Imagine Dragons band uses city’s energy in its music

They're a band on a swift upward trajectory, having been together less than half a year and having already dropped their debut EP with more material in the works. Imagine Dragons' dance floor-friendly rock is spreading fast. Try and keep up, as the band breaks it down for us:

What do Imagine Dragons sound like?

"Describing your own sound is kind of like putting your bio up on a dating service -- it's almost impossible not to come across as pretentious or at the very least confused about your self-image. But we'd like to hope that we are influenced in some small part by the bands in regular rotation on our iPods (Muse, Coldplay, Arcade Fire, our hometown heroes The Killers, and plenty of other praiseworthy artists). Our songs are synth-y, loud and dance-inducing. But we try not to take ourselves too seriously and hope that our music is, above all else, a lot of fun."

You guys have only been together for four months, and yet your sound has come together pretty quickly. Are you ever a little surprised at how fast things have developed?

"It feels to us like it's taken forever. We've spent a lot of long, sweaty hours writing, practicing and recording, only to throw everything out and start over again. But with each generation of tracks we feel like we move in a forward direction and we are dead set on keeping a fire under our own feet so our fans don't have to do it for us. And, to mix our metaphors, a rolling stone gathers no moss. We really hate moss. Don't you?"

You're currently in the studio. How is the new material shaping up?

"Things are going really well. We find that the more we write together, the more defined our sound becomes. The past couple months our main focus has been on writing. We've been churning out a couple songs a week and have come up with a few that we're really happy with. We're very excited about the new material."

Does Las Vegas manifest itself in your music much?

"It's impossible to live in a city with as much personality as Las Vegas and not be influenced by it. Vegas is new to some of us, but it's our home now and we love it. The vibe here is energetic and electric. That energy is probably what manifests most in our music. We try to funnel it into every aspect of our work, be it writing, performing or recording. At the end of most days we're completely exhausted, but we love it. And we hope that our fans can feel our energy and passion, because at the end of the day that's what we are doing this for."

Hear Imagine Dragons at www.myspace.com/imaginedragons.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@review journal.com or 702-383-0476.