Soon after graduating, in 2008, the band released two entitled Imagine Dragons and Hell and Silence in 2010, both recorded in Battle Born studios. They returned to the studio in 2011. Another It's time was made before they signed a contract with a record label.

About the band's name being an anagram Wayne once said in an interview: "We had a phrase, but we did not want the band's name to be like that, so we turned that phrase into an anagram, so it came out Imagine Dragons, We Did not Tell If wants our mothers the meaning of the phrase, we already put as much of us in the songs as artists, it's cool to have a secret "