1183: Wayne and Alex Sermon - Our Journey with Imagine Dragons and Mormonism Pt. 3
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.5 • 5.7K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2019
⏱️ 71 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mormon Stories had the real privilege of interviewing Daniel “Wayne” Sermon of Imagine Dragons, along with his wise and talented wife Alex Sermon, an accomplished professional ballerina, in their home in Las Vegas. In this interview the Sermons open up about their lives as Mormons, their life with Imagine Dragons, and their journey out of Mormonism.
Their interview is so inspiring....especially regarding their devoted partnership.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Music |
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| 0:37.0 | Thanks for your support. |
| 0:41.0 | Hello everyone and welcome back to my interview with Daniel Wayne Sermon, lead guitarist of Imagine Dragons and Alexandra Hall, ballerina and mother and thinker and amateur journalist at one point. |
| 1:05.0 | We're just loving our conversation with the Sermons and we've been two hours so far talking about their upbringing and you know Daniel's time as a musician, his time at Berkeley College of Music in Boston, Alex's time growing up in Orange County but also at BYU and being a journalism major and ballerina. |
| 1:31.0 | We left off at the end of part two with them sort of meeting and Alex moving to Las Vegas where Wayne had joined forces with Dan Reynolds and other friends to start trying to make Imagine Dragons a real thing but it was a slog. |
| 1:52.0 | So last we left it they're playing the empty empty rooms in LA and playing casinos where they're kind of background music playing cover, you know half cover songs and have their own original music and so I'm just dying to know where things go from here. |
| 2:12.0 | So I have a question about your both of your spiritual lives by the time you meet in your living in Vegas. So Wayne you had spent four years in Boston, is that right? Three years in Boston not dating but you said at least at the beginning you were attending singles awards. |
| 2:31.0 | And then even all the way through meeting Alex and kind of like as you're talking about marriage, I want to hear what your spiritual journey was like during that time and then Alex I want to hear yours and then we'll talk about your marriage and what your visions were for the future. |
| 2:44.0 | Cool. I mean I would say that I was after college I was still very much the faithful member had a temple recommend and Boston didn't corrupt you. |
| 2:53.0 | Boston did not corrupt me that's pretty interesting because you were with all these students that were secular right. Yeah, but you know it's like you're set apart from the world. |
| 3:02.0 | So it's like it's like you can be like Alex said you're of the world but in the world but not the world. Yes, exactly. So I kind of had that mentality still it's like yeah I it's fine I can be in the world but kind of still be you know I'm special we have all the answers it's like that kind of mentality of like. |
| 3:22.0 | You know being said above the world or something I don't know exactly but you're trying to be super righteous yeah trying to really righteous and devout so you went to your ward every week or most weeks to work to church. |
| 3:36.0 | Yeah, I was not I'm you know I don't want to give the impression that I was I was not the top of the heap as far as like righteousness I was sort of I did everything but I was I never felt like there's always people that you could see that you could |
| 3:51.0 | look to that were even more spiritual or you know stronger testimonies and all that stuff so I was probably the middle of the pack as I guess as far as my quality of. |
| 4:00.0 | Come on but in terms of your commitment and yeah my commitment was strong okay okay and how about you Alex so I could I would probably say I was similar I I mean I was the kind of student who got the callings where you'd like pass out the |
| 4:18.0 | handbooks or you could like pick the song so I never really you weren't really excited president no I was not really the |
| 4:24.0 | president I didn't have that aura about me however I I was going through the motions I I still I mean I still had that mindset of you |
| 4:36.0 | know future me will get that once I get married in the temple I mean once I go through the temple those questions and answers will be found and so I guess that's |
| 4:47.0 | probably where I was I I was still hopeful for the future but I I don't feel like I had a firm grasp in my own mind but probably to the outside world I was a |
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