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
Gold (Imagine Dragons song) remix of the song was featured on the soundtrack of the video game, "NBA 2K17". According to the sheet music published at musicnotes.com, the song is written in the key of A minor, with a moderate tempo. Along with "Hopeless Opus" and "I'm So Sorry" on "Smoke + Mirrors", the song touches upon lead-singer Dan Reynolds' depression struggles. Dan Reynolds told "Billboard" that "Gold" was one of the last songs to be recorded for "Smoke + Mirrors": "I came home from tour with my head spinning and decided to run away for a bit to the west coast and reflect/write