Shannon Leto - 10 minutes with 30 Seconds to Mars

Sujet: Shannon Leto - 10 minutes with 30 Seconds to Mars Ven 2 Sep 2011 - 16:09

Citation :: One of the most intimate shows on 30 Seconds to Mars' worldwide
tour is Sunday, Sept. 4, inside the MontBleu Theatre. The metal-neo prog
rockers captured the world's attention with their self-titled 2002
album. They are fronted by musician- actor Jared Leto. Three years
later, after guitarist Tomo Milcevic joined the band, it had the
platinum-selling CD “A Beautiful Lie.” In 2009, it released “This is
War.” Drummer Shannon Leto spoke with Lake Tahoe Action before the show.

Q: Where are you today?

Leto: I am just at home in L.A., relaxing, picking out some mattresses to buy.

Q: I was told you were in Europe.

Leto:
We've been touring for about two years now. It's a long journey. We're
home for about a week. We had the MTV Awards and a couple shows on the
West Coast and then over to Asia.

Q: Did you perform at the MTV Awards?

Leto: We didn't perform. My brother presented and we were up for three awards.

Q: How did 30 Seconds to Mars become so successful?

Leto:
Who knows? When we write and do what we do, we put all our energy in it
and tour tirelessly. Who knows what the ingredient is? I don't think
there's a formula. I know my brother's written some amazing songs and
those songs have connected with people. ... It's a lot of hard work,
too. We go above and beyond what people are used to doing. We
hard-charge it and that's what you have to do these days. CDs aren't
really being bought at all. It's all about the live show and it's all
about presentation. We love not just creating music but we love the
visual aspects as well from the videos to the show to the merch to 2,000
different album covers to having fans fly in from all over the world to
participate on the album. We try to do as much as we can.

Q: Have you played Tahoe before, and I would imagine this is one of your smaller venues you play?

Leto:
We haven't played Tahoe and we're excited to. It's a beautiful place.
I've snowboarded there. Playing the smaller shows gives us an
opportunity to be more intimate. We are able to share that experience on
a much more intimate level. We just came back a couple of nights ago
from the U.K. where we played in front of 70,000 people, and we're
playing all these sellout arena tours all over Europe. So to play
smaller shows, we love it. It's more immediate.

Q: Where besides the states are your biggest fans?

Leto:
Europe. People are pretty excited over there. And Latin America.
Germany is pretty amazing for us. When we started this whole touring
cycle out playing front of, I don't know, 100,000 people or so. That was
amazing.

Q: Did you and your brother grow up playing in bands? And who is older?

Leto:
I'm the older brother and music's always been a big part of our lives.
Actually, I just found a picture of him and I and I was 5 years old and
he's like 4. I'm banging bongos and there's a guitar next to him. So it
started early. ... It was real natural because those were our toys
growing up in communes, and mom had a bunch of friends who were artists
surrounding us growing up. It was very natural for us to do this.

Q: You had a major audition for guitarist, didn't you?

Leto:
Yeah. We were auditioning hundreds of guitarists and Tomo comes up and
looks at us and he's like, “I just want you to know, you don't need to
look any further.” In a week, he had learned every single song from our
first album. He came back and he was our guy.

Q: Was it his chops or his bravado?

Leto: It was his chops. But we were pretty entertained by his arrogance.

Publicist cuts in: Tim, we have to end this with just one more question.

Q: What can the fans at Tahoe expect at this show which is coming after the big fireworks show on the lake?

Leto:
They can expect a lot of energy, a lot of blood. A lot of sacrificial
going-ons, and a lot of levitation, if they're lucky, depending what I
eat that day.

CREDIT :http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20110831/NEWS/110839963/1016&parentprofile=1058