VIDEO: First Look - IMAGINE DRAGONS Release Video for 'Radioactive'

The video for "Radioactive," directed by Syndrome (Eminem, Ke$ha, The Black Eyed Peas) features actors Lou Diamond Phillips (Southland), Alexandra Daddario (Parenthood), and the puppeteers by the studio Puppet Heap (The Walt Disney Company, The Daily Show) has been released. The concept revolves around a mysterious female drifter who is on a quest to save her friends (Imagine Dragons) from the perils of a sinister, underground puppet-fighting ring. Check out the video!

The second single from Night Visions, "Radioactive," is currently Top 10 at Modern Rock.

After the last note played on the last song of a marathon set a few years ago, Dan Reynolds, frontman for Las Vegas based rockers Imagine Dragons, realized it was all starting to come together.  Since then that connection has only grown. Reynolds and his bandmates – guitarist Wayne Sermon, bassist Ben McKee, and drummer Daniel Platzman – independently released three EPs, toured extensively, earning a grass roots following. Then, earlier this year, the band made their major label debut with the release of their Continued Silence EP, which included the breakthrough single "It's Time," an anthemic foot-stomping track that perfectly encapsulates the band's unvarnished emotional sound. The song, which reached #3 at Modern Rock radio and #2 at AAA, earned the group a 2012 MTV VMA nomination for "Best Rock Video." With the groundswell of energy "It's Time" generated, Imagine Dragons are now preparing for the release of their full-length debut, Night Visions, available on Grammy award winning producer Alex Da Kid's (Eminem, Rihanna) label, KIDinaKORNER. 

Emotional struggle is central to Imagine Dragons ethos. From the beginning it's been the group's goal to take the pain they've each experienced in life and spin it into something redemptive and uplifting. That transformation – of emotional pain into art – is what drives them as people and it's also what inspired their first hit. "I wrote 'It's Time' during a very transitional period in my life," Reynolds recalls. "It seemed like everything was going wrong. I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life, trying to figure out how seriously to take music. I was making decisions about who I was. I'm a pretty young guy and I'm still trying to figure out the answer to those questions."

That balance between riding steady and risking it all is the core tension at the heart of Imagine Dragons' sound and their identity and it's a reflection of the city they call home. "Our band wouldn't exist without Las Vegas," Reynolds says simply. "It's a great place for an artist to start out." Sin City isn't known as a creative hotbed but, weirdly, that works to the advantage of the musicians who live there. "It's not oversaturated," he explains. "As a new band you play the casinos - half covers, half your own stuff – and you make ends meet. We were able to rent a band house and support ourselves. Eating ramen, but still." Eking out a living as a Vegas rocker might be relatively easy but competition is cutthroat because the city is like boot camp for performers. Unlike in New York or LA where your biggest concern is being the hottest rock act around, in Las Vegas you've got to compete with showgirls and roulette and Cher at the Caesars Palace. 

With the release of Night Visions, Imagine Dragons finally have a chance to show the world what that magic sounds like. They start off with a big statement in "Radioactive," which blends a throbbing backbeat with delicate acoustic guitars and deals lyrically with facing the apocalypse. "We want people to hear that song and feel empowered," Reynolds explains. Meanwhile, the delicacy of tracks like "Demons" balances the album's expansiveness with a sense of human intimacy.

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