Our guest, Ron Reynolds, is the father of nine children – including Dan Reynolds, Imagine Dragons frontman and co-founder.
The many hit songs from Imagine Dragons include Believer, Thunder, Whatever it Takes, RadioActive, Demons, It’s Time, On Top of the World, & Natural. Their many awards and honors include a Grammy win, several Grammy nominations, three American Music Awards, and ten Billboard Music Awards.
Ron’s other children, seven other boys and a girl, are all impressively accomplished individuals in their own right – including another Grammy winner.
It was truly was a pleasure talking with Ron. In this episode Ron talks about his principles, his approach to parenting a large family, the importance of service, and how he’s supported his children’s choices – even where there’s been an element of risk involved.
His children are fortunate to have Ron as their father, and Ron is fortunate to have married a brilliant woman who was an incredible mother for their nine kids.
Imagine Dragons website: https://www.imaginedragonsmusic.com/
LoveLoud website: https://loveloudfest.com/
Reynolds Family Photo
Dan and his mom sharing a moment backstage
Ron on the Amazon river
Ron at a service project in Peru with his two doctor sons
Ron, his wife, and Dan in the Ukraine
Transcription likely contains some errors. Enjoy the episode!
Jonathan V.: Ron, thank you for being here. With nine kids, I am sure that you’ve had countless proud moments, but to pick out just one, could you reflect on what it was like to watch Dan and his band Imagine Dragons win a Grammy award?
Ron Reynolds: It was exciting. Were pleased with everything that Dan has done. He’s done a lot of things in his life and a lot of high points and we’ve enjoyed them all. That was a great one. We actually had a son that won a Grammy for writing about the music industry before Dan won a Grammy.
Jonathan V.: Is that right? No kidding. Which son was that?
Ron Reynolds: That was Mac. He was a law student at the time and he wrote about the industry and the committee chose that. So that’s one of the Grammy awards. It’s not, you know, not one on the television like you see Dan receiving, we’ve been happy with all of our children and everything that they do. And Dan of course is out there. People see him more than the others. And so we have bigger opportunities, when you have 150,000 people screaming and yelling and singing along. That’s a different type of experience than some quiet moments, but they’re all real wonderful, wonderful times.
Jonathan V.: I’m absolutely certain that they are and you’ve got nine children. Is that correct?
Ron Reynolds: Yes. Yeah. Eight boys. One daughter.
Jonathan V.: Could you recite your kids’ names and maybe provide just a little blurb on what they’re doing now?
Ron Reynolds: Sure. I have Robert, he’s married has a handful of kids. He is an attorney. He is the manager and attorney for the Killers. Did Mr. Brightside, they’re an international band, have had number one on billboard. And he still manages to killers. They’re putting out an album in the next month. And then there’s Matthew. Matthew does similar work. He’s an attorney also. And he manages Imagine Dragons along with doing a number of other things. I have Go, whose real name is Brandon, but we’ve always called him Go. He’s a plastic surgeon, four beautiful daughters. I have Harrison. Harry is also a lawyer. He worked in a firm where he represented high-end entertainers. It seems like all of my sons, I have four sons that are attorneys, seem to start in a large law firm that will work them to death, but give them great experience, kind of grow through adversity. And they eventually moved back to Las Vegas and we’re all together and they end up doing their own thing. So they’ve gone somewhat different directions. I have Cultra who’s our youngest. He just graduated from law school. Fairly new to marriage has one child. We have Paul, Paul is an anesthesiologist. He has seven children. He lost his wife to cancer, his oldest child, at the time was 14.
Jonathan V.: I’m sorry to hear that. I had a cancer diagnosis myself. I was diagnosed with stage four, colon cancer, and it’s been more than 10 years clear now, but it was very difficult at the time thinking that I might not be there for my family. I’m sure that was very difficult for your son, as well as yourself.
Ron Reynolds: It was difficult, but he’s remarried. He married a gal with four children. So now they have 11. That bumped it up really quick, but he’s happy and busy. And the children interact well. So that turned out great. He’s a great father. Have a son Clinton. He’s a dentist. Thank Heaven’s, they’re all in town because I have my dentist and my doctors and everybody close by. He’s our painless dentist, which is wonderful. Of course have Sarah, our only daughter and she has her own business. And she also does management. She does a lot of managing things. And it seems like because I have some sons that always seem to be out on tour somewhere. There’s a lot of managing that needs to be done with that, as well as running her own business, as well as raising two daughters and probably more, I think that’s probably all of our children.
Jonathan V.: So, you have nine kids. How do you do that? Do you have a division of responsibilities between you and your wife, logistically is it challenging? Is there a certain approach that you take to make that work?
Ron Reynolds: Well, you’re probably talking to the blunt instrument of the duo, although I’m probably not the best of fathers. I did do some purposeful things, I guess, that weren’t accidental which have worked. I think one of them of courses that I always dated the right people and my parents said, we end up marrying who you date and I ended up marrying the right person. So that’s probably the number one thing for raising children, you know, you hear about stay at home moms anymore as if that’s, you know, well, what else do you do? I married a person and I had a checklist crazy enough. Maybe it was that day and age. On my checklist was a great mother for my children and, you know, picky on that. And I happened to after chasing her for five years through college, I ended up marrying her and she is the smartest person I know, very disciplined, very loving, very service oriented. And so if I could say a secret to success, raising nine children is it starts with making the right decision. You know, not just the chemistry, which is necessary, not just the attraction, but to get someone that’s going to be a good mother that loves. And then that will put in the time. And she puts in 110%. She was a national merit scholar. She graduated as the valedictorian and in her university class of 5,000, she’s smart. And so she instilled in our kids hard work because it doesn’t come from sitting around.
Jonathan V.: Did you have a lot of structure in the Reynolds household?
Ron Reynolds: We probably have a pretty strict environment. I’m a laid-back person, but I probably don’t believe much in laissez faire parenting. That is, I would never be the parent to say, go out and have fun, but be safe. And that’s kind of the advice that we were never liked, that we’re very structured. So was it a little hard on our children? Depends on who you talk to probably. Did they always have fun? Yes. Did we have a lot of fun? Yes. But was it structured? Sure. We believe that everyone needed to be for dinner time. No excuses, 6:30. We sat together. We talk, we worked on issues. We set up whatever we need to set up, talked about things. So dinner was a very important time for us. We had limited computer and TV time. So we doled that out. We’re a family that prayed together. We spent one day a week or one night a week where we had to be home. No excuse so that we can sit down, have fun together, do things together.
Talk about things, set up things for the next week. Who’s going to do what if someone needs some special help projects, whatever we got on to that, we kept things pretty structured, including adding religion. So they, on the weekends, you know, they had church and they had things to do and they had service and they were in Scouts. All eight of my sons were Eagle Scouts. So they were kind of, I guess, indoctrinated, you might say on the be prepared and do a good turn daily, all the things that Scouts say. You know, we’re trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent, and tried to live that sort of life. And so we had that whether, you know, scouting has its ups and downs, but we did a lot of camping, a lot of outdoors and a lot of fishing. I don’t know that that really was the parenting. I don’t think that that necessarily molded them into a great person, doing things with them just meant they knew we loved them and that we kept close.
Jonathan V.: With Scouts, is that something that you are actively participating in as well with your boys?
Ron Reynolds: Probably my older boys got more of the scouting from me and more of the outdoors, you know? So I was involved quite a bit with that. And I don’t want to say that it was all about Scouts when our kids were growing up, that was just part of it, they had a good peer group. They had good kids around them that wanted to do things and wanted to do things that were fun, but not dangerous. Well, I don’t want to say not dangerous. Cause you know, we did repelling and we did stuff like that, but I mean, they weren’t into drugs and sex. They were into things that were safer where they wouldn’t fall into some addiction pit or whatever, and spend a lot of years trying to climb out. I think we avoided a lot of pitfalls just because of what we set up, how we lived our lives.
Jonathan V.: You mentioned limiting computer device time. That’s something that a lot of parents struggle with. Were there specific limits that you set?
Ron Reynolds: We did. It might be like two hours of computer time. It might be based upon whether they got their homework done. It might be based upon things they’re doing right. Or things are doing wrong. We didn’t beat our kids or do things like that. I mean, maybe that works. I don’t know, but we weren’t a no pain, no gain type. My background was not militaristic background probably. And so it’s more laid back, but that was probably part of reward system in part, because if they hadn’t gotten things done, then that would be the last thing that they would do after they got something done. Or if they didn’t do something right. That might be part. I’m a little bit of a restrictive on something like that because they did something they shouldn’t have done. There wasn’t a lot of that though. Our kids were really good kids. They just were, and I can’t take credit for a lot of that. Sometimes they just come down good and they’re good. So you’re just lucky in that respect. So we didn’t have a lot of some type of draconian and stay in the corner, although that’s probably the right thing to do, but we didn’t have to do much of that.
Jonathan V.: What was your approach to discipline, when in the rare instances, when the need arose, what was the approach that you might have taken?
Ron Reynolds: I think my wife probably made me the boogeyman. It’s probably like, wait till your dad gets home. You’re in big trouble, go to your room type thing. And of course the big boogeyman that I am, I never spanked. My kids never did anything that they should be frightened about. But I think our kids respected this and were worried about what we thought about them. And so I think it was more an issue of respect and it was probably an issue of respect with their siblings too, because I think all the brothers looked up to each other. It’s funny, old to young and young to old and they didn’t want to look bad in front of their brothers as well as sister, and as well as certain parents. And so that was of it. Usually when they did something wrong, they were already embarrassed. They’re already paying the penalty. They already said, I’m never doing that again. So a large family probably helps. I’ve always told people, having three children is really hard after you have more than three, it gets easier because you just have more people to do chores and more people to keep the others in line and more people to help out.
And that seemed to be our case that we lucked out because more actually was better because they were productive. We required chores. Everyone had their own chores. And so they understood how life works. When they were little, we gave them little tiny chores. So, they understood that these little tiny things actually add up into something bigger. So we didn’t give them something huge to do. But a lot of little things that added up that might show them that they can accomplish things by eating, as they say the elephant one bite at a time. So we learned a lot of small hacks just cause we had a lot of kids and usually avoid having to discipline. Because if you approach somethings the right way, you don’t have the discipline at the end. I think we tried to give all of our children control. And I think that was really important. You would say, Hey, go take out the garbage, and good luck with that. But if you said, what do you want to do? Take out the garbage or do you want to wash the kitchen floor? Because we gave them that choice. They’d say, Hey, I want to take out the garbage.
And they felt good about it. And they did it and you don’t have to get mad at them cause they never took out the garbage. But it was because we gave them control, whether it was that way or saying, when do you want to do this? And they choose when they want to do something. And so they’re part of the process and we’re not a conflict family, did the brothers ever fight? Absolutely. But did we have a hard time parenting? We really didn’t. We had a cushy job, I think because we avoided conflict and the kids didn’t ever see my wife and I fight between ourselves or anything. And so I don’t think they fell apart. Home was that type of home where you had to be a little more aggressive or you had to speak up to be heard. So I think we just, we lucked out, we made some choices that just avoided the whole thing. It’s like you avoided the pit. You never fell in it. So you don’t have to worry about all the techniques on what you do when you’re in the pit.
Jonathan V.: Did you find that you had to invest more time in the first two or three kids to ensure that all subsequent kids had good role models to look up to?
Ron Reynolds: That’s very true. We spend a lot more time nurturing those first ones. They probably got more of our attention, which is unfortunate because I think like Cultra on the end run, he said, I never got to do that or this or that. And it very true. There’s 20 years between our first son and our last son and the first ones we had to pay more attention and they did turn out straight arrows, no question. Their decisions are really good decisions. They make informed decisions.
Jonathan V.: So then some of the younger kids were noticing that the older siblings had opportunities to do things with you and your wife, that they did not have the chance to do.
Ron Reynolds: That’s true. And I think the older brothers did things with them. So they had more from that side, I guess, of the family than the older ones did, who were all alone except for their parents. So I think it balances out in the end, but yes, the first ones did certain things. And then that puts peer pressure on their younger brothers. I mean our first son decided to go on a mission. So, they pay for it themselves. That’s kind of like a, how to send your kids out in the world for a couple years after their freshman year, when they get burned out freshman year and, and have them see the real world and then come back and understand how important schooling is and everything. And that’s what we did. Robert went on a mission and as a result, the next son went on a mission. As a result, the next son went on a mission. So we had sons that went to Sapporo Japan, the Philippines, Indica, New York, South Carolina, Dan went to Nebraska and you’d like to say, well, those were sort of safe environments, but they weren’t too safe for our sons, but they did learn a lot through some adversity. And they learned a lot through just serving, spending two years just serving other people. And I think that really helped them. They came back focus. They went out boys and came back as men.
Jonathan V.: And all of them did that?
Ron Reynolds: They all did, all eight sons did it. Our daughter didn’t, by then she was married. And like Dan was this mission hard that he probably feel he was pressured because he had older brothers that did it. That’s the pressure that he probably felt. And so he did it. Was it very hard? I’m sure it was very hard. I mean, he was in the hood a lot of times he was probably what you might consider in a dangerous neighborhood a lot of the time. But then it’s the same with the others, different types of danger. We had one son that was sent home to die.
Jonathan V.: What do you mean by that?
Ron Reynolds: We had one son who was in the Philippines and he’s living way out in poor conditions where when you take your shower, you have to be wearing shoes or you have worms come up into the souls of your feet. So you don’t, you can’t drink the water, you have to purify it and boil it. And he got an amoebic infection. His system turned on, fighting it and fighting it. And as a result, his own immune system kind of fried his system. So we got a call that essentially was sending our son home to die. So it’s a safe environment, not always, but he came home of course, did four years of college and then four years of medical school and then six years of more medical school to become a plastic surgeon. And he’s got a great life. And so did he face a lot of adversity through it? Yes. And so was it hard? Yes. Did it test us? It did, but I guess it’s as parents, that’s part of parenting sitting in a hospital and risking them to do things like that, you know, allowing them to do that, but we did probably something different than other people do. And it’s probably a strange, may seem strange practice to someone.
But when I grew up, I read the Bible and you read about these Israelites that made a covenant. And as long as they kept their side of the bargain, God kept his side of the bargain, that sort of thing. And when they didn’t, and it seems like they didn’t a lot, seemed like a lot of history of I didn’t do what I should have done, you know, but if they did then, then God fought their battles and everything. And so that’s kind of the process that we took as a family that actually, before each child was conceived, we made a commitment, we made an agreement, we made a contract. We said, okay, God, there’s a lot of things out of our control. We all try to raise our kids to be serving, to think of others, to be loving, to be helpful, to be a good, productive person in society. And if we do this, then you keep your side of the contract and you keep them safe. You help them to be the very best that they can be. So they come down different and you know what, there’s a lot of things that we can’t control. And so we made that agreement. And so that’s why, even though we sent out one son and they sent him home to die. The very next son that was called and they don’t get a choice on where they go. They were called, that very next son was called the Philippines very same place.
Jonathan V.: So, what’s going through your head at that point in time, I can’t imagine getting a phone call saying that my son is being sent home to die, but then to have your next son being sent back to that same spot, I just can’t imagine that. What’s going through your head?
Ron Reynolds: It was upsetting for me. The one son though said, that’s what I want to do. We had a leader say, we can call and we’ll get that changed because you know, this is really, you know, we don’t want to endanger, another son, but we had made, we had made a contract, you know, said, no, we’ll do this and whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do. We decided to stick with it. And the son said, yeah, I’ll stick with it. And so we stuck with it. And so he went and he was never sick, but it was, you know, it was a test. And it was a good test.
Jonathan V.: Dan has mentioned that he’s thankful for the family values that he grew up with, the confidence he has to tell his truth, the importance of service. And certainly the mission work is something that would have instilled a sense of duty and service. Were there other things that you did with your children before that point that also would have instilled that value of service?
Ron Reynolds: That’s a good question. They probably saw us serving them more than anything, but we did service. I mean, we accepted certain things that were service oriented. I’ve been a Rotarian and President of our Rotary Club and always brought our kids to Rotary said, you know, it’s about giving back to the community and to the world and you donate $1 and three children are vaccinated. And that saves three children from polio for just $1. And so they had our participation in the community, probably our participation in true church and what we did and how we served people. And so I think we tried to give them an example, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t do things contrary. We didn’t give them a lot of leeway. That same son that I talked about came to us one night, came to his mother and said, I want to go out. And I want a toilet paper house with some friends. She said, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Go talk to your dad and he talked to me, and I said, don’t think it’s a good thing to be doing. I never liked it. When they toilet paper at our house, I had to get up in the tree and get this stuff out. Even though it’s a joke and kind of find them ha, ha, I don’t think you should in this time of night is particularly, I don’t want you driving around and he wanted to do it.
And I said, well, then it’s up to you. I don’t think it’s a good thing to do. He went out and they got in a car wreck, totaled a car. It flipped, upside down. And the entire top smashed. And the backseat actually broke in the car. Thankfully it broke because they went flat. And so my son has a wonderful scar on his forehead. But other than that, he lived. You know, he was, he was protected, but we have to let our kids make decisions. He was old enough to make decisions. We told him, both of us said, no, we don’t want you doing it. He wanted to, we let him do it. And he’s got a scar, so bad lesson, but I think we let our kids take risks. Dan did not want, in a family of nine Some people think, Oh, you know, you’re all sheep. You’re all the same. You look, a lot of them look similar, but really is kind of like a CS Lewis once said, as you become more and more perfected, you become more and more divergent. I think that’s with our children. As they become older, they become more their own individual person. And we had to let them do that. Let them be their own person.
Jonathan V.: And in what ways was Dan his own person?
Ron Reynolds: Dan was to take more risks. Probably the other brother, Stan was one that we thought, you know, he would be a football player, but of course my wife, that’s one of the commitments she made me make before I got married that I wouldn’t let any of my children play football. So they never, they never did. So she did have certain things that, you know, safe environment that she was going to insist on. You know, if I’m going to give them all my time to help them build up their brains and to be prepared for life and all that, banging it against someone else’s helmet, but Dan took a lot of risks, but we wouldn’t let him take the football risk. I think they probably went to state and probably one state on volleyball. He was, I mean, was he active? And was he a bruiser? Yes. He was the type of guy that did not want to follow in his brother’s footsteps in certain things. I mean, he’d be the guy like we’d go up sledding and be on a sharp slope. One time, it was like almost all ice. I come down and his older brothers come down, but Dan’s not going to go the same trajectory. He would go a little bit different.
He’d take his own route. And of course, as he started coming down, he could see he was heading for the cliff, he was heading for the rocks below. I mean, he was dead meat, but that was Dan. I mean like his song, I’ll always be the one to open up those stores. Dan would do that. He would take risks, probably that others wouldn’t take. I ran over and slip sliding along the slope and I stretched out my hand as he came by, he stretched out his and we both yanked at the same time, and it stopped him from going over the cliff. But my bicep tore off the joint and rolled right up my arm. Dan has taken some risks in life and he’s faced the results of those risks, I guess. You know, some people do that a little more. So he was probably not as safe and did not take the safest route. I mean, including, you know, being a singer on the road, that’s the most dangerous thing I can think of doing.
Jonathan V.: In what way would you say that’s the most dangerous thing?
Ron Reynolds: Well, from having a concert in some foreign country, let’s say Arabia or Russia, being surrounded by guards with machine guns, but also with the idea that he’s in an industry that it’s party, you know, rock and roll sex and drugs, and he’s out all by himself, his family’s behind. We tried to go out periodically. His brothers would go out periodically to be there as support. But in reality, it’s a rough, rough life. And when you’re out there and everybody’s saying, you’re great, and everybody’s fawning over you, all the dangers of believing it, letting your guard down all the worries, the worries. A lot of women out there, worrying, about a lot of women saying, I love Dan that worry me as a father. Yeah. He had a wife at home. He had a new daughter and now he’s got three daughters and a son and he’s a family man, and he’s a great father. And but was it dangerous for him out there? Yeah, I mean, he wrote a lot of dark songs because he was in a dark waves, you know, stuck in a hotel room by himself. Other people might be out partying, but he just was not raised to do that. And so he didn’t. So he had his own darkness to deal with and his own depression.
Jonathan V.: That’s tough. Well, hopefully there were moments when you were proud as well. Just seeing everything that he was accomplishing out there. He certainly has touched a lot of lives in a positive way with his music. Was music an important part of the Reynold’s household?
Ron Reynolds: It was. Yeah. And yes, we did force all our kids properly to have piano lessons. Dan, when he wanted to play drums, we got him a drum teacher, whether that was, I got him a saxophone that was actually a pretty famous saxophone, more like a Coltrane type saxophone from a famous local artist here in Las Vegas that had a drug addiction and he hawked his saxophone. And eventually I had a friend in the pawn business and I ended up with a saxophone for Dan and he played a real mean saxophone. I always thought with his early voice of singing the way he did, he had a rhythm and blues, more type of a rough voice when he was younger and playing saxophone, I thought he might go that direction a little bit. But yeah, we put some music into him and I played guitar and I taught older brothers guitar and they had their own bands. And I think that was part of Dan’s. His brothers all had their own bands. He had to learn something really good to fit in, to be part of that. And he did that. And I think part of that pressure made him who he was at an early age. He was writing music and he understood harmony and parts and melody and beats. He had all of the things really down at a really young age.
Jonathan V.: So, were you playing guitar and play music on the radio around the house?
Ron Reynolds: We always had music playing. I always, my kids liked my music. I liked their music. When I was young, I made a commitment to myself that when I got older, I would not become an old guy that didn’t like the music of that generation. I always wanted to love whatever the music was and understand it. And so I really enjoyed the music they had that they really enjoyed the music I had. I mean, I was a Paul Simon and Beatles and Harry Nelson type guy. And they liked all of that. And that helped in their music because I think that the musicality of those individuals, they brought a lot to the table, a lot of expertise. And then trying to be like someone that really had it all down, it didn’t just have the rap, but also had the melody and also had the great lyrics. And so I think that pushed off on all of the sons and all of them have written in all of them like music and did their own things and still were doing their music on the side. People just don’t know about it. So we get a lot of great songs that will never, ever be heard.
Jonathan V.: Who knows?
Ron Reynolds: Yeah. Who knows? I mean, the odds are, Dan knew the odds were like zero. I mean, it’s bigger than the lottery, but I guess as parents you have to support them, even though it looks completely hopeless.
Jonathan V.: You’re encouraging Dan in his music?
Ron Reynolds: Yes, we did. We loved his music. And so we supported it and it seems like he just kept winning battle-of-the band after battle-of-the-band and got break after break. He didn’t get anything handed to him though. I mean, he had an older brother that could have done that. He had Robert that could have made the connection and said, Hey, listen to these people. But Bob told him, he said, no, you’ve got to do it organically. You’ve got to put in the time, you’ve got to put in the muscle, you got to keep writing your music. Do you think your music great, it’s got to be better. You got to keep doing it and doing it until you’ve got people that come out. And then each time you come out it doubles, so it’s a hundred today. And if you go there next week, it’s 200 and you go the next week, it’s 400. And that’s what happened. Eventually, there were thousands that were hearing him and then it’s easy to shop yourself. Then it’s easy to go to a label because at that point in time, you have the following already and you have the music, you know, it’s not like you’re a one-hit-wonder, you got to keep plugging. You got to keep doing, it’s going to take a while. And band members quit the band, but Dan kept going. And so I think he was taught patience and that worked really well for him. That’s the way things happen in life. You want to make a difference in life. It takes years sometimes to make a difference in life.
Jonathan V.: Right. Right. So it sounds like all or most of your kids were musically inclined. Was there a point in time where Dan stood out or Dan expressed a particular interest in pursuing that as a career?
Ron Reynolds: Dan always stood out because he was doing things younger. He was writing music younger. That was good music. And I think his brothers could see that, did they write great music? Yes. But Dan lived it. Dan brought all his friends over and said, Hey, this is my new music. I’m going to play it for you. Dan was more outgoing than his other brothers, too. He was more of a showman. He would invite over every week, probably 40 kids to play games that he would be the master of ceremonies. You know, the guy that kept the games going and kept the people happy. He was very, very social. He was very happy. When he was in high school, he was in a project where they actually allowed him to film certain humorous things every single day in everybody’s school and their high school, everybody’s classrooms watch them for probably five or 10 minutes before their schools started. And Dan was the head guy doing that, he just likes to be out there. He’s not afraid.
Jonathan V.: And how old was Dan when he told you that he wanted to perform music as a career?
Ron Reynolds: I don’t think he really said, I want to pursue it until he was actually in college. He just did it all at the time. I mean, he wrote all of the time, he wrote so many. I mean, we’re talking, this is a guy that may write hundreds, but when he was in college, she came home and said, listen, I want to take time off college. I’ve been doing this and this is what’s happening. And I want to see if I can make this my life.
Jonathan V.: Wow. So how do you respond to that?
Ron Reynolds: Our initial advice is, well, you do this on the side, until it’s big enough, you do it on the side and keep going and get your schooling. But he had been doing it on the side at school. And it’s like, because he was the number one band down out of 87 bands, he got opened up for Kelly Clarkson and there were 27,000 people watching. I mean, he was already doing it on the side and was getting bigger and we could see that we could see potential. And so probably had to convince his mother more than me to, yeah, let’s take a year off and see how it goes. And they took a year off. Then they’re going to bite of Las Vegas and played before thousands of people. It seemed like people liked him. And then they started cutting EPs and it just step by step people kind of look at it like, boy, what did you feel like when Dan had this? But it was actually kind of a slow thing for us. It’s like putting the frog in the water and cooking it slowly, little by little. It became to alleviate that it was a possibility and little by little things happened.
So, it didn’t happen all at once. It was building little by little by little. So by the time Dan gets any kind of an award, there probably been a lot of little awards and little excitements along the way to where we were getting kind of used to it. By the time he was the Billboard band of the year, he probably already had some other award before that, the week before, that was also exciting, you know, over and over and over. We’re just, I think we’re more happy about what he’s become as an individual. You know, he’s just a great, great son. He’s a great father, a great husband. He treats us perfectly, you know, we couldn’t be happier about that. So I’m more happy about that then than I am about if there’s some stardom.
Jonathan V.: Yeah. And how has your parenting relationship changed now that he is an adult?
Ron Reynolds: We still parent him. He still says, I don’t want to hear about this. And don’t tell me about that. But we still, we still do it. Sometimes I catch him smiling at me like, you know, this is my old man. He’s got these old habits and old things that he has to say. And he’s probably saying, and he’s kind enough to listen, which is all we want. We don’t expect that they’ll believe everything we say. We don’t expect that they’ll hear everything that we say, but you know, it’s all done in love, touchy, feely family. I think if you’re telling your son a hard thing, you put your arm around him. This is what I really think. We’ve learned a lot from Dan. He’s learned from us. We’re still learning from him and hopefully he’ll still learn from us. And so that takes a dialogue. And so we’re still doing that even though he is the man, his mother is still going to take him to task and still say, this is what I think. You know, it’s like, have you been saying your prayers?
Jonathan V.: You must be especially proud of Dan’s reputation for being an outspoken principled person.
Ron Reynolds: He has taken risks, standing up for the marginalized that are difficult decisions. They’re hard to make. They’re contrary of what normally goes on, but we’ve taught them about principles and their rules and their principles and the principle, if he’s saying love someone else, that’s okay, I’m supporting him, I’m behind it. If he tells us this group isn’t being loved enough, you know, we have to think about that. We have to listen and say, okay, I need to rethink how I am. And if Dan’s out there, marching black lives matter. And other people say, well, white lives matter too. Well, sure we all matter. But then again, we need to listen when Dan’s out there marching, he’s setting an example and his brothers are lucky and they have to say, yeah, maybe we have to rethink. And so he sets an example. All the brothers sat examples, they’re always doing that.
Jonathan V.: You talked about Dan taking risks, standing up for what he believes and participating in black lives matter marches, which is fantastic. He’s also become well known for founding LoveLoud. And for those who are not familiar Love Loud has a yearly festival. And their mission is to ignite the vital conversation about what it means to unconditionally love, understand, support, accept, and celebrate our LGBTQ friends and family. Is that something that you’ve found an opportunity to be involved with? Is that something other members of your family are involved with? What does that look like as part of the broader Reynold’s household?
Ron Reynolds: I don’t know that we’re necessarily involved, other than we go every year, we sustain him in the fact that he sees an individual group that needs help. Of course his brothers have to help him because they set up or help set up the whole production because that takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of arrangements. He came on one day, and he had read about suicides and he just had to do something about it. And that’s what he does. I mean, he hasn’t stopped. If people read all of the mail that he gets about people that are doing horrible things and thinking about suicide or stopped from committing suicide because of a song or have been cutting themselves or doing things because they hate themselves. They would, I think, have to take a stand. I think, you know, you’re almost forced to take a stand and that’s what he’s done. He has had to stand up. He did it early on though, before a lot of people.
And, I have to give him credit because he’s doing it out of love. That’s a principle. He’s doing it out of serving someone else. Trying to say it’s important to get help. It’s okay. It’s fine. It’s okay to see someone. It’s not okay to commit suicide. It’s not okay because we need you and you have something to offer and you’re unique and they do need our love and help. And I say, they, because that’s, you know, I’m not that way, but I could have been, you know, I mean, that’s easy enough. However, you come down, that’s the way you come down with your own special desires, tastes lifestyle – somewhere along the spectrum. And wherever you are along the spectrum, you’re to be loved as a human being. I think that’s, that was his focus and think he brings that message. And I think that’s great. You know, as a parent, I have to say that makes me feel good.
Jonathan V.: Yeah, I’m sure. That’s wonderful. Another thing that struck me from Dan’s organization LoveLoud was some of the statistics, which were really unsettling. Two that stuck with me were that among LGBTQ youth, in unaccepting homes and communities, they are: eight times more likely to die by suicide & three times more likely to engage in risky drug use. And that can’t keep happening. It has to change. And for there to be change, people need to change. I need to change, and do what LoveLoud is asking – to unconditionally love, understand, support, accept, and celebrate the LGBTQ community.
Ron Reynolds: Yes, no question on that. And I think we all have to learn new things. I mean, our society is becoming more and more transparent and unfortunately, some of that transparency is bad. A lot of it’s good too. I think we’re seeing more with, I guess, truer eyes, we’re seeing what’s happening and what’s has been happening and things change because of that. And we see changes, which is good.
Jonathan V.: I agree. Well, I have just a few closing questions first and because you have nine kids, maybe we’ll say from a consensus perspective, what are three words that you think your kids or your wife might use to describe your parenting style?
Ron Reynolds: Religion, structure, and love. And that was probably pretty easy. Cause I think that covers just about everything. We have tried to teach our kids, you know, they’re a combination of their mind and their spirit and their body. And we tried to teach them to feed all of those. And we tried to parent in those three areas. And so I think that’s where it came out.
Jonathan V.: Well, those three words sound very consistent with everything you’ve said up to this point. Were you and your wife expressive in showing your love to your kids. And if so, how would that manifest?
Ron Reynolds: We did, you know, it’s a funny thing. It’s an interesting thing really, to think about when you finish a phone call or you should say, I love you and you should hug and you should not be afraid to kiss the cheek if you wanted to. It just takes doing it because I think a lot of families, it just they’ve just never started it. So it just never happened, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t because I think you need part of that. I think it’s really important. And so yes, we’re expressive. We always say, we love you because we really mean it. And we feel it. So why not say it sometimes it seems kind of odd, but if you say it every time, it just becomes part of your, that’s just the way you end your conversations with them because you do love them and you want to remind them that you do really love them. And so we’re just that way.
Jonathan V.: Yeah. I definitely think that’s a good thing. And so with the benefit of hindsight, what’s something that you might have done differently?
Ron Reynolds: It’s a good question. I don’t think I have many regrets with my kids. I think that’s all been a great experience for me. I sometimes I’ve thought, maybe I read too many books when they were growing up. When I was home. Maybe I read too much and should have done more. But then I think they’re all book readers and they all like to read books and we instilled in that because they saw us doing it and then they wanted to do it. And I think that helped them in schooling and you know, and things that they did. So maybe some of the things that I did wrong, I may have done a little excessive and it might be reading because I’m a voracious reader. But then I did read them stories, bedtime stories at night. And so I didn’t because just my own thing, it was part of theirs. So that maybe I read too much though. I probably could have spent more time playing.
Jonathan V.: What advice would you give to other fathers in general, or to specifically to father of a child that’s expressed an interest in pursuing a career in music?
Ron Reynolds: I think it’s fine to choose anything that you may not think will make you any money, but put your heart into it. And I think that’s, we all do that and should do that. I think my idea is that as long as, as long as our kids understand that every single thing that they want is based upon laws, you know, the old quote, every blessing is predicated upon a law. And I think if they understand that there’s certain laws, there’s certain things you have to do. If you want to be a really good basketball player, you have to really learn how to dribble, really learn how to shoot, really learn how to pass the ball and how to avoid it being taken away from you. And that’s the same thing in music. And I think if you did it in music, it carries over to other things. I think Dan learned that he had to work really hard and he worked really hard at music. And so I think if he didn’t make a go of it, but I think that would have still been great for him because he would have learned that things take a lot of discipline to develop. And so if you think you need to be a writer, be a writer and write all the time, but there’s going to be a time where you have to make money.
I mean, my, my wife did actually tell me that if I’m not going to be a doctor that I’m supposed to be a doctor, because she would have been a great doctor and she could have gone anywhere she wanted to. She said, if I’m going to be a stay at home, mom, you’re going to have to make enough money to support that. So I changed what I was going to do and I moved and ended up being a lawyer instead. So I could make more money so that we could raise those kids and my wife could stay home, and she gave up one career, but took on another career with the idea that I’m, I’m raising people that are going to be fantastic. And so she gave, gave it and gives it her all. And she does that. And it was an active choice. I mean, she did something that affects millions because she raised children that are going to be out in society doing that.
Jonathan V.: Nine fantastic children. And while it sounds like she was doing a lot of the heavy lifting I think you’re probably underselling your contributions to the terrific people that they are today as well, which I think is reflected in the humility that I’ve seen from your son, Dan and I’m sure is shared by his siblings.
Ron Reynolds: I appreciate that. But yes, she did do the heavy lifting, no question on that. She says you be the guy that goes and works and brings home the dollars, and then you be around for them and take them hiking now and then. Bought a cabin up in the mountains so we could go and have family time together and hiking crazy times. But I did all the fun stuff. She did all the hard stuff.
Jonathan V.: Ron, thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I really appreciate it. And I really enjoyed talking with you as well.
Ron Reynolds: No problem. Same here. I appreciate what you’re doing. I think it’s, you know, in our world, it’s a tough world out there and any advice we can get that’s great. And anything that’s positive, boy, is that wonderful. That’s a breath of fresh air and that’s what I think you are. So, I initially thought, nah, I’m not a kind of guy that wants to have anything out there. I’m not interested in notoriety of any kind. But if I can say one thing that’s worthwhile, I’m happy to do it because I support you in what you’re doing.