30 Seconds to Mars (or Thirty Seconds to Mars, or 30STM) are an American alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California, featuring actor Jared Leto as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and songwriter.
... 30 Seconds to Mars (or Thirty Seconds to Mars, or 30STM) are an American alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California, featuring actor Jared Leto as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and songwriter.
History:
Formation:
Created in 1998 by Jared Leto's brother, Shannon, 30 Seconds to Mars began as a small family project. Matt Wachter later joined the band as bassist and keyboard player. After working with a number of guitarists (as the band's first two guitarists, Kevin Drake and Solon Bixler, left the band due to issues primarily related to touring), the three auditioned Tomo Miličević to round out the band's roster.
According to an interview from Virgin Records, the band's name
"actually comes from a thesis that the band found online that was written by a former Harvard professor. And one of the subsections of the thesis was titled 'thirty seconds to mars [sic]' and he goes on to talk about the exponential growth of technology that relates to humans and saying that we are quite literally thirty seconds to mars. What it means to us is, we thought it best described our music, in short."
Even though Leto is a major Hollywood actor, he prefers not to use this information to "sell" the band; in fact, Leto hates attention given to himself more than the band so much that he refuses to play shows if they have used his name as a movie star to promote the band.
30 Seconds to Mars (2002–2005):
The band's debut self-titled album, produced by Bob Ezrin was released in 2002 to mixed reviews. The album produced two singles, Capricorn (A Brand New Name) and Edge of the Earth. The former peaked at #31 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart.
A Beautiful Lie (2005–2008):
Their sophomore album, A Beautiful Lie, was released on August 30, 2005. Because the album was leaked five months before its release, the band decided to include two bonus tracks: "Battle of One" (an original song that was also set to be the album's title track when it was first announced) and "Hunter" (a cover of the Björk song). To further promote the album, the band also enclosed "golden tickets" in 12 copies, which granted their owners access to any 30 Seconds to Mars concert free of charge, along with backstage access.
On August 31, 2006, the band won the MTV2 Award for "The Kill" at the MTV Video Music Awards, one of their two nominations. The second nomination was for Best Rock Video; however, they lost to AFI's "Miss Murder". In the video, members of the band reenact scenes from The Shining. A Beautiful Lie was certified platinum by the RIAA in January for distribution of over 1,000,000 albums.
In October, the band began their "Welcome to the Universe" tour, sponsored by MTV2. They were supported on this tour by Head Automatica, The Receiving End of Sirens, Cobra Starship, Rock Kills Kid, and several other bands including Street Drum Corps. The tour was "environmentally sound" according to a 2006 interview with then-bassist Matt Wachter. "Jared and Shannon put together this thing called Environmentour which is illustrating ways—alternatives—to kind of clean up some of the mess we leave behind. We fueled the bus with vegetable oil," he explains. On November 20, MTV2 premiered the video for "From Yesterday"; the video is the first American rock video ever shot in its entirety in the People's Republic of China. The music video is loosely based on the film The Last Emperor.
On April 29, 2007, the band performed at the Australian MTV Australia Video Music Awards, where they were nominated for three awards, winning "Best Rock Video" and "Video of the Year" for "The Kill".
As of Spring 2007, the band is supporting The Used as a part of the "Taste of Chaos" tour and have scheduled a string of dates in Europe supporting Linkin Park. They are also scheduled to play Roskilde, Rock am Ring, Pinkpop, Give It A Name Festival and Download. 30 Seconds to Mars were one of the hosts for the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008.
Virgin Records lawsuit and This Is War (2008–present):
Following other commitments, they will begin working on their third album. As heard in the MTV Malaysia interview with Leto, he announces they are currently in the middle of the new album. Some of the songs seem to have been performed at their overseas tour.
However, in August 2008, Virgin Records filed a $30 million lawsuit, claiming the band refused to deliver three albums as required by its contract. According to the lawsuit, the band "repudiated" a 1999 contract in July. In an early 2009 interview with MTV, Jared said that they hope to have their third album out by summer 2009, and he also gave information about the meaning behind the record saying, "I think this record is about faith, about spiritual matters, and that just happens to be what we're thinking about and talking about in our lives right now. I said when the last album came out that I wanted to destroy the first record, which I think we did. We took a dramatic turn from the first to the second, and I think this new record follows that path. It's exciting to us, and we're really passionate about it."
In the February 11 issue of Kerrang! magazine, the working title for the new album is said to be This is War.
Jared released a bit of information about his trip to Hawaii, and recorded a song called "Hurricane" with Kanye West.
On April 28th, they returned from EMI and the lawsuit was annulled.
Soon after the announcement of the lawsuit settlement, Jared and 30 Seconds To Mars told MTV News that their third album has had its release date pushed back from April 2009 to some time in September 2009. Although these dates have been changed many times, 30 Seconds To Mars have promised to release This Is War by October 2009.
According to their Twitter, they have at least four songs done for their new album on May 27th 2009. They have also brought question to even if the album will be called "This Is War". Other possible titles include "Night of the Hunter", "Call to Arms", "Search and Destroy", and "Artifact". Songs confirmed are "Search and Destroy" , "Artifact", "Hurricane" (with Kanye West) and "Night of the Hunter".
