Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds has a tremendous amount of respect for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and revealed he sat down with the leader to discuss how he can help the war-torn country.
Speaking with People, Dan spoke about barring his band’s music from being sold in Russia after the country invaded Ukraine. Since then, he has worked to bring relief to Ukraine as an ambassador for UNITED24.
“We got in touch with people over there and had the honor of sitting down with President Zelenskyy on Zoom,” he recalled. “[We were] able to ask him how we could actually help more than just words and thoughts and all the things that come with social media.”
Reynolds continued, “The interesting thing he said was, ‘First of all, thoughts, words, those things actually do matter. So get on our social media, and don’t forget about us. Keep talking about us. That’s how it gets in the news.'”
The “Enemy” singer said that advice can help bring change by pressuring those in power to do more. “Ukraine is being bullied, and children are being killed,” he rallied.
Elsewhere in the interview, the singer opened up about making the albums Mercury – Act 1 and Mercury – Act 2. He said the albums were born from a period of loss, adding, “It’s been incredibly cathartic.” He lost several people over the past five years — including a manager, an ex-girlfriend, one of his best friends and his sister-in-law — to cancer.
“When you lose that many people close to you, or even one person, it makes you rethink life,” Reynolds said. “I couldn’t help but write about that.”
He said making music is “a therapy session for me” and he writes “a song almost every day, and it’s like a journal entry.”
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