Birth of an Idea
30 Seconds To Mars full of energy By MARK DANIELL-- For JAM! Music
TORONTO - "Were you just in there during sound check?" 30 Seconds To Mars vocalist-guitarist Jared Leto asks, folding himself into a couch backstage at the Kool Haus. "I don't know if you were, but right before we played 'From Yesterday,' I stopped everyone and started playing a little melody.
"That's a new song. I just made it up on the spot."
Stretching his tan slippered feet across a grainy coffee table, Leto - the actor, who formed 30 Seconds To Mars in the late '90s with his brother Shannon - likes being able to pinpoint those moments when he's afflicted by bursts of creative energy.
"Our music lives and breathes on its own accord," he says. "Some were written on a balcony overlooking the ocean in Africa on an acoustic guitar, others were made on a computer in a studio, but every one of our songs has its own journey, has its own rules and is unique unto itself."
Backed by the success of their MTV hit, "The Kill," Leto, and bandmates Matt Wachter (bass), Tomo Milicevic (guitar) and brother Shannon (drums), have been touring non-stop in support of the band's nearly platinum, "A Beautiful Lie."
"In a weird way," he says with a bit of a grin, "it seems kind of like it's the beginning. It feels like we have so much to do.
"More and more people are discovering who we are so it feels like a brand new record for the audience and for us."
Released with little fanfare in 2005, Leto is proud "A Beautiful Lie" has grown beyond any buzz his Hollywood name brought them when their self-titled debut hit shelves in 2002.
"We've certainly crossed the threshold where we no longer live in the shadow of any other experiences I've had as an actor," Leto says. "And it feels good to arrive in a place where there are people who know me from my films and people who know me from my music and people who know me from both.
"I'm grateful for all the opportunities I've had."
Recorded on four different continents over a three-year period (to accommodate Leto's acting career), the thinly built vocalist says that though 30 Seconds To Mars opted for a harder sound with "A Beautiful Lie," thematically it shares much of the same DNA as its eponymous predecessor.
"The consistency between the first and the second record," he says, "is this willingness to embrace the possibilities that may exist."
Tucking his nearly shoulder-length hair behind his ears, he continues. "There are constant, persistent themes both on this record and the first. Challenging oneself, overcoming obstacles, becoming who you really are. If people start thinking about those things, that's a wonderful thing.
"But," he adds, "when I was a kid I read a quote that said something like, 'An artist that doesn't move forward, moves backwards.' So there was definitely a sense of wanting to take the bridle off, let go of the reins and see what might happen."
Bassist Matt Wachter looks up from his BlackBerry. "This time around, 'cause MTV has embraced us so, it's opened a lot of doors for us in terms of us reaching a new audience."
"I'm going to pat ourselves on the back," guitarist Tomo Milicevic says, breaking his silence. "We kept pushing and pushing and pushing. When so many other bands would have called it quits, we just kept going, no matter what."
With the MTV2 award-winning "The Kill" in steady rotation, a video Leto says pays tribute to Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King, the band played a succession of dates on last summer's Warped Tour, before agreeing to headline the Welcome To The Universe road show this fall.
A handful of dates away from their year-end gig at the Warnors Centre in Fresno, Calif., next week, the band has lined up some of the technicians that designed Nine Inch Nails' most recent arena tour and are busy plotting their next round of North American shows early next year.
"I think this is what, our fifth or sixth time here (Toronto) in the past year and a half?" Leto says staring at his bandmates. "The fans have been great. And this city has been an inspiration for us for a number of years because our fans here have been really, really passionate supporters of music and they've been decisive about their commitment to 30 Seconds To Mars.
"We always knew that we had believers in Toronto and the success that we've had in this city, is something we're all very proud of."
"The Kill" still flourishing stateside, Leto and company returned from China earlier in the fall, fresh from filming its follow-up - "From Yesterday" - the first American rock video shot in its entirety in the People's Republic.
Plumbing the long-form conceits directors John Landis and Martin Scorsese indulged for Michael Jackson in the '80s, "From Yesterday" is a mini-film inspired by ancient empires and martial arts.
"So, um, China," Leto says, removing the grey army hat that's been hiding his piercing blue eyes this whole time. "I was interested in doing something different. I was striving for something that would spark a conversation amongst ourselves and I knew I couldn't get that from a soundstage."
So he convinced "The Kill's" Dr. Seuss-inspired director Bartholomew Cubbins (a.k.a. himself) to hop on a plane.
"You can't help but describe Bartholomew, slightly, as thin as a bone, albino, the pinkest of eyes, which you rarely see, with the most cantankerous attitude and foul smell you're likely to come across," Leto says, jokingly mocking himself. "And he was irresponsible to the point where quite often I'd have to cover for him. Our first day in China, he shows up, gets arrested and I'm shooting without him.
"Fortunately, I had his storyboards to help me piece it all together."
With plans to hit the studio delayed as the band joins the Taste Of Chaos Tour next February, and with Leto's acting career on hiatus - the actor's Mark David Chapman biopic, "Chapter 27," will be unveiled at next month's Sundance Film Festival - 30 Seconds To Mars are enjoying their newfound success one day at a time. "That's what this journey's about," Leto says. "Every single day it's about redeveloping, redefining who we are, what our message is."
Pausing, he inquires with his handlers about dinner, apologizes and then goes on. "It's like the decision to shoot in China. It was an idea that struck me out of nowhere.
"That's something I love. I love to remember those moments of creative inspiration. Even that little song I played at sound check a few moments ago, if we ever work on that song, I want to remember that we were here, onstage in Toronto.
"I'm very fascinated by the birth of an idea. Playing a chord that strikes a melody that makes you think of a lyric that provokes an emotion, all that fascinates me 'cause it can be so elusive."
"A Beautiful Lie" is in stores now.