I’m not Mormon, but unlike many non-Mormons in Utah, I’d had only positive experiences living among them for seven formative years. I’ve since been fascinated with Mormon culture and presentation to the outside world. “My bishop told me that the headquarters had reached out and been like, ‘What’s his standing with the church?’ I think they check in on their famous Mormons.” Reynolds recalls the Mormon Church showing interest and inviting him to high-profile events once Imagine Dragons achieved a level of success. Some of the band members are Mormons from Las Vegas, which I knew to be common, as someone who’d lived in Salt Lake City from age 10 to 17. Imagine Dragons embodies middle America and, I’d assumed, middle American values. Their heavy-handed, hip-hop-laced verses tee up anthemic choruses that pulse over Jeep and Microsoft commercials. The first song on their new album, “Natural,” is ESPN’s 2018 official college-football-season anthem. I’d made what I thought was a well-informed judgment about Imagine Dragons: They play mainstream, red-state rock music. His handshake is predictably firm, and he exudes disciplined normality. He’s the former high-school quarterback who blows everyone’s mind at the reunion because he’s in better shape now than he was then. His tight, brand-new, white T-shirt tucks cleanly into black gym shorts. He doesn’t have long hair, visible tattoos, or any signifiers that he’s in a band. Reynolds towers over me and I’m six-foot-one. Plenty of rock stars have nontraditional pasts, but Reynolds is different: He’s using his platform as a very famous straight man to advocate for LGBTQ rights, and in the process he’s alienating his band from its fans and himself from his own faith. Reynolds also started a band, and now, at 31, he’s the singer in Imagine Dragons, arguably the biggest rock band in the world. He served as a Mormon missionary and attended the Church-owned Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He then got married and fathered three children. I only felt emotion, never what people call the spirit.”ĭan Reynolds did everything right. “I went on a mission because I was like, maybe if I go on a mission, God will talk to me, but he never did. Or she never did, or whatever it is.
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