30 Seconds to Mars

In 1998 a pair of brothers out of Los Angeles, California, decided to start an alternative rock back. They chose the name for their band out of an academic thesis paper, finding the statement, "thirty seconds to mars" to be in alignment with their musical expression.

The original band was comprised of Shannon and Jared Leto, Matt Wachter as bassist and keyboards, and Tomo Milicevic on guitar. They released their first self-titled album in 2002. While the sales were not very high, only 100,000 plus sole and the reviews were mixed, the band persisted.

August 20, 2005 was the released date for their second album, A Beautiful Lie. The band spent three years on the road traveling to promote their band, traveling to four different continents and including five different countries to perfect the sounds of their music. The band was leaked five months early and contained two additional song tracks that were first intended.

Another interesting promotion the band implemented was to insert 12 golden tickets inside the albums, granting the owner free admission to the concert of their choice and backstage passes during the show.

30 Seconds to Mars was nominated at the MTV2 Awards for their song, "The Kill" on August 31, 2006, going on to win the award for this song. They did not win their second nomination, for in the Best Rock Video category.


The album, A Beautiful Lie, went platinum for selling of 1,000,000 albums.

In October of 2006 the band began another tour, "Welcome to the Universe" tour, sponsored by MTV2. In November 20, MTV2 showcased a premier of the bands new rock video, the first American rock video to be shot entirely in the People's Republic of China. The music video was called "From Yesterday".

Spring of 2007 was scheduled to include a performance of MTV Australia Video Music Awards, for which they currently have three nominations. The plan was to spend the early part of 2007 touring with fellow rock bands and then after the trip to Australia they planned to begin work on the third album. The band would go on to win the "Best Rock Video" and "Video of the Year" for the Kill.

Without warning, on March 1, 2007 Matt Wachter, bassist for the group, announced during a live concert in El Paso Texas that he would be leaving the band. He has not yet been replaced.

The band has created two logos since their origin, one for their first self-titled album, 30 Seconds To Mars, which had the phoenix logo. This logo was used primarily to promote the first album, it bears the Latin phrase, "Provehito in Altum" which roughly translated means, "launch forth into the deep". This phrase is the band's motto.

With their second album came a new title, A Beautiful Lie and a new logo. The trinity logo consists of three skulls, their motto and the brands name.

30 Seconds to Mars has not had an easy go of it, the younger brother, Jared, is a famous Hollywood movie star something that has often been used as an excuse to dismiss the band early without giving them their proper dues. The band has worked very hard to create their own image and sound that keeps them within the same genre as the bands they play with but yet still maintains their own sound. Older brother Shannon is every bit the leader in this band and takes everything about it very seriously. After the first few years of struggling to be taken seriously, the band has finally succeeded and now stands firmly on solid ground.