Created in 1998 by Jared Leto and his brother, Shannon, 30
Seconds to Mars began as a small family project. Things began to speed up
quickly, and Matt Wachter later joined the band as bassist and keyboard
player. After working with small revolving door 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 Mili?evi?
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’ and he goes on to talk
about the expediential 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.” 30 Seconds to Mars’
first, self-titled album, produced by Bob Ezrin, was released in 2002 to
mixed reviews and achieved sales of just over 100,000.
The band’s second album, A Beautiful Lie, was released on August 30, 2005. For this
effort, the band traveled (during the course of three years) to four different
continents, including five different countries, to perfect their sound and
also to allow for Jared’s film career. The album was produced by Josh Abraham,
whose producing credits also include Orgy, Velvet Revolver, and Linkin Park.
Because A Beautiful Lie 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 of the same name). To further promote
the album, the band also enclosed “golden tickets” in 12 copies, which grant
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 VideoMusic 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, and several other bands including Street Drum Corps. 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,
and Download. Following other commitments, they will begin working on their
third album. On March 1, 2007, bassist Matt Wachter announced his departure
from the band live on stage during the band’s El Paso, Texas “Taste of Chaos”
set. This was confirmed the following day with a statement on the band’s
website. He has since been replaced by Tim Kelleher (not the actor of the same name), who has been seen playing at the band’s concerts. It is unknown if this is a temporary or permanent change. Wachter has also since joined Angels & Airwaves. Following the release of “From Yesterday” as a single, the band posted a link on their
MySpace blog to vote for the next single from A Beautiful Lie.
The choices available were “A Beautiful Lie”, “The Fantasy”, “Savior”, and
“The Story”. Another vote was done later between the top two songs, “A Beautiful
Lie” and “The Fantasy”. On May 2, 2007, the band announced that “A Beautiful
Lie” had won and would be the next single. On August 8th, 2007, Kerrang!
announced that 30 Seconds to Mars has been nominated for two categories
of the Kerrang! Awards 2007 - Best International Newcomer and Best Single
- The Kill. On August 24th, they had only won the award for ‘Best Single,’
which was The Kill. The other award was lost to Madina Lake. On November
1, 2007, the band won the MTV Europe Music Award for “Rock Out”, one of
the two catorgories they were nominated in. |
In addition to the tracks on their two full-length releases
thus far, the band has also recorded a few other tracks. Among these tracks
are “Phase 1: Fortification” and “Valhalla”, the latter of which was present
on an early demo. “Phase 1: Fortification” was released on an overseas single
for “Capricorn (A Brand New Name)”. Another track featured on certain imported
30 Seconds to Mars titles is “Anarchy in Tokyo”, a song that was
recorded during the process of their self-titled debut. “Revolution” was
also recorded for the self-titled album, but wasn’t included because it
didn’t fit the theme of the album, and because of fear that listeners would
take the lyrics too literally, especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks.”Occam’s
Razor” was also recorded, but was never included on any of the band’s releases.
As a result, it is considered the most difficult to locate of the five unreleased
tracks. Demo versions of songs on the band’s self-titled debut were also
slightly different, along with different names. For example, “Fallen” was
previously called “Jupiter”, and “Year Zero” was previously called “Hero”.
Also made available are the demo versions of “Buddha For Mary” and “93 Million
Miles”; the latter originally had lyrics referring to the band Deadsy, whose
members Dr. Nner and P. Exeter Blue I provided extra instrumentation on
several tracks, but the lyrics were changed after the two bands were involved
in a small feud. During recent live shows, the band has premiered two new
songs, one of which may end up on the new album: “Some Other Son” and “The
Believer”, which were initially written for the self-titled album but was
scrapped during recording, as well as live songs such as “Sisters of Heresy”
and “Pressure”. On December 11, 2006, the band sent their fans a “stocking
stuffer” in the form of a holiday song called “Santa Through the Back Door”.
In September 2007, the band also recorded a cover of Kanye West’s “Stronger”
for BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge. |
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