PHOTO BY ELIOT LEE HAZEL

Left to right: Platzman, Sermon, McKee and Reynolds

Imagine Dragons

drummer Daniel

Platzman talks

it inspired, this performance, true
to the original while layering rich
harmonies, was a good one.
pening with an elec-
Which also is a tribute to the
tronic drum beat, Daniel
musicians who make up Imagine
Dragons, who will bring their
Platzman led Imagine
Dragons into a simple and searing
Smoke + Mirrors tour to the Palace
version of the classic "Stand by
of Auburn Hills Tuesday, June 23.
•
Of the indie-pop quartet
• including lead vocalist Dan
• Reynolds, guitarist Wayne "Wing"
Sermon, bassist Ben McKee and
drummer Platzman — all but
Reynolds attended Boston's pres-
tigious Berklee College of Music,
and all not only play an instru-
ment, but are multi-instrumen-
talists. They are at once precise
and heartfelt, in their music and
in their gracious reckoning of the
overwhelming success they have
received.
For Platzman, 28, music is
a family thing. He grew up in
Atlanta where his family had
a tradition of playing chamber
music together that went back
generations. His dad, an electrical
engineer, plays piano; his grand-
father played piano; and, he says,
Me" in a tribute to Ben E. King at
"there's an old German Platzman,
last month's 2015 Billboard Music
a great-great-uncle, who did silent
Awards in their homebase, Las
film scores:'
Vegas.
Between his father, Loren,
Though the song has likely been who is Jewish, and his mother,
covered thousands of times, judg-
Kathleen, who is Irish Catholic,
ing by the emotional response of
Platzman calls himself a "cashew:'
King's daughter and granddaugh-
Although his childhood household
ters, Taylor Swift's effusive dancing was agnostic, he says, "I attended
and the audience sing-along that
a bunch of friends' bar mitzvahs,

O

BY ALEXAN

success.

Lynne Konstantin

I Arts & Life Editor

Imagine Dragons performs
Tuesday, June 23, at the
Palace of Auburn Hills.
$29.50-$69.50. (800)
745-3000; palacenet.com .

32

June 18 • 2015

and I'm culturally Jewish — some-
times. I always attend seders:'
His father began ear-training
Platzman on the piano at age 3. "I
had a toy Disney ukulele when I
was he says. "I loved that thing.
It broke one day, and my dad took
it as a sign. The next day, I started
violin lessons:'
When Daniel was 9, his older
brother, Richard, who played bass,
convinced him to play drums so
they could jam together. "The
first song I played on the drums
was "Machine Head" by Bush,"
Platzman remembers. "I really
took to the drums. I was always
fidgety when I was a kid, kind of
percussive.
"The right hand of the violin
is similar to the right hand of the
drums, but you have to use both
hands — really, four limbs — at
the same time, doing different
things:'
When he got to middle school,
Platzman took on the trumpet "It's
like a workout, and your jaw mus-
cles have to be in check:' he says.
"I have mad respect for trumpet
players, they're like the surgeons of
the music world. I thought, 'I will
conquer this metal beast!"'
Next, he bought a used trom-
bone and mastered that. And,
he adds, "When we were playing
chamber music, if no one was
playing viola, I would do that.
I would tune it down, so that it
sounded a little like a violin. That's

a fun thing to do:'
Unsure whether he wanted to
focus on music professionally,
Platzman also knew that it was
what he did best, "although I'm
also really good at math:' he adds.
So he attended a five-week sum-
mer music program during high
school.
"That changed everything. I was
a cocky music kid and it was the
first time I had my butt handed to
me — everyone was better than I
was:' Platzman says. "That was a
great experience for me. The sum-
mer before college, I decided to do
this. I really wanted to be able to
understand each instrument as I
was writing for it:'
He enrolled at Berklee College of
Music, where he was able to expe-
rience every aspect of music, and
began thinking about architectural
acoustics before settling on film
scoring. "I did these workshops at
performing-arts camps:' Platzman
says. "One of them was to write a
short script, and I fell in love with
movies. Plus my brother [Richie]
does film, and I look up to him
a lot. I think it's interesting that
the goal of a film score is to write
music for a scene — the goal is to
not be noticed. But as a drummer,
it's not about the notes. You do
what the song needs:'
Having a degree from Berklee,
he learned, would not ensure him
anything but experience. But that
experience was life-changing. And