30 Seconds to Mars

Thirty Seconds to Mars were formed in 1998 by Jared Leto and his brother, Shannon. Throughout the years, the guitarists Kevin Drake and Solon Bixler, as well as the bassist Matt Wachter, joined and, later, left the band.

30STM is presently composed by:
. Jared Leto - lead vocals; rhythm guitar
. Shannon Leto - drums; percussion
. Tomo Milicevic - lead guitar; violin; keyboards

Check the photos at the bottom of this lens!

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' 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."

This is the band's self-titled debut album, which was going to be called Welcome to the Universe. It is the darkest album of the band, mainly focusing the human struggle for evolution and self-discovery.
When it was released, it received mixed reviews:

Rolling Stone - "The album is undone by Leto's baffling, pretentious poetry and the sanitized quality of the heavy guitars"

Q-Magazine - "The album has a polished sheen, but Leto's delivery of his earnest, sci-fi-tinged lyrics gets monotonous over the course of the album"

Blender - "30STM manage a high-minded space opera of epic scope befitting prog-rock prototypes Rush"

E! Online - "Leto sounds more like Tool/A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan than a member of the Screen Actors Guild--even if his lyrics are kind of space-case lame"

UWO Gazette - "Every track on this record is beautiful; each is a unique masterpiece that simultaneously operates on a number of different musical and spiritual levels"; "30 Seconds to Mars have managed to carve out a unique niche for themselves in the rock realm".

Album tracks:
1. Capricorn (A Brand New Name)
2. Edge of the Earth
3. Fallen
4. Oblivion
5. Budha for Mary
6. Echelon
7. Welcome to the Universe
8. The Mission
9. End of the Beginning
10. 93 Million Miles
11. Year Zero
12. The Struggle (hidden track)*
13. Anarchy in Tokyo (Japanese bonus track)

* lyrics taken from Sun Tzu's The Art of War

This is 30 Seconds to Mars' second album. You can really see an evolution between the debut album and this one - even though it doesn't sound as heavy. It was A Beautiful Lie that made the band widely known.

A Beautiful Lie sold 21 000 copies in its first week of release in the U.S!

The album had a very positive review and two singles (The Kill and From Yesterday) entered the top 3 on the U.S Modern Rock chart.

Album tracks:
1. Attack
2. A Beautiful Lie
3. The Kill
4. Was It a Dream?
5. The Fantasy
6. Savior
7. From Yesterday
8. The Story
9. Revolve
10. A Modern Myth
11. Battle of One (special edition bonus)
12. Hunter (special edition bonus)*

* Bjork cover

This Is War is the band's most recent album, made during a period of deep turbulence for 30 Seconds to Mars, due to a lawsuit with Virgin Records (read more about this topic bellow). The battle with the record label was turned into a creative battle, resulting in "a huge-sounding record, epic and expensive... an important moment for the band", according to Nylon.

"It took two years, we went to hell and back. At one point, I thought it was going to be the death of us, but it became a transformative experience. It's not so much an evolution as it is a revolution. It's a coming of age." confesses Jared.

The fans were also called to action, helping producing this album. The band organized events like The Ride, The Summit or The Faces of Mars in order to break the boundary between band and fans. More details are provided bellow.

Album tracks:
1. Escape
2. The Night of the Hunter
3. Kings and Queens
4. This is War
5. 100 Suns
6. Hurricane
7. Closer to the Edge
8. Vox Populi
9. Search and Destroy
10. Alibi
11. Stranger in a Strange Land
12. L490"

In August 2008 Virgin Records sued 30 Seconds to Mars in $30 million for breaking their contract. According to this nine-year contract, the band had to deliver five records - but 30STM only produced two.

The band decided to use their "legal right to terminate our old, out-of-date contract, which, according to the law, is null and void".

Actually, according to the Californian law, contracts are not valid after seven years, so the band terminated the contract with Virgin Records and decided to re-sign with EMI (parent label of Virgin), finally solving this battle, after almost one year.

This Is War is full of beautiful and powerful choruses, sang by nearly 1000 30 Seconds to Mars fans, who gathered at Hollywood's Avalon Club in a massive event called The Summit.

The initial idea was only to break the distance between the band and the fans, but it turned out to be something more: 30 Seconds to Mars ended up using the crowd as a musical instrument, which they included in the new album. And it all sounds great!!

Check this MTV interview:
" 'The Summit' ... was an experiment in our recording process, and we were just trying to think of ways that we could deepen the connection between ourselves and our family of fans around the world. We do that often, and think of ways to break the boundary. And we thought, 'How great would it be to invite the world to come and be a part of the next 30 Seconds to Mars album?'"

"There were some things [we tried] that were left-field sound experiments - using the group, the collective, as a musical instrument. We did everything from percussive expression to whispering to things that were a little bit more familiar, like inviting the 1,000 people that were there to sing the chorus of a song. And those people who were a part of it all will be a part of the next 30 Seconds to Mars album. ... It was quite simply one of the best things we've done as a band."

Click to check the entire interview