feels like
5
SPEAKER_01
having a good moment with a therapist where you re like, okay, I m expressing this thing that I just need to express.
5
SPEAKER_01
For whatever reason, I need to express this.
5
SPEAKER_01
The majority of the songs I write for the record are never heard.
5
SPEAKER_01
I write over 100 songs a year.
5
SPEAKER_01
I release 20 songs every three years.
5
SPEAKER_01
So, I don t know, what s that percent, 20 out of 300?
5
SPEAKER_01
Come on, Lex.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s less than 10%.
5
SPEAKER_01
Less than 10%, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Eight, seven or something?
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
Anyway, so it s... And then getting together with a band and getting them selected down is really what the process of... So you re really writing a song per one to three days.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
maybe a song that you can t quite figure out the puzzle of that s gonna last a little longer.
5
SPEAKER_02
Where s the struggle?
5
SPEAKER_02
I finish every idea.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, you finish every idea.
5
SPEAKER_01
I do, I finish every idea.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it s not just like laying completely unfinished.
5
SPEAKER_01
I could open my computer for you right now and I would show you hundreds and hundreds of songs that you would listen to and think,
5
SPEAKER_01
That sounds like a song.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like there s rhythm, there s melody, there s multiple instruments, there s lyrics.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s the same thing as for Coding For Me, which is music, which is I can t walk away until I ve completed it.
5
SPEAKER_01
But it s finished.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, finished is... Yeah, but it sounds like a song.
5
SPEAKER_01
I certainly do a lot more with it after, with the band, where we pull it all apart.
5
SPEAKER_01
But it s a song.
5
SPEAKER_01
It ll be like... You ll listen to it and say, okay, that was a song.
5
SPEAKER_01
I get...
5
SPEAKER_01
You understand what it is, for sure.
5
SPEAKER_02
Do you think, this is a painful question from a fan perspective, do you think there s genius on your computer that you walked away from that you just didn t notice it?
5
SPEAKER_02
Do you think there s truly great songs that you ve written that you just didn t notice how great they are?
5
SPEAKER_01
I think
5
SPEAKER_01
Greatness is something that I feel I m, I don t feel like I ve achieved greatness.
5
SPEAKER_01
Genuine, I m not saying that to you in a way of like humility, false humility.
5
SPEAKER_01
No, genuinely I feel like I am on a journey right now to find who I am.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I m 34 and it s like, I don t even, I haven t begun that journey.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel like I m just starting that.
5
SPEAKER_01
But that being said,
5
SPEAKER_01
I certainly don t know the right answer to what songs are beloved or good to the masses.
5
SPEAKER_01
Imagine Dragons is such a massive entity.
5
SPEAKER_01
There have been, I will say this, there are a couple times where I ve fought really hard to decide on the single, really hard.
5
SPEAKER_01
Or I always fight for what goes on the record, always.
5
SPEAKER_01
I always put the record together and that s the record that I want it to be and me and the guys come up with that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And nobody else has influence, no manager, no label.
5
SPEAKER_01
The single, everybody wants to have a say in it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Your label wants to have a say in it, your manager wants to have a say in it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I have fought really hard over that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I ve been wrong before and I ve been right before.
5
SPEAKER_02
But as far as songs that I haven t put out, I mean... Because you can imagine so many songs, you think of so many Beatles songs that are like some of their greats, while my guitar gently weeps.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m trying to imagine weird sounding, not that interesting possibly songs that turn out... The majority of what we... Honestly, it may be our best stuff is that we don t put out, for instance, because our band is such a...
5
SPEAKER_01
It s such a complex question.
5
SPEAKER_01
I really don t know, actually.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, maybe one day I ll die and people will look and be like, I hated Imagine Dragons, but now I listen to that song, I really like that, wish they would put that out.
5
SPEAKER_01
Or maybe they ll be like, oh, it all sounds like shit.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t really know.
5
SPEAKER_02
Sorry, it is a tragic thing, that s why I ask it, which is like, there could be some great, incredible things that
5
SPEAKER_02
that will take you a long time to rediscover, to realize how great they are.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it s also the tragic aspect of being an artist is you don t know, forget fame or all that kind of stuff, you don t know what s going to really move people.
5
SPEAKER_02
Because ultimately what you want is to connect with people and you don t know what that s going to be.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s hard, I mean, to me it s, to me it s tragic, just as a fan of yours to see, maybe I wonder if there s like incredible stuff there.
5
SPEAKER_02
Just as it is tragic to see great artists throughout history who didn t get recognition until they died.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s like, because they basically held on, you know, Franz Kafka was extremely self-critical.
5
SPEAKER_02
A lot of these folks had an idea of what s good and not, and they were wrong.
5
SPEAKER_02
Right.
5
SPEAKER_02
They had genius.
5
SPEAKER_02
They weren t entirely wrong because they became sufficiently popular, but it s interesting.
5
SPEAKER_01
I try genuinely to release the songs that move me the most.
5
SPEAKER_01
Got it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ll say that.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re your own audience.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I try to put out the songs that make me feel
5
SPEAKER_01
the most.
5
SPEAKER_01
I feel that.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s my only gauge because it s so subjective of what is good.
5
SPEAKER_01
Nobody knows the song that the masses are going to like.
5
SPEAKER_01
Nobody knows that formula.
5
SPEAKER_01
Nobody knows it.
5
SPEAKER_01
So for me, it s always what makes me feel something.
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SPEAKER_01
One of the main lessons Rick Rubin taught me when we worked with him on this record was he would say,
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His main point that he would continually bring up, because he s not the type of person to be like, that s a bad song or that s good.
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It s just not who Rick Rubin is.
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There s more nuance to it.
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He would say, I don t really believe you on that song.
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That s what he would say.
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And I knew that was like,
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That song s a no-go.
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And I would genuinely, there was a time he said it and it was about a song that I really felt it and meant it when I said it.
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SPEAKER_01
But he didn t believe it when he heard it.
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And that was enough for, I was like, man, well.
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At the end of the day, I can believe it all I want, but if the listener doesn t feel the honesty in it, just like we were talking about earlier, I think the most important ingredient is, is this truth perceived as truth to someone else?
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And if it s not, the bullshit indicator goes, and you re like, I don t care, throw it away, I don t care about it.
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SPEAKER_02
Well, you said that he made you go through line by line the lyrics.
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Every single one.
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That was excruciating for me.
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Why was that excruciating?
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Well, first of all, it s Rick Rubin.
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So you re in the room with Rick Rubin, who s done a lot of the greatest of all time.
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And so I had to first just put that aside and be like, OK, well, you ve done a lot of my favorite records.
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But still, you re human, and not everything you say is going to be right.
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And I m a strongly opinionated person, and so is Rick.
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And so when the two of us were sitting down in a room together, it was, you know.
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But the lyrics, which is interesting.
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So it s not the entire composition, but just like, let s look at the lyrics.
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What do you mean here?
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Yeah.
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Oh, yeah.
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Because he would look over every... There was like...
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And there were battles he won and battles that he didn t win, and maybe he was right.
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I don t know.
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For instance, I ll give you an example.
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There s a song on the record called Number One.
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Rick will probably laugh when he hears this, because this was a big one that we kept going back and forth on.
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But this will give you a good insight of what it was like.
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And there s a line in it that says,
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The chorus is, I don t know what I m meant to be.
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I don t need no one to believe.
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When it s all been said and done, I m still my number one.
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And he was like, it just makes me cringe when I hear that.
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He s like, do you have to be like, can it not be like, you re still my number one?
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I was like, no, it s not about anybody else.
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It s about self-love. 
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He s like, yeah, but do you need to talk about self-love like that?
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And I was like, I feel like I need to.
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There s something else we could say there.
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We kept coming back to this song.
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And I changed it.
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I tried changing it.
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What did I change it to?
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It wasn t You re Still My Number One because it just made no sense.
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It wasn t about some love thing or someone else.
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I changed it to something else, and it was the one thing that I was like, I m really sorry, Rick.
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I get it.
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And if it sounds cringey to you, it s definitely sounding cringey to other people too, and that sucks.
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But I don t know how else to say this in a way that I want to put that song out anymore.
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But there were other songs, for sure, where Rick was like, that or this, that word feels a little trite.
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You already said that once.
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Can you say it in a different way?
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It was really helpful.
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It s really interesting because you re trying to say something so simply and yet not make it cringe.
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And that s really hard.
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That s a strange art form because you want to say some of the greatest love songs.
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We looked at the Without You song.
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I mean, the whole thing is cringy if you just read it on paper like it s a court report or something.
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But yet it s not, especially when sung maybe.
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But no, there s something about...
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Yeah, maybe... Sung in a way you believe it.
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When you believe it, but also written in a way that s singable in the way you believe it.
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So it s like... Right.
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And then... It rolls off, it just comes out in a way that just feels like silky and... No word catches your mind as cringy.
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Yes.
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It s just... But then music...
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I think great speeches are like that too, or just conveying, communicating ideas simply.
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That s the art form, is to not be cringey.
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So interesting, and then yet, because when you re raw and real, it might at first feel cringey.
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So the battle there, and that s where
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you see people fail, like just regular artists.
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Like, I don t know, at open mic.
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I got open mic, so I just listen to musicians.
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Like when they write songs, like they fail that test.
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SPEAKER_02
They write simple stuff, but it s cringy.
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Why?
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I wonder what was that?
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Like, what is that?
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SPEAKER_01
I m telling you, Lex, I tried to explain this to my brother the other day, because it s the same thing with a live performance.
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SPEAKER_01
If I m not in my right head space and I walk on stage and I walk up and let s say I say something and I do this,
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Because I m like, this is the move, right?
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I m like, this is the move.
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The crowd doesn t care.
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SPEAKER_01
In fact, the crowd s like, that s cringy when you did this.
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SPEAKER_01
But if I wasn t thinking about doing this and I went up there and I said something and I really meant it and my body was like, I can t explain this to you and it s so silly to say out loud, but it s,
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SPEAKER_01
people will resonate to it when it s real.
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SPEAKER_01
And when it s acted, it doesn t, you could do it the exact, the motion could look the same, your eyes look the same, but there s something about the energy that people know.
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They know if it s real or not.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, people, like you said, incredible bullshit detectors, that s why I love people.
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100%, I ll go on a stage and if I m not in the right headspace to be real, it won t be a good show.
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SPEAKER_01
If I m real, then it s a good show, it s as simple as that.
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SPEAKER_02
Let s go through the song.
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SPEAKER_02
Like I said, great opener.
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SPEAKER_02
So you had this in your mind, this landscape?
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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SPEAKER_02
The beat was first on this.
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SPEAKER_02
What about the first and the second and third, like first things first?
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SPEAKER_01
The first line I wrote was first things first.
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SPEAKER_01
I don t know why it just was like, and then I was like, oh, that principle of, you know,
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Look at, great line.
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Don t, second thing second, don t you tell me what you think that I could be.
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I m the one at the sail, I m the master of my sea.
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I m the master of my sea.
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SPEAKER_02
Such a great line.
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SPEAKER_01
My dad had that in his office.
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SPEAKER_01
He had this saying that was something about the sailor and being the master of his sea that I always loved.
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SPEAKER_02
There you go, simple statement.
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Yeah.
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Zero cringing.
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It s so powerful.
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It s so simple.
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on the masterminds.
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This whole song is just trivial, but in terms of lyrically, but extremely powerful and original and unique sounding.
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Something about the words, just even, you don t have to actually sing them, you just read them.
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And then raw, I was broken from a young age, took myself into the masses, writing my poems for the few that look at me, took to me, shook at me, feeling me singing from the heartache, from the pain, taking my message from the vein.
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SPEAKER_02
I can t, why am I reciting your words to you?
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SPEAKER_02
But the percussionist throughout it,
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And that was there in the beginning.
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SPEAKER_01
The percussion is almost in the lyrics, yeah.
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SPEAKER_01
And I m a very percussive singer because I was a drummer first before I, I think, same with Dave Grohl, probably a similar thing, which is I think in percussive sense a lot when I m writing.
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SPEAKER_01
And I also was, before I could play an instrument, I would beatbox.
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And I think Michael Jackson did this too, actually.
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I ve heard in the studio that he was very similar.
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But a lot of what I do is,
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percussive, because my brain thinks percussively first.
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SPEAKER_01
A little more, because it s so good.
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SPEAKER_01
It s almost like a drum, like.
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SPEAKER_02
And then you lay words on that.
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SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
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Yeah, this.
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It s building.
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It s almost like drums.
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It s all building to the chorus.
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SPEAKER_02
What about the word pain?
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When did that come to you?
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Pain, you made me, you made me a believer.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, just the idea of, I just wanted to, I really, one of the things that a lot of the songs that I like
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I like divisiveness, for instance.
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Not always, but there s times where I want someone to hear a song and I want them to either love it or hate it.
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I really don t want them to be in the middle ground.
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A lot of my favorite songs are divisive songs.
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So for instance, with pain, I want you to hear that and almost like, it s like, whoa, you know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_01
And it s something either somebody s going to hear and they ll be like, man, I just don t want to hear that like that.
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Or it s like, oh, I felt that so deeply when he said that in that way, because it sounded like this.
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SPEAKER_01
And when you think of the word pain, it s like, that s a, that s a,
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When I, at least for me, when I hear that word, it carries a lot of weight, carries a lot of weight.
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So I wanted to sing it with a lot of weight and to come into that chorus with like, like it s a striking moment.
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And I m also a tenor singing as, sorry, I m a baritone singing as a tenor.
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SPEAKER_01
So that s where that natural, like, gruffness comes from is I m singing out of my range, really, up in my head voice, and it carries a lot of weight with it because of the baritone.
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SPEAKER_02
Can I ask you a specific sort of, the pause before the pain?
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SPEAKER_02
It s really interesting, because it s like a double.
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SPEAKER_02
How much work does that take to get that right?
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SPEAKER_02
That s incredible.
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SPEAKER_02
So you re kind of seeing the beauty through that, and then whatever that sound is, the- Right, the bass being rolled off.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I actually, when I first was approaching the chorus, it was actually, ♪ Took me feeling, missing the heartache from the pain, ♪ ♪ Taking my message from the vein, speaking my lesson from the vein, ♪ ♪ Seeing the beauty through the, seeing the beauty through the pain, ♪ ♪ You made me a, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you,
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SPEAKER_01
Like it came in on one, I m not singing it right right now, but it did not wait.
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SPEAKER_01
And it felt like it didn t hit in the way that it was supposed to hit, because you predict that, right?
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SPEAKER_00
You re like, you re waiting to... Singing the beauty through the pain, you made me a... Right, it was like... Singing the beauty through the pain, you made me a...
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SPEAKER_01
So I wanted it to feel a little more like striking, like, again, it s like that thing that makes you kind of do this a little bit.
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SPEAKER_01
You re like, huh?
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SPEAKER_01
But once you hear it a few times, you re like, ah, ah, and you predict, you know what I mean?
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SPEAKER_01
It s like, I d rather someone hear our song the first time and be confused by it, so they play it the second time.
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And then they re like, oh, okay.
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You know what I mean?
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Like, I really don t want, you know, I d rather turn some people off along the way.
6
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And then the people who come along for you are gonna feel more committed, I think.
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SPEAKER_04
It s just an interesting, like, it feels gutsy to insert silence, you know?
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s what makes it, you know, it s like the greatest speakers of all time are like, and I told you.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right.
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SPEAKER_01
You would know.
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SPEAKER_02
You re like, oh.
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SPEAKER_04
Yeah, what is that?
6
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, that s so interesting to do that just at the right time.
6
SPEAKER_04
And then pain, right?
6
SPEAKER_04
Man, it s a brilliant song.
6
SPEAKER_04
Did you know it was a good song when you wrote it?
6
SPEAKER_01
Out of the thousands of songs you ve written?
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s always the same thing for me, which is like, if I want to listen to the song,
6
SPEAKER_01
and I wanna listen to it a lot of times, then those are the songs we put out.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I only wanna listen to the songs that make me feel something.
6
SPEAKER_01
Whether or not it s, like, our single that did the very worst of all our singles was the song that I wanted to listen to the least.
6
SPEAKER_01
But it made the most sense as a single, which was all the wrong reason to choose it, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
It was, I Bet My Life is the single off our second album.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that song was originally written, it was just a guitar and a vocal, and it was very just quiet and laid back.
6
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And we were like, well, let s try to dial it up.
6
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Let s try to produce it.
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And we overproduced that song.
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We self-produced it as a band, and we overproduced.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that song, I mean, it did good, you know, in terms of a song.
6
SPEAKER_01
But for us, it did not do good compared to our other songs.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I really look back at that and learned a lesson from that.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like, I don t want to listen to this song.
6
SPEAKER_01
that s a sign already.
6
SPEAKER_01
If you don t want to listen to your own song, it s probably not a good song.
6
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_04
You said your dad, elsewhere and today, just said that your dad early on was a kind of the early Rick Rubin.
6
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_04
So when you were starting out, he gave you feedback.
6
SPEAKER_04
He listened.
6
SPEAKER_04
What did you learn about music, about life from your dad?
6
SPEAKER_01
My dad is a really quiet farm, grew up on a farm, very humble.
6
SPEAKER_01
I think he starts every sentence by saying, this is just my two cents, pretty much.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like, take it or leave it.
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SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
6
SPEAKER_01
He s that kind of a sense.
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SPEAKER_01
There s humility in everything.
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SPEAKER_01
And it s real for him.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not like false humility.
6
SPEAKER_01
I really feel like when he s saying things, he really is like, maybe this isn t any worth to you, son.
6
SPEAKER_01
And he means it.
6
SPEAKER_01
But here it is.
6
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And it s always gold.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, wow, dad, that s incredible.
6
SPEAKER_04
So what, in those early days, have you like, so you were like 12 or something like that, like starting to write songs?
6
SPEAKER_01
I was 12.
6
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t showing my music to anyone.
6
SPEAKER_01
I started writing right when I was 12, and I probably wrote for at least, let s say six months or something.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I had written probably, I don t know, like a lot of songs during that time.
6
SPEAKER_01
What was the topic, by the way?
6
SPEAKER_01
Love, anger?
6
SPEAKER_01
It was all sad, no, it was all, the first song I ever wrote went.
6
SPEAKER_01
♪ Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do
6
SPEAKER_01
And it was like a bluesy thing.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was like, there was my voice doing that.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then it was like.
6
SPEAKER_00
He stood all alone, when would he be found?
6
SPEAKER_00
Did he want company, or was he fine on his own?
6
SPEAKER_00
Everyone needs a friend, so why was he all alone?
6
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
6
SPEAKER_01
But I was like a 12 year old with
6
SPEAKER_01
I just felt like depressed for the first time.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I just was like so- I think you discovered the blues as a 12-year-old.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, right, right.
6
SPEAKER_01
It really was.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was like my sense of the blues at that time, for sure.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like bad version of the blues, but it was like 12-year-old kid with a bunch of acne.
6
SPEAKER_01
And like, I just like, I hated going to school.
6
SPEAKER_01
I felt like I just had not found myself.
6
SPEAKER_01
Sounds like a great song, by the way.
6
SPEAKER_01
But anyway, I wanted to keep listening.
6
SPEAKER_01
I forgot I was-
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I don t know about that, but yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
What was your dad?
6
SPEAKER_01
At which point did you begin to share it with your dad?
6
SPEAKER_01
A lot of the songs I wrote in the beginning were very much like Bobby McFerrin, like that, because our mic was in a part of the house where I couldn t bring over the piano, and the only instrument I played at the time was the piano.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I would do everything with my voice.
6
SPEAKER_01
But then I started to teach myself the guitar in that beginning six-month period, just watching my brothers play in their garage bands in the basement.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then I started to write songs a little more like Enya vibes, like stack my voice like 20, 30 times.
6
SPEAKER_01
Anya meets like Jarre, which is who my dad would listen to a lot, John Michael Jarre.
6
SPEAKER_01
He s an incredible synth genius.
6
SPEAKER_01
But anyway, so I finally got my like gall up enough to show it to my dad one day after work.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I got very little of my dad because there were nine kids and he worked from 8 a.m.
6
SPEAKER_01
till 6 p.m.
6
SPEAKER_01
We ll come home very tired and here s nine kids that are like, dad, you know.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you re the young one, you re not, you re just gonna miss, I was in the middle kind of too, so it s even, you know, middle child thing.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I sat him down, and I was like, hey, dad, I just want to show you a song.
6
SPEAKER_01
And he was like, oh.
6
SPEAKER_01
He didn t know I was writing anything.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I showed it to him, and he listened.
6
SPEAKER_01
And he took it off, and he really looked at me and was like, that was really good.
6
SPEAKER_01
He was like, I thought, and this, when you said this, it made me feel this.
6
SPEAKER_01
He was like, and that did it.
6
SPEAKER_01
I probably would have given up music.
6
SPEAKER_01
I look back, that was a very pivotal moment for me.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was in a place where I was like, is this good or bad?
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
6
SPEAKER_01
Maybe it s so embarrassing and terrible.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I was already writing lyrics that were a little overly metaphorical to hide that I was dealing with faith crisis because I thought, okay, I m going to show this to dad.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t want my dad to know I m questioning the truthfulness of Joseph Smith.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s Joseph Smith, the real prophet.
6
SPEAKER_02
Is Mormonism true?
6
SPEAKER_02
I don t really know. 
6
SPEAKER_02
You know what I mean?
6
SPEAKER_01
I was like writing way overly metaphorical, but because my dad really validated it and he was a no bullshit person.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I knew when my dad said that, I was like, you know what?
6
SPEAKER_01
At least my dad really actually thinks this is cool.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I really trusted my dad s taste and thought everything he listened to was cool.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I was like, wow.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I keep doing this, and I just showed it to my dad for years and years.
6
SPEAKER_01
And still to this day, I send every song to my dad.
6
SPEAKER_04
So he, underneath it, with the feedback, is always like, ooh, I like this idea.
6
SPEAKER_04
I like this.
6
SPEAKER_04
It s just a positive.
6
SPEAKER_04
Not always positive, no.
6
SPEAKER_04
But underneath it, do you sense the positivity?
6
SPEAKER_04
Always.
6
SPEAKER_01
Never mean, never malicious.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, there s two types of criticism.
6
SPEAKER_01
There s like criticism that s just like you re looking to be hurtful to someone.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then there s criticism that s like really important for art.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s the type of criticism that s like, you see the value in what s happening and if it s honest, then you maybe communicate with that person like, I see what you re trying to do with that.
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SPEAKER_01
It s not even like you have to say that or whatever, like butter it up, but it s like,
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My dad would just give me this honest criticism that would be like, you know.
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It certainly wasn t always good, but I knew it was always well-intentioned.
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I guess that s how I would say.
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So you mentioned, made me re-listen to it.
6
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I m a big fan of Cass Stevens.
6
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You made me re-listen to Father and Son.
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Probably all sons have issues to work through with their fathers.
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And you said that you connect with this song in particular.
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I think, so you re a father now.
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What is it about the song that connects with you?
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For people, let me play it.
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Let me play it a little bit.
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People should educate themselves on Cat Stevens.
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Oh my gosh.
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Right on the peace train.
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The best.
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Right on the peace train.
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You think this is a hopeful, a sad song?
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I hear it as hopeful.
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I hear it as a loving father saying just what his son needs to hear.
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It s like that calm wisdom.
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Yeah.
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It s time.
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It was.
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And just the way he says that, like, that should be a corny line, but it s not corny at all.
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It s like, yeah.
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Look at me, I m old, but I m happy.
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Yeah, I mean, the simplicity there, but it s such a contrast with, what s his name, Harry Chapman with the Cats in the Cradle, which is like the sadness of, so this feels like there s a,
6
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a wise, calm connection between father and son, right?
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With Cats in the Cradle.
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I don t know if you remember that song.
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He learned to walk while I was away and he was talking before I knew it.
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And as he grew, he d say, I m going to be like you, dad.
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You know, I m going to be like you.
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And the idea of that song is that he does become like his dad, which is funny, you know, something you ve said.
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But in a different way, you become too busy to make that connection.
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His dad was too busy to make a connection with his son.
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In a, not a dramatic way, in a very kind of calm, nonchalant way.
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Like you don t, you just don t have time.
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You re busy at work, you re providing for the family and so on.
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There s connection, but you don t really get, form that like depth of connection.
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And then the father, when the son shows up from college and all that kind of stuff, he doesn t spend any time with the father.
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and just the calm sadness of that, that we can live parallel lives and never quite connect.
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And there is a little bit of that in father and son with Cat Stevens too, you know, like when the son is saying, from the moment that I could talk, I was ordered to listen.
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I always remember listening to that line, feeling like that really moved me.
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But the beauty of that song is it shows, it s kind of like the theme of what I feel like we ve talked about since the second you got here, which is something I really like.
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I don t know why it s such an important theme in my life right now, but.
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the duality of just understanding that you don t understand someone else s situation.
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And there s truth to both sides.
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There s truth to what the father is saying to the son.
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He s saying these things, and he s like, I m looking out for you.
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I love you.
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Take your time with these things.
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If you want to get married, you can.
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These things will bring you happiness.
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And then the son saying, listen, I want to pave my own path.
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I want to do this.
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Why are you telling me this?
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The son s not wrong, because there s a lot of parents who tell their kids what to do, and they re wrong.
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You know what I mean?
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And they don t let the kid form the path that they need to.
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But should you not be a parent?
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You know what I mean?
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There s just two sides to everything.
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There s a thing, and it is annoying when you re older, you get to see people do all the same things, and you can say, well, this is a phase
6
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And you ll see that this actually will end up in this way.
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You can predict how the life unrolls.
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And it s very annoying for young people to hear, especially because it s probably going to be true.
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It s like, no, it s not gonna be like this.
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No, I m gonna be different.
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But then you become that person.
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But that doesn t mean they also, let them live that life.
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Let them make the mistakes.
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But they re not mistakes, actually.
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They re like,
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beautiful deviations from the path that they end up on, and those make the path.
6
SPEAKER_04
Do you have advice for young folks today?
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You ve had like an incredible
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dark journey and a successful one, a loving one, and one of the most successful artists in the world.
6
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Is there advice you can give to young people today that would like to find themselves through that way, especially if they re struggling?
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SPEAKER_02
I thought you said device at first, and I was like, honestly, I feel like that device is not helping.
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Maybe everybody should get away, throw away their devices.
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Advice.
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I would just say what I emphasize to my kids is I really, really want my kids to just learn to love themself.
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It s easier said than done.
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It s really easy to pick on yourself in life.
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It s really easy to look in the mirror and wish you looked different, wish you were more successful like that person over there, wish a lot of things.
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SPEAKER_01
And people that I see that really succeed at life really succeed truly.
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And that doesn t mean they re making money necessarily or they re succeeding and they re talking to a lot of people.
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Success to me is like happy.
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and real, they have real self love.
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SPEAKER_01
You meet, you know, when you meet someone, you meet Rick, for instance, you meet Rick Rubin, Rick has a calmness about him.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it s funny because everybody sees him as this like Zen master, like Rick is just,
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a really loving person who also loves himself and has self-confidence because you just see it and it resonates and that s why he draws people and that s why he s so great in the studio because you know his intentions, always.
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As an artist, when a producer comes in, you re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are your intentions?
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What are you trying to do?
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Are you trying to get a hit out of me for the label?
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Are you trying to make me something?
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Are you trying to make me this so you can prove this about yourself?
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There s a lot in that dynamic and the reason that Rick is so good is because you know his intentions.
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And his intentions come because Rick has that self-love.
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So for me, find the things about yourself, because they re there, that you love, and really focus in on them.
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And it s not selfish.
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I feel like I was brought up in a family, too, where it was like,
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Never look inward, be selfless, serve, serve, serve, which, by the way, is a true principle of life.
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I think you love yourself more when you serve more.
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I think that s really evident in life.
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But also, spend time doing the things that make you happy.
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Take time every day to go on that walk that you need to go on.
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Listen to that book tape that you need to listen to.
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For me, that s something I need.
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I know if I do that, I m gonna be a better dad because I gave myself some love back in life.
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And just forgive yourself, I think.
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Forgive yourself because everybody messes up.
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Everybody hurts others.
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Everybody says unkind words at times.
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Everybody fails all the time.
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And if you think that you re going to not, you re wrong.
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And you re eventually going to, and you re either going to punish yourself for it every day and be a lesser version of what you could be.
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SPEAKER_01
or you re gonna forgive yourself for it, and if you ve learned that that s not something you want, then try not to do it again.
6
SPEAKER_01
If you do it again, and you re probably gonna do it again, whatever that is, you re gonna gossip about that person, you re gonna feel bad because then you gossiped about someone.
6
SPEAKER_04
Is there something you could say in terms of self-love?
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SPEAKER_04
Is there a role for being critical?
6
SPEAKER_04
Those demons of self-criticism, do you need a little bit of that?
6
SPEAKER_04
Tom Waits talks about, I like my town with a little drop of poison.
6
SPEAKER_04
You need a little poison?
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Or is that silly romanticization of poison?
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SPEAKER_01
Look, my biggest thing in life that has been the thing that I ve worked on the hardest for the last few years is to not be overly critical.
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and to let go of control.
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I think it s really easy to kill an artist.
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SPEAKER_01
It s really easy to kill an artist.
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SPEAKER_01
Like if my dad would have sat down with me that day, and even if he would have just sat down and been like, good job son, okay.
6
SPEAKER_01
It sounds silly, right?
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SPEAKER_01
Like I don t, I didn t, not everybody has a dad who s gonna ever do something or put in the time or whatever, but
6
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that might ve altered everything for me.
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Like my dad taking the extra time to just give me a thoughtful response, opposed to, kids know, kids know when you re just like trying to get out of the room or whatever.
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SPEAKER_01
I knew he wasn t, and that did a lot.
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SPEAKER_01
So yeah.
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SPEAKER_04
But is that a huge, it s not what makes the artist, it s the fragility of it that like, would you have it any other way?
6
SPEAKER_01
No, no, I agree with you.
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SPEAKER_01
I think that that s the beauty of art.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I think also on the same token, it s like, I went to Music Cares recently,
7
SPEAKER_03
which is a charity for musicians that are down on their luck, that maybe were successful at one point, or have never been successful, and they can t pay the bills.
7
SPEAKER_03
And this charity contributes money to these artists, aspiring artists, or artists who ve had drug issues.
7
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There s a lot that they do.
7
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And there was a statistic that they told that was staggering to me, which is I think it was 75% of artists, musicians, say they struggle with severe depression.
7
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That s really high.
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I don t know what the national average is, but I would guess that that s higher than national average per occupation.
7
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So I just think there s a tricky balance.
7
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There s a tricky balance in art.
7
SPEAKER_03
So yeah, of course, it s a necessary thing, the fragility of it all.
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Yeah, I wonder, because I m extremely self-critical, and I sometimes ask myself the question, I ve romanticized it, or rather, I ve learned for it to be productive, to channel it into productivity.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I wonder if there s better ways to do that, and I also wonder if it s eventually the thing that destroys me, like if long-term, if it s a healthy thing.
7
SPEAKER_00
It might be useful when you re in sort of
7
SPEAKER_00
actively fighting the battles of the day.
7
SPEAKER_00
For me, it s engineering challenges and all that kind of stuff.
7
SPEAKER_00
But then when you re sitting back and enjoying life with family and so on, is that going to be, do you need to find that self-love, ability to kind of silence the voice of criticism in your head?
7
SPEAKER_03
You know what, you re making a good point.
7
SPEAKER_03
And I think that the middle ground
7
SPEAKER_03
is you need self-doubt to push you to be better.
7
SPEAKER_03
I do believe that like, for instance, if I believed, I ve hit my, like when you re like, is there a song on there that you think is genius?
7
SPEAKER_03
If I think I ve written a genius song ever, I think I d probably stop.
7
SPEAKER_03
I think I d be like, you know what, did it, I wrote, what s that perfect song?
7
SPEAKER_03
Imagine.
7
SPEAKER_03
Imagine, yeah.
7
SPEAKER_03
Okay, if I d written Imagine, I d probably be like, that s it, did it, all right, perfect song has been written, that s the best thing I ll ever do.
7
SPEAKER_03
So the fact that,
7
SPEAKER_03
that there is self-criticism and criticism outside I think is necessary, 100% for sure.
7
SPEAKER_03
It pushes you, it pushes you, it pushes you.
7
SPEAKER_03
It s just finding the right middle ground for that young aspiring artist to also not feel squashed and to be heard and to love, not even to feel squashed, just to love themself.
7
SPEAKER_03
So that when they re in the room playing the song, they ll believe it because they believe themselves.
7
SPEAKER_03
They love themselves enough that they believe it.
7
SPEAKER_03
And then they ll do a great, and then the song will come out great and they ll do a great performance.
7
SPEAKER_00
I have to ask, it s one of the very interesting aspects of your life, of the way you put love out there in the world.
7
SPEAKER_00
What is at the core of your support for the LGBT community?
7
SPEAKER_03
A couple things.
7
SPEAKER_03
So one, growing up in, from a young age in the artist community, a lot of my closest friends were LGBTQ, starting in middle school.
7
SPEAKER_03
And I think a lot of the best artists in the world are LGBTQ, and that s just, it s not a secret.
7
SPEAKER_03
Like, it s just, it s like the artist community is filled with lots of LGBTQ people.
7
SPEAKER_03
So I think being raised in that community,
7
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in that my friends struggled with their faith and their sexuality really opened up my eyes to how incredibly hard that path is.
7
SPEAKER_03
For instance, okay, when I was in high school, there was someone who went in front of a
7
SPEAKER_03
who was LGBTQ and was Mormon and felt like there was not a place for them in the church.
7
SPEAKER_03
When you re being told that it s evil and you believe it because you believe in your faith and you feel like it s unchangeable, you re putting a kid in a situation where there s really no good resolution.
7
SPEAKER_03
It s either be alone for the rest of your life.
7
SPEAKER_03
Or marry outside your sexual preference, which I don t want to marry a man.
7
SPEAKER_03
If I was forced to marry a man, I m like, I don t want to.
7
SPEAKER_03
I don t want to be married to a man because I m heterosexual.
7
SPEAKER_03
So you re forcing a kid into a situation where it s very dangerous.
7
SPEAKER_03
Long story short, this kid went in front of the Las Vegas Mormon temple and shot himself.
7
SPEAKER_03
Killed himself.
7
SPEAKER_03
That impacted our community.
7
SPEAKER_03
And not just that, but it was like severe bullying to LGBTQ kids.
7
SPEAKER_03
In the 90s, it was especially different.
7
SPEAKER_03
There s still bullying, don t get me wrong, but man, bullying in school, I don t really know actually what it s like in schools now.
7
SPEAKER_03
Maybe the bullying s just as bad as it was in the 90s, but there was like, it was,
7
SPEAKER_03
Like I would hear all the time, like the F slur being slung out at people who were LGBTQ all the time.
7
SPEAKER_03
And I wasn t even LGBTQ.
7
SPEAKER_03
So I, you know, it s just seeing that, I think that every, um,
7
SPEAKER_03
Any social justice issue takes all sides.
7
SPEAKER_03
It takes all pieces of the puzzle.
7
SPEAKER_03
If only the pieces of the puzzle contributed are from the side that is affected, I don t believe that we ll ever have resolution.
7
SPEAKER_03
We re doing a shit job and we need to do better.
7
SPEAKER_03
And that s just the reality of it.
7
SPEAKER_03
So that s part of the reason.
7
SPEAKER_03
I also have family who s LGBTQ, and it s just something that s been part of my path.
7
SPEAKER_03
And I feel like I m a big believer in take the path that is presented to you.
7
SPEAKER_03
And this was just something that came up in my life a lot.
7
SPEAKER_03
When I met my wife, she was living with her two best friends who are LGBTQ, who really didn t want her to marry me because I was Mormon.
7
SPEAKER_03
And at the time it was Prop 8, which was Mormons were fighting against
7
SPEAKER_03
LGBT gay marriage and so That then they didn t come to our wedding and that really broke my wife s heart.
7
SPEAKER_03
So it was just like Because Mormonism represented everything that that was against their community
7
SPEAKER_00
So you felt you had to say something.
7
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I felt like by not saying anything, I was saying everything.
7
SPEAKER_03
I felt like by not speaking up and being like, hey, Dan Reynolds is a Mormon singer.
7
SPEAKER_03
Here s this new band, Magic Dragons, and they re Mormons.
7
SPEAKER_03
It was like, okay, well, what do Mormons represent?
7
SPEAKER_03
They represent Prop 8.
7
SPEAKER_03
What does Prop 8 represent?
7
SPEAKER_03
Bigotry towards the LGBTQ community.
7
SPEAKER_03
So what do I do?
7
SPEAKER_03
Okay, I can speak in every interview and be like, well, that s not me.
7
SPEAKER_03
I don t believe that too.
7
SPEAKER_03
Or I could just be more active about it.
7
SPEAKER_03
And especially when it s affecting my family and friends throughout my entire life, it was like, all right, this seems like a path that you need to go down.
7
SPEAKER_03
So long story short, it was a path that just presented itself through things in my life.
7
SPEAKER_00
So just on that topic, religion and God give a lot of meaning to a lot of people.
7
SPEAKER_00
It gives tradition that brings people together across the generations, but it also can hurt people.
7
SPEAKER_00
What do you make about that tension?
7
SPEAKER_00
So a source of meaning, but also a source of pain.
7
SPEAKER_03
The reality is, at least to me, again, this is just my reality.
7
SPEAKER_03
I feel like I m doing my dad s thing every time I m talking to him.
7
SPEAKER_03
I m like, I don t really know.
7
SPEAKER_03
Here s my two cents.
7
SPEAKER_03
You have become your father.
7
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_03
The reality, and it s my reality, and it is the reality for sure, is there s, I think that,
7
SPEAKER_03
Religion has brought a lot of hurt and pain to a lot of people.
7
SPEAKER_03
Absolutely it has.
7
SPEAKER_03
I don t think anybody can dispute that on either side.
7
SPEAKER_03
Whether it s war, whether it s slaughtering of entire peoples, there s been a lot of pain and suffering that has come from religion.
7
SPEAKER_03
So, my little thing that has been hard for me is a faith crisis, right?
7
SPEAKER_03
I had religion, and then I lost it, and then I had nothing.
7
SPEAKER_03
So, for me, I was like, well, religion did that to me, right?
7
SPEAKER_03
But then at one point, it s kind of like, how much of my life am I just going to complain about being raised Mormon or being depressed?
7
SPEAKER_03
As I get older, I m like, okay, so what?
7
SPEAKER_03
Okay, it s really hurt me.
7
SPEAKER_03
Were there any good things that came out of Mormonism?
7
SPEAKER_03
Well, yeah, there s a lot of good things that have come to my family through Mormonism.
7
SPEAKER_03
Closeness, we re really, really close.
7
SPEAKER_03
Mormon culture is that you live together forever, right?
7
SPEAKER_03
The teaching is that your families are forever.
7
SPEAKER_03
We die and then we go to heaven together and we re together forever.
7
SPEAKER_03
My family really believes that principle.
7
SPEAKER_03
All of them do.
7
SPEAKER_03
And that instills a certain way of living that s kind of beautiful, even if it s naivety.
7
SPEAKER_03
There s something kind of beautiful about believing that we re forming these bonds together as a family and that we re gonna be together forever.
7
SPEAKER_03
It brings a lot of comfort to a kid, too.
7
SPEAKER_03
When I was little, I was like, wow, it s gonna be okay if I die because I get to see my mom again.
7
SPEAKER_03
You know what I mean?
7
SPEAKER_03
I really believed that.
7
SPEAKER_03
Is the right answer that you tell that kid, actually, when you die, you re not gonna see your mom again?
7
SPEAKER_03
Maybe, it might be, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_03
And anybody who has a kid is gonna face that
7
SPEAKER_03
That moment, I ve already faced it, where you sit down and my kid was like, hey dad, when you die, am I gonna see you again?
7
SPEAKER_03
That was actually a really hard moment for me, because I was suddenly faced with, okay, do I give the answer that I thought was bullshit, or do I give the answer of what I think it is, or do I give the real answer, which is, I don t know.
7
SPEAKER_03
And that s what I chose, which as a father, that s not always the easiest answer because your kid, it s a wonderful thing that you feel like you can give your kid the comfort of like, hey, your parents are gonna take care of everything.
7
SPEAKER_03
We know everything.
7
SPEAKER_03
We ve been around.
7
SPEAKER_03
My kid s always like, are you the strongest?
7
SPEAKER_03
I m like, yeah, I am the strongest.
7
SPEAKER_03
You re stronger than everybody?
7
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, I m stronger than everybody.
7
SPEAKER_03
You know what I mean?
7
SPEAKER_03
So when you re faced with that moment, it s like, it kind of sucks to tell your kid like, you know what?
7
SPEAKER_03
I don t know if you re gonna see me after I die.
7
SPEAKER_03
But I hope, that s what I said.
7
SPEAKER_03
I was like, I don t know, but I hope.
7
SPEAKER_03
I really hope, because that would be awesome if we can hang out forever.
7
SPEAKER_03
And if there s any way for it to happen, I ll make it happen.
7
SPEAKER_03
You know what I mean?
7
SPEAKER_03
That s kind of what my answer was.
7
SPEAKER_03
So long story short, sorry, I know that I m being lengthy on this.
7
SPEAKER_03
Is there, like, what is my thought on religion?
7
SPEAKER_03
It just is.
7
SPEAKER_03
It s been here forever.
7
SPEAKER_03
It s coping.
7
SPEAKER_03
Maybe it s, I can t say whether it s true or false.
7
SPEAKER_03
How the hell am I supposed to know?
7
SPEAKER_03
I mean, I ve lived 34 years on this planet.
7
SPEAKER_03
A lot of people have been around a lot longer than me, and they really believe very deeply, and a lot of them are smarter than me.
7
SPEAKER_03
You know what I mean?
7
SPEAKER_03
I look at my older brothers, for instance, who are very practicing Mormons.
7
SPEAKER_03
These guys are hyper-intelligent.
7
SPEAKER_03
My younger sister, hyper-intelligent.
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All of them start smarter than me.
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They all believe it still.
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So what am I supposed to say?
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Well, you re all stupid.
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You know what I mean?
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You re all wrong.
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I don t know.
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Maybe it s the South Park episode where everybody dies, and then they re like, well, the right answer was Mormonism.
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And everybody s like, aw.
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Mormons love that moment in South Park.
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They re like, hey, that day may come.
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That day may come.
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Yeah, so maybe I don t know is the honest answer for everybody around the table.
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But the biggest question for which I don t know is the right answer is what s the meaning of this whole thing?
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What s the meaning of life?
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No, you re not allowed to say I don t know.
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You can be just like your dad and say, let me just give my two cents.
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Take it from me, whatever it s worth, take it or leave it.
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It s probably worth nothing, he s piddled on the ground.
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I mean, why are we here?
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It s just busily creating all these kinds of things, worrying about things, having kids.
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My purpose, at least right now, is
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to wake up and try to bring light love to the world, light love to myself, and have integrity.
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That s my purpose.
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The ultimate purpose of life, I guess that s my ultimate purpose of life.
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I don t know what happens when I die,
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Ayahuasca gave me some sense that there s more to be known.
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I m sure there are other things in life that would give me that, and I m looking for it.
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I m a seeker.
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I m always looking for the next something to give me hope in something more.
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Even if so, I could just not bullshit my kids when they ask me that question and be like,
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I really don t know.
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I want to not know more, if that makes sense.
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I want to see things that make me confused, that make me question what I already knew.
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When I meet an atheist who comes up to me and they re like, atheism, atheism, atheism, it s just as laughable to me as when I meet the Mormon who comes up and they re like, Mormonism, Mormonism, Mormonism.
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How do anyone, how do you guys know?
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Like, you know.
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So you feel like you re doing some, through all your travels, through all the people you meet, you feel like you re still keeping your eyes open and your heart open to sort of discover something new, like the Ayahuasca experience, that there might be deeper truths out there.
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Yeah, and I want to find him, and I want to surround myself with people who are just looking for it.
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I m not interested in people who are just looking to point fingers at each other.
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Life is so short.
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I m looking for—it s one of the reasons that I want to meet with you, is I was like, wow, Lex really seems like he s on a journey to find truth.
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And that humility for me is—same thing with Rick.
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It drew me to Rick.
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It was like, I really—I see that, and I identify with it, and that s what I m looking for.
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There s the final song on our record, our new record that s coming out.
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The chorus goes, and this is my best answer to what you re asking.
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The chorus goes,
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Take it easy on me, I need some lullaby.
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They tell me heaven s just a lie, well I m not surprised.
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Tell me that you know, no you don t, yeah you re just like me.
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Can t we just all hope for the best?
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Take it easy.
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So that s it for me.
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It s like, I m in a place where I m like, I don t know.
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Tell me that you know.
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I m not going to believe you.
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Maybe you do.
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I m not going to believe it.
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But let s just be easier on each other and try to find truth wherever it may lie.
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But above all, know that we don t know jack shit.
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I think that s a mic drop moment.
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Dan, thank you so much.
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You re an incredible human.
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I love that you share with the world the darkness of your mind, of your life experience, and the beautiful light that you ve shown to the world.
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So it s a huge honor, and thank you for spending your valuable time.
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Good luck on the tour.
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Thanks, man.
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Thanks for having me.
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Thanks for listening to this conversation with Dan Reynolds.
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To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
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And now, let me leave you with some words from Aldous Huxley.
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After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
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Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.