Imagine Dragons' Dan Reynolds talks sobriety, LoveLoud Foundation: 'I think it just kind of came to a head for me'
In Imagine Dragons’ new single “Bones,” frontman Dan Reynolds sings, “Feeling like a boulder hurtling/Seeing all the vultures circling/Burning in the flames, I'm working in/Turning in a bed that's darkening.” It’s a song that explores his “constant obsession with the finality and fragility of life,” according to a press statement, and it follows Reynolds, who’s always been open about his mental health struggles, announcing his decision to get sober and chronicling his recovery journey on social media.
“I appreciate you checking in on that,” Reynolds says, speaking via Zoom to Yahoo Entertainment about his LoveLoud Festival, which will take place Salt Lake City on May 14 — exactly one year and three days after he made that life-changing announcement on Twitter. “I'm not like ‘Mr. Sober’ guy — ‘Everybody needs to be sober, yada yada’ — but it helps me to have people to check in with, and our [online] community, our fanbase, has been really, really helpful for that.”
Reynolds has been married to Nico Vega frontwoman Aja Volkman since 2011; the two very publicly separated in 2018 and began the divorce process, but had a last-minute change of heart and reconciled seven months later; they have since welcomed their fourth child together. Reynolds says his decision to get clean is “really for my kids, I'd say, more than anything. I'm a dad of four kids and I just want to be a good dad, you know? … I think you just see your life kind of crumbling around you. That's the definition of addiction, when you're keeping it from people that you love. I think it just kind of came to a head for me.”
Reynolds, whose band catapulted to super-stardom about a year and a half after he got married, sheepishly admits that his substance abuse was at least partially due to the “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll” mythology that he bought into. (“If the ‘drugs; was taken out of that, then I'm cool,” he now says with a laugh.) “The cringiest thing to me personally is seeing [drugs and alcohol] used as something that's associated with rock in a way that's ‘cool’ or something, which I grew up seeing a lot of the bands that I liked. I felt like that kind of was a thing. And that that's part of the way that I got involved in the first place is thinking, ‘Well, this person does it, and they're cool. And look at them living this extreme life. And maybe I should try that.’”
The 34-year-old rocker now realizes that was all a stupid cliché. “I really hate the narrative of rock ‘n’ roll, that there's this kind of glorification of drugs. I really don't identify with that,” he stresses. “I've had multiple friends that have died because of drug overdoses — close friends — starting in high school. So, I don't see it as ‘cool’ at all. There's nothing cool. Anybody who has someone close to them who is dealing with real addiction, it's not a pretty thing to see. But I'm not saying it's shameful. That's why I talk about it.”
Watch Dan Reynolds’s full, extended interview with Yahoo Entertainment:
Tying this all back to the purpose of Reynolds’s LoveLoud Foundation — which he launched in 2017 to support LGBTQ+ youth in the Mormon community — Reynolds points out that queer Mormon kids who ostracized or disowned by their families and their community are not only “seven times more likely to take their life,” but also seven times more likely to indulge in risky drug use.
“The mission of LoveLoud in general is to ignite the conversation, to start the conversation in homes, about what it means to truly love and celebrate our LGBTQ youth. And that sounds like a simple thing, but especially in deeply religious communities we have really seen that acceptance is not what these kids need. They need to be celebrated,” Reynolds stresses. “These statistics show if you love your child, if you want them to have a healthy life, if you want them to be truly happy — which the majority of these parents do — let's talk about celebrating them and telling them they're perfect, telling them there's nothing wrong with them, that God isn't looking down on them. That's the game-changer, especially in these religious communities.”
Reynolds was raised in a large Mormon family and tells Yahoo Entertainment, “I still claim Mormonism because it's my culture,” but reveals that he and Volkman are not raising their children in the Mormon faith because “I think there's a lot of things I disagree with that I think is hurting our kids. And one of those things is this exact issue, which is anyone ever telling our youth that they're anything but perfect and that loving who they love is wrong in some way, or that there's some God that's judging that. Because there's no ounce of truth to that.”
Reynolds’s deeply religious mother, Christene, isn’t thrilled with her son’s parenting decision. “This has been a long transition for me, and it was difficult when you have a mother who is very, very resolute about her faith and she feels like saving her kids’ lives,” the singer says, adding with a chuckle, “I think when my kids are alone with her, she's like, ‘Let me tell you about God and Jesus Christ!’” But he recalls questioning the Mormon church’s teachings as early as when he was in the 6th grade.
“Since when I was very young, I was involved in the art community deeply, and it's no secret when you're in the art community that most of the best artists are queer. Many of my dearest friends from young age were, whether they were out or not; a lot of them were Mormon and not out. I watched that struggle as a teenager,” Reynolds recalls. “I remember being in ninth grade and there was a kid that I knew he was Mormon. He went in front of the Mormon temple in his car. He drove in front and shot himself, killed himself. … It’s this toxic, toxic shaming process that happens to these kids. And I grew up seeing it my whole life.”
Eventually Reynolds got to a point when he could no longer stay silent, and that was when he started dating Volkman. “When I met her, she was living with her two best friends who were queer, and they were best friends. And just because she was marrying a Mormon, they didn't come to our wedding, which I understand. … That's when I felt like, ‘OK, I can't even stay as a Mormon,’ because even if I'm speaking out about these things, simply by being Mormon and standing silently, I was an enemy to all that. We're striving for equality. That hurt has taken a long time to repair; I don't know that it'll ever repair fully with my wife and her best friends. And that kills me, man. It kills me.”
But Reynolds is doing the work with LoveLoud, and he stresses that there’s “a simple answer” that parents of any faith should remember. “The simple answer is just treat our [LGBTQ+] youth the same, afford them the same love. … It means they are treated the exact same as your other children. They are told the same principles of God loving them, if that's what they choose to do. If they're in a religious household, God loves them and they're going to heaven. If that's your story that you're telling, you better tell all your kids. Because if you're not, then your kid is seven times more likely to take their life. And no parent wants that.
“It’s one of those things that I just it's hard to have patience with, but we’ve got to change our ways. Because we're just seeing continually seeing our youth take their lives because we can’t make simple changes.”
If you or someone you know needs help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). For tickets to the LoveLoud Festival, which will feature performances by Reynolds, Willow, Anitta, Neon Trees, and more, click here.
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
How Manchester tragedy inspired Frankie Grande to get sober for good: 'I knew in that moment'
Alice Cooper talks early-'80s 'blackout albums': 'The coke had done its damage'
Slash talks addiction, recovery: 'I was fortunate. I didn't die, and I didn't go to prison'
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— Video produced by Anne Lilburn, edited by Jimmie Rhee
