YouSaid · the spoken record

Dan Reynolds

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144
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2022-05-30
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2022-05-30
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  1. “Take it easy on me I need some lollaby They tell me heaven's just a lie Well I'm not surprised tell me that you know no you don't Yeah, you're just like me Can we just hope for the best Take it easy That's it for me. It's like I'm in a place where I'm like Don't know. Tell me, you know, I don't, I'm not going to believe you. Maybe you do. I'm not going to believe it, but. Let's just be easier on each other and try to find truth wherever it may lie, but above all know that we don't know jack shit.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yeah, and I want to find him, and I want to surround myself with people who are just looking for it. I'm not interested in people who are just looking to point fingers at each. Like, life is so short. 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. And that humility for me is same thing with Rick. It drew me to Rick. It was like, I really, I see that and I identify with it. And that's what I'm looking for. There's the final song on our record, our new record that's coming out The chorus goes This is like this is my best answer to what you're asking. The chorus goes.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “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. I'm like. How do anyone, how do you guys know? And”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “My purpose, at least right now. To wake up and try to Bring light, love to the world, light love to myself, and have integrity. That's my purpose. The ultimate purpose of life's my ultimate purpose of life, I don't know what happens when I die. Ayahuasca gave me some sense that there's more to be known. I'm sure there are other things in life that would give me that, and I'm looking for it. I'm a seeker. I'm always looking for the next something to give me hope in something more, even if so I could just not bullshit my kids when they ask me that question and be like, you know what? I really don't know. I want to not know more, if that makes sense. I don't want to, like, I want to see things that make me confused, that make me question what I already knew. Like I am”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “You're all stupid. You know what I mean? Like, you're all wrong. I don't know. Maybe it's the South Park episode where everybody dies and then they're like, well, the right answer was Mormonism. Mormons love that moment in South Park. They're like, hey, that day may come. They may come.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “When you're faced with that moment, it's like it kind of sucks to tell your kid, you know what? I don't know if you're going to see me after I die. But I hope that's why I said I was like, I don't know, but I hope. I really hope because that would be awesome if we can hang out forever. And if there's any way for it to happen, I'll make it happen. You know what I mean? That's kind of what my answer was. So long story short, sorry, I know that I'm being lengthy on this. Is there like, what is my thought on religion? It just is. It's been here forever. It's coping. Maybe it's, I can't say whether it's true or false. How the hell am I supposed to know? I mean, like, I've lived 34 years on this planet. 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. You know what I mean? Like, I look at my older brothers, for instance, who are very practicing Mormons. These guys are hyper intelligent. My younger sister, hyper intelligent, all of them start smarter than me. They all believe it still. So what am I supposed to say?”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “The right answer that you tell that kid Actually, when you die, you're not going to see your mom again. Maybe it might be. I don't know. And everybody's going to, anybody who has a kid is going to face that moment. I've already faced it where you sit down and my kid was like, hey, dad, when you die, am I going to see you again? 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. And that's what I chose, which is 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 going to take care of everything. We know everything. We've been around. My kid's always like, are you the strongest? I'm like, yeah, I am the strongest stronger than everybody.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Were there any good things that came out of Mormonism? Well, yeah, there's a lot of good things that have come to my family through Mormonism. Closeness, we're really, really close Mormon culture is that you live together forever, right? The teaching is that your families are forever. We die and then we go to heaven together and we're together forever. My family really believes that principle. All of them do. And that instills a certain way of living, this kind of beautiful, even if it's naivety. Something kind of beautiful about believing that we're forming these bonds together as a family and that like we're going to be together forever. It brings a lot of comfort to a kid too when I was little I was like wow Going to be okay if I die because I get to see my mom again, you know. I mean, I like, I really believe that.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “The reality, and it's my reality, and it is the reality for sure. I think that. Religion has brought a lot of hurt and pain to a lot of people. Absolutely it has. I don't think anybody can dispute that on it on either side. Whether it's war. Whether it's Slaughtering of entire peoples, like there's been a lot of pain and suffering that has come from religion. So, my little thing that has been hard for me is a faith crisis, right? I had religion and then I lost it and then I had nothing. So that's for me, I was like, well, religion did that to me, right? But then at one point, it's kind of like how much of my life am I just going to complain about like being raised Mormon or being depressed? Like, you know, as I get older, I'm like, okay, so what? Like, okay, it's really hurt me. But”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “The reality is, at least to me, again, this is just my reality. I feel like I'm doing my dad's thing every time I'm talking to. I'm like, I don't really know. Here's my two”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Yeah, I felt like by not saying anything. I was saying everything. I felt like by not speaking up and being like, hey, Dan Reynolds is a Mormon singer. Here's this new band, Magic Dragons, and they're Mormons. It was like, okay, well, what do Mormons represent? They represent Prop 8. What does Prop 8 represent? Bigotry towards the LGBTQ community. So what do I do? Okay, I can speak in every interview and be like, well, that's not me. I don't believe that too. Or I could just be more active about it. 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. Long story short, it was a path that just presented itself through things in my life.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And they didn't come to our wedding, and that really broke my wife's heart. So it was just like because Mormonism represented everything that was against their community.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Any social justice issue takes all sides. It takes all pieces of the puzzle. 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. We're doing a shit job and we need to do better. And that's just the reality of it. So that was part of the reason I also have family whose LGBTQ and it's just something that's been part of my path. And I feel like I'm a big believer in take the path that is presented to you. And this was just something that came up into my life a lot when I met my wife. She was living with me. Who really didn't want her to marry me because I was Mormon. And at the time it was Prop 8, which was Mormons were fighting against LGBT gay marriage. And so.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “That impacted our community. And not just that, but it was like severe bullying to LGBTQ kids in the 90s. It was especially different. Like, they're still bullying, don't get me wrong, but man, like bowling in school, I don't really know actually what it's like in schools now. Maybe the bowling's just as bad as it was in the 90s, but. There was like it was like I would hear all the time like the F slur being slung out at people who were LGBTQ all the time. And I wasn't even LGBTQ. Just seeing that, I think that every”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Who is LGBTQ and was Mormon and felt like there was not a place for them in the church? They felt like the patent, you know, when you're being told that that'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. It's either be alone for the rest of your life or Merry outside your sexual preference, which I don't want to marry a man. Like, if I was forced to marry a man, I'm like, I don't want to. Because I'm heterosexual. So you're forcing a kid into a situation where it's very dangerous. Long story short, this kid went in front of the Las Vegas Mormon temple and shot himself, killed himself.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “A couple things. So, one, growing up in from a young age in the artist community. Lot of my closest friends were LGBTQ starting in middle school And I think a lot of the best artists in the world are LGBTQ, and that's just not a secret. The artist community is filled with lots of LGBTQ people. So I think being raised in that community. That my friends struggled with their faith and their sexuality really opened up my eyes to how incredibly hard that path is. For instance, okay, when I was in high school, there was someone who went in front of”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Okay, if I'd written imagine, I'd probably be like, It did it. All right. Perfect song has been written. That's the best thing I'll ever do. So the fact that there is self-criticism and criticism outside, I think is necessary. 100% for sure. It pushes you. It pushes you. It pushes you. 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 just not even to feel squashed just to love themselves so that when they're in the room playing the song, they'll believe it because they believe themselves. They love themselves enough that they believe it. And then they'll do a great, and then the song will come out great and they'll do a great performance.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “You know what? You're making a good point. And I think that the middle ground. Is you need Need self doubt. Push you to be better. I do believe that, 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? If I think I've written a genius song ever, I think I'd probably stop. I think I'd be like, you know what? Did it. I wrote, what's that perfect song Imagine”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “No, no, I agree with you. I think that that's what that. That's the beauty of art, but I think also on the same token, it's like. I went to music cares recently, 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 can't pay the bills on this charity. Contributes money to these artists, aspiring artists or artists who've had drug issues. There's a lot that they do. And there was a statistic that they told it was staggering to me, which is, I think it was 75% of artists, musicians say they struggle with severe depression. That's really high. I don't know what the national average is, but I would guess that that's higher than the national average per occupation. So, I just think there's a tricky balance in.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Look, my biggest thing in life that has been like the thing that I've worked on the hardest for the last few years is to not be overly critical. And to let go of control. I think It's really easy to kill an artist. It's really easy to kill an artist. 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. It's not silly, right? Like, I didn't, not everybody has a dad who's going to ever do something or put in the time or whatever. That might have altered everything for me. 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. I knew he wasn't. And that did a lot. So yeah.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “And I just forgive yourself, I think. Forgive yourself because everybody messes up. Everybody hurts others. Everybody says unkind words at times. Everybody fails all the time. And if you think that you're going to not, you're wrong 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 or you're going to forgive yourself for it. And if you learned that that's not something you want, then try not to do it again. If you do it again, then you're probably going to do it again, whatever that is, you're going to gossip about that person. You're going to feel bad because then you gossip about someone.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “And really focus in on them. And it's not selfish. Like, I feel like I was brought up in a family too where it was like. Never look inward, like be selfless, like serve, serve, serve, which by the way is a true principle of life. I think you love yourself more when you serve more. I think that's really evident in life. But also spend time doing the things that make you happy. Take time every day to go on that walk that you need to go on. Listen to that book tape that you need to listen to. Like for me, that's something I need. I know if I do that, I'm going to be a better dad because I gave myself some love back in life.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “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. As an artist when a producer comes in, you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are your intentions? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get a hit out of me for the label? Are you trying to make me trying to like make me this so you can prove this about yourself? Like there's a lot in that dynamic. And the reason that Rick is so good is because you know his intentions. And his intentions come because Rick has that self-love. So for me Find the things about yourself because they're there that you love.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Really succeed truly. And that doesn't mean they're making money necessarily or they're succeeding, and they're talking to a lot of people. Like their success, success to me is like happy and real, they have real self-love. You know, when you meet someone, you meet Rick, for instance. You meet Rick Rubin. Rick has a calmness about him. And it's funny because everybody sees him as this like Zen master Rick”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Those are device at first, and I was like, honestly, I feel like that device is not helping. Maybe everybody should get away, throw away their devices. Advice. I would just say, like, what I emphasize to my kids Really, really want my kids to just learn to love themselves. It's easier said than done. It's really easy to pick on yourself in life. 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 that wish a lot of things. And people that I see that really succeed at life.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “My son's not wrong because there's a lot of parents who tell their kids what to do and they're wrong. You know what I mean? Like, and they don't let the kid form the path that they need to. But should you not be a parent? Like, you know what I mean? There's just two sides to that.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “And there is a little bit of that in father and son with Kat Stevens, too, you know, like when the son is saying from the moment that I could talk, I was ordered to listen. I always remember listening to that line, feeling like that really moved me. 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, I don't know why it's such an important theme in my life right now, but the duality of just understanding that you don't understand someone else's situation. And there's truth to both sides. Like there's truth to what the father is saying to the son. He's like saying these things and he's like, I'm looking out for you. I love you. Take your time with these things. If you want to get married, you can. Like these things will be happening. And then the son saying, listen, I want to pave my own path. I want to do this. Like, why are you telling me this?”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Always never mean, never malicious. You know, there's like there's two types of criticism. There's like criticism that's just like you're looking to be hurtful to someone. And then there's criticism that's like really important for art. 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. It's not even like you have to say that or whatever, like butter it up, but it's like My dad would just give me this honest criticism that would be like It certainly wasn't always good, but I knew it was always well intentioned. I guess that's how I would say.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Said that, I was like, you know what? At least my dad really actually thinks this is cool. And I really trusted my dad's taste and thought everything he listened to was cool. So I was like, wow. I keep doing this, and I just showed it to my dad for years and years. And still to this day, I send every song to my dad”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “But I sat them down. I was like, hey, Dad, I just want to kind of show you a song. And he was like, oh, you didn't know I was writing anything. And I showed it to him and he listened and he took it off. And he really looked at me. It was like, that was really good. He was like, I thought, and this, when you said this, it made me feel this. He was like, and that did it. I probably would have given up music. Like I look back, that was a very pivotal moment for me. I was like in a place where I was like, is this good or bad? I don't know. Maybe it's so embarrassing and terrible. And I was already writing lyrics. There were little like overly metaphorical to hide that I was dealing with faith crisis because I thought, okay, I'm going to show this to dad. I don't want my dad to know I'm like questioning the truthfulness of Joseph Smith. So I'm not going to be like, it's Joseph Smith a real prophet. It's Mormonism true. I don't really know. Like, you know what I mean? It was like writing way overly metaphorical. But because my dad really validated it and he was a no bullshit person. So I knew when my dad's”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Enya meets like Jare, which is who my dad would listen to a lot, John Michael Jare. He's an incredible synth genius. But anyway, so I finally got my gall up enough to show it to my dad one day after work. And I got very little of my dad because there were nine kids and he worked from 8 a.m. till 6 p.m. We'll come home very tired and here's nine kids that are like, dad, you know, and you're the young one. You're not, you're just going to miss. I was in the middle kind of too. So it's even, you know, middle child thing.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “A lot of the songs I wrote in the beginning were very much like Bobby McFerrin like that because we are Mike 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. So I would do everything with my voice. But then I started to teach myself the guitar in that beginning like six month period just watching my brothers play in their garage bands in the basement. And then I started to write songs a little more like Enya vibes, like stack my voice like 20, 30 times and like”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Yeah, right, right. It really was. It's like my sense of the blues at that time, for sure, bad version of the blues, but it was like 12 year old kid with a bunch of acne. And like, I just like, I hated going to school. I felt like I just had not found myself.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “It was anger, sadness. The first song I ever wrote went. And it was like a bluesy thing. It was like, madam, there was my voice doing that. And then it was like, oh, by himself, no other one around. And he stood all alone. When would he be found? Did he want company? Or was he fine on his own? Everyone needs a friend, so why was he all You know what I was like, but I was like a 12-year-old with, I just felt like depressed for the first time. And I was, and I just was like so.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “I wasn't showing my music to anyone. I started writing right when I was 12, and I probably wrote for at least, let's say six months or something. And I had written probably, I don't know, like. Lot of songs during that”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “My dad is a really quiet farm, grew up on a farm, very humble. Think he starts every sentence by saying, this is just my two cents, pretty much. You know what I mean? It's like, take it or leave it. You know what I mean? He's that kind of a sense. Like there's humility in everything. And it's real for him. It's not like false humility. I really feel like when he's saying things, he really is like maybe this isn't any worth to you, son. And he means it. But here it is. And it's always gold. And I'm like, wow, Dad, that's incredible, you know?”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “You know, it's always the same thing for me, which is like, I'll listen if I want to listen to the song. I want to listen to it a lot of times, then those are the songs we put out. And I only want to listen to the songs that make me feel something. Whether or not our single that did the very worst of all our singles was the song that I wanted to listen to the least, but it made the most sense as a single, which was all the wrong reason to choose it, right? I bet my life is the single off our second album. And that song was originally written. It was just a guitar and a vocal. And it was very just quiet and lay back. And we were like, well, let's try to dial it up. Let's try to produce it. And we overproduced that song. We self-produced it as a band and we overproduced. And that song, I mean, it did good, you know, in terms of a song, but for us, it did not do good compared to other songs. And I really look back at that and learned a lesson from that. It's like, I don't want to listen to this song.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “The beauty through the pain you made me So I wanted to feel a little more like striking like again it's like that thing that makes you kind of do this a little bit you're like huh but once you hear it a few times you're like ah and you predict you know what I mean it's like I'd rather someone hear our song the first time be confused by it so they play it the second time and then they're like oh okay you know what I mean like I really don't want I'd rather turn some people off along the way. And then the people who come along for you are going to feel more committed, I think.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Yeah, I actually, when I first was approaching the chorus, it was actually missing a heartache from the pain, taking my message from the veins, speaking my lesson from the base, seeing the beauty through the beauty through the pain. You made me a you. Like it came in on one. I'm not seeing it right right now, but it did not wait. And it felt like it didn't hit in the way that it was supposed to hit because you predict that, right? You're like, you're waiting. Beauty through the pain. You made me up. Right. It was like.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “At least for me, when I hear that word, it carries a lot of weight, carries a lot of weight. So I wanted to sing it with a lot of weight and to come into that chorus with like it's a striking moment. And I'm also a tenor singing as, sorry, I'm a baritone singing as a tenor. So that's where that natural 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 barone.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Yeah, just the idea of I just wanted to, I really, one of the things that a lot of the songs that I like Like divisiveness. For instance, 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. I really don't want them to be in the middle ground. A lot of the songs that like a lot of my favorite songs are divisive songs So, for instance, with pain, I want you to hear that in almost like, whoa, you know what I mean? And it's something either somebody's going to hear and they're be like, man, I just don't want to hear that like that or it's like, oh, I felt that so deeply when he said that in that way because it sounded like this. And when you think of the word pain, it's like that's a...”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Repercussion is almost in the lyrics. Yeah. And I'm a very percussive singer because I was a drummer first before I think with Dave Grohl. Probably a similar thing, which is I think in percussive sense a lot when I'm writing. And I also was, before I could play an instrument, I would beatbox. And I think Michael Jackson did this too, actually. I've heard in the studio that he was very similar. But a lot of what I do is percussive because my brain thinks percussively first.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Dad had that in his office, he had this saying that was something about the sailor and being the master of his sea that I always loved.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “The first line I wrote was first things. I don't know why it just was like, and then I was like, oh, that principle of, you know.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “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. If I'm real, then it's a good show. It's as simple as that.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  46. “Crowd doesn't care. In fact, the crowd's like, that's cringy when you did this. But if I wasn't thinking about doing this and I went up there. I can't explain this to you and it's so silly to say out loud. People will resonate to it when it's real and when it's acted, 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. They know if it's real or not.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  47. “I'm telling you, Lex, I tried to explain this to my brother the other day. It's the same thing with a live performance. 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. Because I'm like, this is the move, right? I'm like, this is the move”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  48. “Know it's about self love. He's like, Yeah, but do you need to talk about self love like that? And I was like, well, I feel like I need to. He's like, well, maybe, you know, there's something else we could say there. Like, we just kept, you know, we kept coming back to this song, okay? I was like, and I changed it. I tried changing it. What did I change it to? It was like, it wasn't your still my number one because it just made no sense. It wasn't about some love thing or like someone else. I changed it to something else and it just It was the one thing that I was like, I'm really sorry, Rick. I get it. And if it sounds cringy to you, it's definitely sound cringy to other people too, and that sucks, but I don't know else to say this in a way that I want to put that song out anymore. But there were other songs for sure where Rick was like, that or this, that word feels a little trite. You already said that once. Can you say it in a different way? It was really helpful. And that, yeah.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  49. “What do you mean here? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because he would look over. There was like, um, And there were battles he won, battles that he didn't win. And maybe he was right. I don't know. I mean, there was, for instance, I'll give you an example. There was a song on the record called Number One. Rick will probably laugh when he hears this. Because this was a big one that we kept going back and forth on. But this will give you a good insight of what it was like. And there's a line in it that says, I don't know, the course is, I don't know what I'm meant to be. I don't need no one to believe when it's all been said and done. I'm still my number one. And he was like, just makes me cringe when I hear that. Like, I just do you have to be like, can it not be like you're still my number one? I was like, no, it's not about anybody else.”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  50. “Well, first of all, it's Rick Rubin. So you're in the room with Rick Rubin, who's done a lot of the greatest of all time. And so I had to first just put that aside and be like, okay, well, you've done a lot of my favorite records, but still you're human and not everything you say is going to be right. And I'm a strongly opinionated person, and so is Rick. And so when the two of us were sitting out of a room together, it was, you know”

    2022-05-30 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #290 – Dan Reynolds: Imagine Dragons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source