Live from Boise

[30secondstomars]

November 17, 2005







No one seemed to know we were coming when we first arrived at the Big Easy. With a not so nice greeting from the venue’s staff, the evening started out on a rather discouraging note. We were told to wait and then we were told to come back at the beginning of the show. Feeling completely let down and frustrated, we headed to the Ha’ Penny and not five minutes into the pub the phone rang and we were instructed to head to the loading dock on 9th street where we were told to wait again and that we would be picked up.



Outside the loading dock is where we finally made contact with an associate of 30 Seconds to Mars. Winding through the back entrance, down the kitchen like halls, around corners, and crossing thresholds of multiple doors, we found ourselves in a pungent basil/pea green colored room. Two drab brown couches sat adjacent to a large splintering tagged up pillar.



Scribbled on the walls were memoirs and illustrations of previous bands that had used the makeshift dressing room as a pre-show chill spot.



The backdrop of the interview was far from aesthetically pleasing with grotesque messages about sex and poop and a lovely illustration of a fluorescent penis burrito.



Despite the uncomfortable setting, frontman Jared Leto and guitarist Tomo Milicevic made the interview worth the wait. 30 Seconds to Mars has been touring with Seether and Audioslave since September, and even though they perceive their sound as fit for amphitheatres, they prefer the intimate setting of the smaller clubs.



Leto’s older brother Shannon, drummer, and bass guitar player Matt Wachter sat this interview out but they certainly lit up the stage when their show began.



Most ladies might remember Jared Leto from a little MTV series, “My So Called Life.” Just to put any curiosity at ease, his intense, sultry stare does make a girl weak in the knees. The Leto brothers have been playing together since they were little kids, which has resulted in the 1998 emergence of the unique, vibrant, and transcendental sounds of 30 Seconds to Mars.



Both Leto and Milicevic were simply sweet, quick witted, and accommodating as the question and answer portion of the evening began.







Jared: Let’s close this door here in case we say something we don’t anyone else to hear.



Tomo: Exactly



Jared: You know, college girls.



Q: Describe your sound and style in five words.



Tomo: Epic, orgasmic, theatric – that’s my three.



Jared: Viral, contagious, trichanomous vaginitis [whatever the Hell that means]



Q: What are the differences between your first album and “A Beautiful Lie?”



Jared: Well, there are a lot. There are a lot of years that have passed between the first and the second album. So we changed a lot as people. I think that is reflected creatively in this record. We wanted to do something that was a complete departure from the first album so we had to throw a lot of our past away in order to move forward as artists and as people. It was kinda like starting over in a lot of ways. I think that being the foundation of a “Beautiful Lie” – everything else that followed was a huge step in a new direction. But we demanded of ourselves this time a lot of things and we set the bar really high in order to make a record that was explosive. And I think we accomplished a lot of our goals and we’re very proud of it.



Tomo: Indeed. Yeah, he covered it.



Q: When did you guys decide you wanted to form a band?



Jared: My brother and I have been making music forever so it was just a natural and organic extension of a process that we’ve shared with each other.



Q: When did you first fall in love with rock ‘n’ roll?



Jared: I remember liking Mozart when I was a little kid. I think a lot of kids do like Mozart. There’s something about Mozart that kids respond to. But I never really considered myself a rock ‘n’ roller. Most of the music I listen to doesn’t fall into the genre of rock ‘n’ roll. But I do remember having a Joan Jett record when I was very very young – a 45. Do you guys know what a 45 is? It’s not a gun.



Tomo: I started off very similar to Jared. I started off trained classically on the violin … when I was three-years-old I started playing the violin and rock music came in much much later. I was already pretty well versed before I even heard my first rock song. So, it’s just more about the freedom. Classical music is all about the rules. With playing music that you create yourself, it’s free and you can do whatever you want. That’s what I like about it. I just like the music. I don’t really care what kind of genre it falls into.



Q: Who writes the songs?



Tomo: Jared writes the songs.



Jared: I get a tremendous amount of input from the band. The first record I wrote, I played most of the instruments and my brother played the drums. Now that Tomo and Matt are here, we all kind of share the process together. I do the bulk of the writing but everybody’s there to help me and to help each other. It’s really kind of one thing – a machine. It’s not like four people are sitting around like ‘hey, what’s this, what’s that,’ or whatever. I just kind of follow a train of thought. It’s really interesting to kind of create with four other people.



Tomo: Sometimes it’s very easy and sometimes it’s very difficult.



Jared: It can be a lot of work. There’s a tremendous amount of dedication and commitment that you need to have in order to do something that’s worth anything. It’s just like anything else. It’s like writing a good story or a painting a picture, taking a photograph, or making film. You get out of it what you put in, I suppose. You have moments of inspiration as a writer and you take advantage of those and you hone in on them and it’s nice because I have these other guys who I trust to kind of donate creative contributions to the process. They respect me as a writer enough to follow my process and trust that it’s going to work out in the end, which it always does so we have a very healthy relationship as far as that’s concerned.



Q: How do your personal/band experiences play into the writing process?



Jared: We’re all a result of our experiences and decisions that we make in life.



Tomo: Everything that happens is going to affect the way the music is written.



Jared: Especially this album, too. It’s a very personal record. It had a lot of ourselves inside of it and what was going on in my life as a lyricist was definitely going to be reflected creatively in all of us. And personally, I reflected in a lot of that change - like someone who is in the crossroads of their life that has to confront challenges in order to move forward as a human being. I guess that’s a pretty universal thing but we certainly had those feelings as we were working and writing.



Q: Being on tour with Audioslave, what inspiration have these experienced rock ‘n’ rollers given you as a band?



Tomo: It’s a great privilege.



Jared: We’ve played some huge places and arenas, which we’ve done before in the past and it’s always kind of exciting to see what’s in store for you in the future.



Tomo: The energy is very different in a small club. But I feel like our sound belongs on the biggest stage the world has to offer. I mean though, even if I wasn’t in the band.



Jared: We have a very big element to 30 Seconds to Mars. There’s something grandiose about it. It’s very cinematic. So it’s been nice to play the arenas with Audioslave and fill up those huge arenas. We’re very much a live band and we’ve done a lot of touring across this country. We’ve put 100,000 miles or more on the bus.



Tomo: Way over that now. A hundred thousand miles we calculated three weeks ago. We are road dogs.



Q: What’s your favorite album right now, besides your own?



Tomo: It’s really funny that you say that because I listen to our record more than a lot of other ones. Right now there’s a few that I like a lot. I like the new Depeche Mode a lot. That’s the one I’ve been listening to lately. It’s really good. You got to listen to it with headphones on the whole way through. This band called The Bled I think is really good – well halfway through their record on is really good. I always listen to the classics as well.



Q: Do you have a favorite song you like to perform?



Tomo: Lately for me it’s been “Battle of One” just because we play it so tight it’s retarded.



Jared: And it’s at the point, interestingly, for me anyway, to where I’m right in the pocket – I’m borderline if I’m really on top of the song or not. It’s right at my threshold if I’m going to be able to pull this off. So that’s an exciting place to be in a performance and to witness a performance when an opera singer is at the note where they’re just about to break, and that’s what that song is like.



Q: What does the name 30 Seconds to Mars mean?



Tomo: What does it mean to you?



Jared: That’s when we make you tell us now because we’ve been answering all the questions. You make up an answer and then write it down. You can think about it.



Tomo: Exactly. That’s what we prefer.



Jared: I will say this. It describes the sound of our music in a very unique and appropriate way. It has very little to do with space, but you should make up your own answer. From the very beginning, just from the very name of the band we made efforts to be different, to be ourselves. We didn’t want to be part of the typical mundane boring experience. We wanted to find something new and unique. I find that lacking a lot in rock bands – the imagination.



Leto is a vibrant front man who unleashes the energy of the whole band unto the crowd. Climbing all over the stage and submersing himself into the hands of the audience, Leto delivered a purely epic performance. 30 Seconds to Mars will be headlining their own tour next year and Boise has been promised a stop by the Leto’s, Milievic, and Wachter.



As for what 30 Seconds to Mars means, check out a show and come to your own conclusion, for the Culture desk, however, it was a transcendent trip to a parallel reality.