Dan Reynolds (singer) and then transferred to BYU after serving an LDS mission, where he studied communications, marketing, and music and excelled academically. While at BYU, he formed Imagine Dragons and won the school's battle of the bands competition before leaving to pursue music full-time. Reynolds was initially reluctant to become a professional musician, partially because future bandmate Wayne Sermon had once told him: "Don't do music because you want to do music - do music if you have to do music". After he began attending Brigham Young University, Reynolds found that he could not "do anything else" and committed fully to a
Dan Reynolds (singer) nominated for two more Grammy Awards and received the iHeartRadio Music Award for Alternative Rock Artists of the Year. When invited to perform an opening set for Nico Vega in 2010, Reynolds met Aja Volkman, the group's lead singer. He invited her to help him finish some demos he was developing. The two began collaborating, and formed Egyptian. They recorded, produced, and independently released a four track eponymous EP digitally. They have only performed this material once live. In 2013, Dan discovered then unsigned alternative band X Ambassadors. After connecting with the band, he brokered a record deal for them