Dan Reynolds Explains Deeply Personal Origins Of Imagine Dragons' New Music

On Friday (March 12), Imagine Dragons officially began their latest chapter when they released two new singles, "Follow You" and "Cuttthroat."

During an interview with Rolling Stone, singer Dan Reynolds explained the songs' deeply personal origins.

Starting with "Cutthroat," the vocalist revealed "that song is really an exorcism of self-loathing. I feel like I’ve spent a lot of years of my life kind of [feeling] 'woe is me.' I don’t know if depression is a genetic thing for me or whether it came from religious crisis. I was raised in Mormonism, and it wasn’t really for me. That was hard for me to come to terms with in my brain. But for whatever reason, around my teenage years, I really started to deal with mental illness, seeing a therapist and trying different medications."

"That was the focus of all my music, and [there was] a great amount of focus on self," he continued. "And that song is about kind of exorcising, trying to cut out, that self-pity, and embracing life and all that I’ve been given. A big theme of 'Cutthroat' and a lot of the songs on the record is the finality of life. I lost my sister-in-law to cancer last year. I was actually in the room with my brother when she passed. They have seven kids. It was the first time I’d ever actually been in the room with someone who passed away, and that really hit me in in a different way, making me think about every day differently, and how am I spending my time. The year before that, one of my best friends took his life. It just makes you grateful for your health, grateful for each day. People will hear it and think the song is angry at someone else. But it’s really angry at itself."

“'Follow You' is the opposing sonic side of the record," Reynolds explained. "The record, at least in my head, is kind of split into two sides. Part of it is looking outward, part of it’s looking inward, a little more organic, sometimes more aggressive, chaotic. And the part of the record that’s that’s looking inward is 'Cutthroat.'”

"It’s a love song, which we usually don’t write, because it just feels redundant or cringey for me," he admitted. "I’m not great at writing love songs. But when I got back to Aja and we came together through ayahuasca, of all things, it was so harrowing an experience for me that I was so grateful for groundedness and loyalty to people that I love. So 'Follow You' is about loyalty. It’s about me and Aja coming back together."

As for the status of their fifth album? "[It] is complete," Reynolds said. "These two singles are kind of to navigate the fans through what to expect with this record, which is the two sides to it, and the extremes of it. Also, the name of the record kind of correlates with it. I think I’m not supposed to say what the name of the record is yet. But it speaks to that."

Read the full interview here.