30 Minutes With Jared!
He's a world famous actor who's now a world famous rock star! As lead singer of 30 Seconds To Mars, Jared Leto (left, with his bandmates) is living the dream...but he's taking his fans along for the ride!You have an amazingly mixed audience at your concerts – heavy metal fans, next to teenage girls, next to gay boys.We love it. It’s so inspiring when you look out and see that. We talk about it often – the inability to classify the audience is a really exciting thing for us.
What do you put that down to?I think it’s a combination of things. It’s the music. We have never had a desire to censor our audience. I believe everyone has a right to be a part of it and we’ve always had an open door and been inclusive rather than elitist. We’re basically there for the audience every night. It’s not so much about us but what we can do for everyone.
You seem to be fans of your fans!That’s a good way to say it. I like that. It hits the nail on the head. We feel we are in it together and all a part of it. They understand that it is not a fashion statement for us or about posturing. It’s a deep and meaningful part of our lives.
You also seem to rally your fans like troops to do your PR for the band.There is an us against them mentality with all of us and an understanding.
Critics might have pegged 30 Seconds To Mars as heavy metal to begin with, but you’re not that at all, are you?They used to think that we were. They used to not know what to do with us when our first record came out. They would book us on tours with heavy metal acts and we never fitted in.
Is that because your audience seems to be made up of misfits who all fit together under your band’s banner?It’s definitely a place to call home. We embrace that and have a lot of gratitude.
Do you often go down into the crowd to play live?I do it from time to time and they’re pretty ferocious here – the people in the audience. I like that energy. It’s good to get up close and personal.
The only other person I’ve ever seen do that successfully at a concert is Bryan Adams.Oh really. It was fun last night. Fun should be an element of what we do. There is a religious element to it. The shows are like coming to a revival. For that time that everyone comes together, all of the battles and the challenges should wash away and there should be a sense of freedom, abandonment, fun and joy. We’ll be back for SoundWave in February here in Australia.
You can’t keep away from Australia, can you?We’d been gone for so long and we were really surprised that people remembered who we were. We last did some concerts three or four years ago. It was very encouraging to have all these shows sold out.
Is the band hard for people to pigeonhole?This last record was made without any involvement. We didn’t have a record company while we made the record. We just want to make the best record that we can and I want to write the best songs that I can and we want to do something unique that we’re proud of. We want to be creative.
Is Australia one of your best territories?It is a really, really great one. I was looking at the posters for the Horden last night and The Killers and Coldplay played there when they had big records and went on to play massive arenas after that. It was good to see that. We’ve had a pretty good run this year and it looks like we have this new song,
Closer To The Edge, that is really connecting with people. It’s exciting when a song catches fire. We were so in preparatory mode with
Kings & Queens we didn’t realise how this song connected with people.
Closer To The Edge has been a nice surprise.
Have you put the acting on hold now because of the band?It’s just I don’t have time right now basically. If I had the time maybe I would do something but I’m not in any hurry.
Are you attached to anything at the moment?There are things I am developing and projects that I have my eye on, but not really anything immediate.
Do you want to have more of a creative input in all of your work now – you’re the producer of the band’s documentary and directed a video too?It’s a little or fun to have more responsibility, control and input. The acting industry is an interesting one these days. It’s a lot of…uh…it’s in a strange period.
Is it hard for the band that the focus falls on you because of your acting in the past?It isn’t because it has been so long. At the shows people are invested. If I was the guitarist and not writing songs then maybe, but I doubt Bono or David Lee Roth got any less attention. We have an egalitarian response and it’s such an old story for us because we were signed ten years ago.
When you started the band did people think 30 Seconds To Mars were just a vanity project for you?
Yeah, sure. We were very aware of it, we are not ignorant, but it fuelled us and got us excited. It wasn’t about proving them wrong, but a challenge that I knew that we could overcome.
Did you always want to have a band as a kid growing up with your brother?It was always on the peripheral. Music was always there, looming and lurking.
So how did the acting happen then?It was really kind of a fluke to tell you the truth. I was in art school studying to be a painter, then I switched my major to film making. I wanted to be a director and dropped out of school in the third year to go pursue being a director. I took a course in “Acting for Directors” which I asked the school to start. I was always secretly watching the actors and thinking it was a brave thing to do to run around on stage and do all this stuff, but also foolish at the same time. It’s like being a dancer – it’s such a delicate career and short-lived, but passion is passion. I just ended up getting some work.
You ended up getting quite a bit of work!Yeah, I did.
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| The author with 30 Seconds To Mars this year |
You covered Lady GaGa’s Bad Romance recently. Why?They asked us to cover a pop artist. A few years ago we covered Kanye West and when they asked us again Lady Gaga was the first thing I thought of. We found her interesting and the concept of a male perspective on that song was interesting too. I took out one line that I couldn’t wrap my mouth around it, to use a bad pun. She talks about something a vertical stick.
Well, you didn’t do Love Game with “take a ride on my disco stick”!I took a look at the lyrics and rewrote that line. I made it filthier and naughtier, which was fun. I’m sure she would have let us know if she didn’t approve.
Are there other people you would like to collaborate with?I almost did something with Robert Smith. That would always be interesting if that ever happens.
Were The Cure a big influence for you when you were growing up?Yeah. It would also be interesting to something with Eminem. We have done something with Kanye West and that should see the light of day soon. That will be through our record. We almost have the rights for that.
There is a film project that the band is working on?There is a documentary about the album and the lawsuit that we went through with EMI and the battle with our record company. We want to finish
Artefact, our live DVD too. I’m directing the one about the EMI thing.
It all paid off going to director’s school!It did! Back then there were no computers. I edited it on a 16mm film and splice it together literally with razor blades.
How different is the music industry to the movie industry?The movie industry seems a bit more old school. I have to figure this out without insulting either. They are traditional. The music business is a different kind of business, where someone can come out of nowhere and sell 10million records. There are more wild cards. The same thing scan happen with a film, but there is an industry there that seems more traditional. The studio system seems a little broader in its foundation.
When you look back at all of your work, what are you most proud of?I would say this record is the defining creative piece of work in my entire life. If I died tomorrow…this record is an arrival in some ways of 30 Seconds To Mars. We have become who we are with this record. We have shed influences and given birth to ourselves. It takes some time to do that. The dynamic and the concept and the impact of this record, although it hasn’t sold as many copies yet as the last one, it feels like this is the pinnacle to date creatively. If you want to know about me, or the rest of the band, you would find out most through the music, not through something else.
There are rocks that prove there is life on Mars now - it was the news this morning.They did? That’s great. That was our first name – Life on Mars. It came from the David Bowie song. It was a serendipitous thing. Some people were concerned about the name though.
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| Jared Leto in Alexander |
Did you ever see the finished version of Alexander?I never did. He just keeps recutting that movie. Maybe one day Oliver Stone will be done with that.
Do you ever think you will sit down and watch it one day?No. I already read the script. I have a great metaphor but I’m not going to say it now [laughs]. It would be too mean sounding in the context, but I have already read that book. I never found a great desire to watch the films.
These transformations you do on film, like putting on weight – is that a way you can control things in some way creatively?Interesting suggestion. I think it’s probably a way to push myself and to reach as far as I can, hoping to have some kind of reward or fulfilment or transformative experience.
What message do you have for your gay fans?I would say welcome. We love you and join the party and we’re happy to have you. We have a gay man in our crew, which is not something we think of very often, but a pleasure to have that diversity around. It’s nice that everyone can be so comfortable together.
Sujet: Flashback: Jared Leto interview (September 2010) 
