Imagine Dragons‘ Dan Reynolds went to sleep on Friday night as the frontman of the year’s biggest breakout band … and woke up on Saturday morning as the Grammy-nominated frontman of the year’s biggest breakout band.
“I was on the tour bus, driving somewhere in the middle of Spain, between Barcelona and Madrid,” he told MTV News. “My family started texting me at like 5 a.m. with, like all caps and exclamations marks, saying we got nominated for a Grammy. Then, like 10 minutes later, it was ‘Wait, you got nominated for another Grammy!’ It was a very nice surprise to see in the wee hours in the morning.”
Yes, the Dragons picked up a pair of Grammy nods at Friday’s nominations special — their hit is up for Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance — unbeknownst to the band themselves. They’re wrapping up a European tour in support of their Night Visions album, after all (they’ll return for one last run of shows here in the States in February), and really weren’t even aware that the noms were being announced. And given that schedule, they still haven’t had a chance to properly celebrate.
“The day after we got nominated, we played a show, and we didn’t talk much about it,” Reynolds said, “and then after the show, [guitarist] Wayne [Sermon] was like ‘Hey guys, can we talk about the fact that we’re Grammy nominated?’ We’re either on stage or in an interview, so we really haven’t gotten to celebrate yet. We celebrated by playing more shows.”
Still, Reynolds said he has spent the past few days reflecting on just how far the band has come since they first began playing together in 2008. Needless to say, it’s been quite the climb, and though this past year has brought them no shortage of memorable moments, becoming Grammy nominees might just be the biggest thing that’s ever happened to them.
“I think it’s maybe one of the top; I don’t know if it gets much better than that, to be honest. We’ve got five years of hard work, and a little bit of Vegas luck behind us. We feel pretty fortunate,” he said. “We’ve been through so much together. We’ve had amps blow up on stage, had to get each other out of jail, we’ve been electrocuted, played tons of empty bar gigs … it’s a lot to take in for all of us.”
And to that end, Reynolds said he hasn’t even begun to think about what will happen on January 26, when the Grammys air live from Staples Center in Los Angeles. Can the Dragons shock the world and win Record of the Year? He’s not sure, though there’s one thing he does know: win or lose, he and his bandmates are gonna look great.
“Someone asked me what we’re going to wear to the show, and I was like ‘Honestly, that’s the last thing I’m thinking of.’ That’s the nice thing about being put in the alternative rock group category: people don’t expect much out of you in terms of what you wear,” he laughed. “We can show up in T-shirts and jeans, and we’re not going to show up on the ‘Worst-Dressed List’ because of that. We’ll try to be at the top of our game and wear something nice though. I might even shave, even though I hate shaving.”
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