Song Exploder - Imagine Dragons - Follow You

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Imagine Dragons are a Grammy-winning band from Las Vegas. They’ve sold over 20 millions albums so far, and they were the most streamed band on Spotify in 2018. In March of this year, they released the song “Follow You." Singer Dan Reynolds started the song at home, and then later, the band took it to the studio Shangri-La, to record parts of it with legendary producer Rick Rubin. In this episode, Dan breaks down the song, which tells a deeply personal story of his relationship to his wife. For more, visit songexploder.net/imagine-dragons

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi-Kesh Hirway. Imagine Dragons are a Grammy-Award-winning band from Las Vegas. They've sold over 20 million albums so far, and they were the most streamed band on Spotify in 2018. In March of this year, they released the song Follow You. Singer Dan Reynolds started the song at home, and then later the band took the song to the studio Shangri-La to record parts of it with legendary producer Rick Rubin. In this episode, Dan breaks down the song, which tells a deeply personal story of his relationship to his wife. My name is Dan Reynolds, and I sing for the band Imagine Dragons.

There were a lot of things that kind of led to this, and we'd gone through therapy and different things, but we decided, you know what, after seven years of being married, this isn't going to work. We're going to get a divorce. And that was a really difficult decision, super heartbreaking. We had actually been together for over a decade at that point. We had three kids and Imagine Dragons blew up after we got married. And so I traveled a lot, which was really difficult. I'd also went through a big faith crisis. I was raised in Mormonism and it never really settled incorrectly for me.

So I was just dealing with different things that made a marriage difficult. It made me a difficult partner to be with. So we got separated. And after seven months of zero communication, I came home. to sit in an attorney's office and sign the final papers. And when I was driving to sign the papers, Asia sent me a very lengthy text message, expressing seven months of pain that she had been through and really expressing seven years of marriage. But doing it in the most heartfelt way.

It was, I love you, I accept you, and we're going to be great co-parents together for these children. children separated, kind of like this text of freedom and love and forgiveness. And I read it and I was like reminded about how important this woman was to me. It made me rethink a lot of things about myself, about our relationship, about our family. So we sat down at the table to sign these papers and we kind of looked at each other across the table and I think we were both crying and I said something like, hey, why are we doing this? Let's get out of here. So we got up from the table and we went to eat and just felt the deepest sense of love and loyalty.

And it felt like the first time we had met, which was magical for both of us. Then we decided, well, why don't we just start dating again, even though we were still married? So we just started dating. Since the age of 12, I've written almost a song a day. And I was like, this is incredible. Me and Asia are dating again. we may get back together. This is a second chance.

I have to write about this today. And I went through a bunch of tracks that Joel Little had sent me, who was an incredible producer that we've worked with in the past. And I listened to a couple of them, and one of them was a basic beat with a synth. It's like a really beautiful, haunting organ,

and it felt nostalgic to me immediately. It made me feel like some sense of worship. and when I hear that, something about the worship made me think of love. And the melody always comes first. And then I just start to sing about whatever's in my head. Like loyalty to this woman who's been with me through everything. And I'm not an easy person to be with. a long time. I'm very bipolar. I've dealt with serious depression since I was young.

Anxiety, like high highs, low lows. And she's been with me through everything. So I think something about that was in my mind. I'll get the chorus right first. Then I know, okay, now I know what I'm writing about. I'm writing about following someone through the ups and downs of life. I'll follow you way down, wherever you may go. I'll follow you way down to your deepest love. Well, one of my first thoughts was, don't muddy it up. Don't cloudy this up. One of the things I really tried to do with this record was be less metaphorical. One of the reasons I was overly metaphorical in a lot of my early works, not even because I was trying to sound that poetic. It's really because I was afraid of my family knowing what I was singing

about from a very young age. So if my mom happened to hear the song, she's not going to be like, son, are you having a problem with your faith? Like, I didn't want to have that conversation. So I would always be over-the-top metaphorical. And I recall immediately would follow you lyrically thinking, don't overthink this. You know I got your number number all night. I'm always on your team. I'm taking those losses if it treats you right.

I want to put you into the spotlight. If the world would only know what you've been holding back, heart attacks every night. When I finished the song, I get on my Gmail and I send the demo to the band. Then Wayne will add guitar at his house and send it back. Wayne's guitar is a very personal thing for him. Wayne is super involved.

I'm very excitable. Wayne is very grounded. He's very even keeled. And in the early stages of the band, Wayne and I were primary songwriters. And then we would get in the studio with Ben and Platsman. Then they would bring their opinions to the table on these demos and really be involved then.

Then the next iteration was when we went to the studio. Rick Rubin is the producer, and we did it at his studio in Malibu, which is known as Shangri-La. I loved working with him. We had all the stems sent over from Joel, and then we started with just the vocal, the synth, and built from there.

Our goal with this track was to really marry the modern with the throwback, like 50% organic and 50% programmed. And so there's real drums, On top of programmed drums, then we added on organ with Corey Henry. Watching him work was incredible. And he really brings that sense of almost worship to the song. That's Wayne playing that on a really vintage, upright piano.

We wanted to give human resonance to the track. You know, as good as you can get the best programmed piano, you're not going to have the depth that's going to come. come from a vintage old upright piano in Rick's room at Shangri-La. We thought, okay, well, it would be interesting to start the song and play it as though you're hearing it on old radio in the 80s or something like that, and we recorded it through a tape cassette player. And then the song, you hear it rewind, and then that's when the song opens up.

I typically use my demo vocals on almost every single song that we've put out. This is not a You've been crying, crying all night You're only disappointed in yourself All right This is not a room That any studio engineer Would ever recommend

There's no sound dampening On any of the walls So as you listen to this track It's there I can really hear it grabbing, compressing grabbing the room You know I got your number All night

I'm always on your team I can It's not typically how people People are doing their vocals. They're in a vocal booth, and they're doing it correct. But for this song, when I tried to do it in a vocal booth, it just didn't sound as cool. It sounded like doing a vocal in a vocal booth and not doing it in a weird room with weird acoustics.

And then I wanted to get to a bridge that actually had one moment where it was like, but really, honey, I want to tell you something serious, which is that I love you. And I know that you've had to live in a circumstance. It's been really difficult. with marrying into Mormonism, sticking by my side through ups and downs. It was a moment where I wanted to just, it's just me and you here for a second on this bridge.

Let me just tell you that I love you and I appreciate you. You're not the type to give herself enough love. She live a life hand in a tight glove. The lyrics are, she's not the type to give herself enough love. She lives her life hand in a tight glove. I wish that I could fix it. I could fix it for you, but instead I'll be right here coming through. Anybody who is married into a very conservative family or a family that is very outside the world

that you were raised in, it's a very daunting experience. So when she met my family, I think she felt a very high level of scrutiny, whether it was there or not. And I hated that. She was always holding back a word, afraid to be too provocative, afraid to be herself. And it's hard for me even talk about that bridge without it making me feel emotional because of how big of a factor that's played in our entire marriage. And it's little things like that that make you really love someone. And I just stacked my vocal a bunch of times doing like my own interpretation of the Beach Boys.

It's supposed to be, but by the way, here's to the rest of our life. But instead I be like take it over the top and make you laugh when you hear this and make you smile, know that we have good times ahead of. of us and wow look what we just made it through that was my thought process so rick rubin's idea was he said okay we just got to a high level here with the tillat dilat dilett nid nid okay what are you going to do that's going to make me not feel like you're actually taking a step down after that so i heard this melody in my head that was way out of my range but rick really wanted me to go for it i just remember being like i don't think i can hit this but i'll try and if i do hit it it's not going to sound pretty. And then I did it and Rick was like, I like it. It went something like that.

I actually re-sang this song. I want to say three times. And we even did a version of this song, by the way, completely different. It's very organic and it's more live instrumentation. But Rick said to me, you know, are you trying to make an Imagine Dragon song that's influenced by the Beach Boys or are you trying to make a Beach Boy song? And that, that's, you're trying to make a Beach Boy song. and that made me think a lot about it. I was leaning towards putting out the other version of the song, but Rick also said, well, why don't you go listen to them both? So I put on my headphones and I went on a run.

I remember this super vividly. I went on a run on the beach, and the one that we didn't put out gave me a feeling of like a party. Then I played the other one, and it was like emotional for me. It sounded like, I worship this woman. This is my religion because religion, hasn't worked for me. I typically never write love songs. It feels trite to me and redundant. It's like, okay, how are you going to say it better than, you know, how it's been said before? But I'm really

glad that this song was written. It commemorates something that's really important to me and a life change that's the best decision I made. I hope that this song is something that I can always go back to and listen to remind me of what's most important to me, which is loyalty to those that I love. I really do hope that just on a selfish level, just for me, it is something I always can listen to and say, you know what? There was a lot I learned in the time period of our relationship

that's captured in a small song. And now here's Follow You by Imagine Dragons in its entirety. Or visit SongExploder.com. You'll find links to buy or stream follow you, and you can watch the music video. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career.

And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabond, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Robe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me.

So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album. with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now.

You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, Rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net, slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. This episode was made by me with editing help from Tina Lieberson and Casey Deal, artwork by Carlos Lerma, and music clearance by Kathleen Smith. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm. You can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Rishi Hirwe and you can follow the show at SongExploder. You can also get a Song Explorer t-shirt at SongExploder.net slash shirt. My name is Rishi-Kesh Heirway. Thanks for listening.