By: Brian Baker
August 2005
Jared Leto and 30 Seconds to Mars are baking like adobe bricks in the scorching Arizona sun. "How hot is it here today?" Leto asks a passerby. "109 right now," he reports back. "It feels good for a second; then your sunglasses melt to your forehead. We're trying to find a water park but we're trying to decide how sanitary that is. They say the water that gets in your mouth tastes like sweat."
While a dip in a body-temperature wave pool might be less than refreshing, Leto and his bandmates are certainly no strangers to sweat. The quartet has been working relentlessly before and since the 2002 release of their eponymous debut, touring as openers for Puddle of Mudd, Incubus and others for nearly a year preceding the album's release, and then matching that schedule with equal fervor afterwards.
Since 1999, when Leto formed 30STM with his brother Shannon, he's been aware of the uphill climb awaiting him. Bored actors in half-baked vanity projects have devalued the concept of dual careers in film and music, making it especially difficult for those who are equally committed to both disciplines-actors like Leto, Juliette Lewis, and Kevin Bacon-to be taken seriously. Leto understood the challenges going in and has worked hard to dispel any doubts.
Since the release of 30STM's debut, Leto has starred in Oliver Stone's Alexander and at least three other films (including the imminent Lord of War and Awake), while simultaneously touring, writing and recording the band's follow-up, A Beautiful Lie. Through work ethic alone, Leto proved his point a long time ago.
The fact is, Leto has received great notices for his film work (particularly in Fight Club, Panic Room and Requiem for a Dream) and 30STM's debut was well regarded by many critics who'd been sharpening their claws for what they assumed would be an ego-driven mess. What they heard was a cleanly produced (thanks to legendary boardsman Bob Ezrin) and well-executed hard rock amalgam of Pink Floyd prog, Depeche Mode electronica, and Rush rock with undercurrents of pop melody and metal volume. The album eventually sold over 100,000 units, a real achievement for a relatively unknown band.
Given that success, it seems natural that Leto would draw some sonic parallels between his first two albums, but when the question is broached about what exactly he wanted to do differently with A Beautiful Lie, he doesn't hesitate.
"Everything," Leto says conclusively. "I wanted to explore completely different avenues this time. I knew that I was going to have to throw away a lot of things that worked the first time around in order to move forward. And it wasn't always an easy thing to do because I worked really hard the first time around to create something special. I tossed all of my tricks away and started from scratch."
One of Leto's original concepts was to create layers of sound, filling all available space with something for the listener. On A Beautiful Lie, Leto was determined to change that.
"I said in the beginning, 'Let's try to find as little as possible to do,'" he remembers. "That set up a unique set of challenges, trying to be as minimal as possible to focus on the insides of the songs and cut away anything extreme."
Leto's desire to retool 30STM's sound and vision while retaining his core influences trickled down to his songwriting process, which was fueled by what he characterizes as "personal and professional challenges."
"The last record was very cerebral and obtuse at times, much more wrapped around the head," says Leto. "A Beautiful Lie is, by comparison, much more wrapped around the heart. I think it's much more emotionally transparent. The record is about going to war with yourself and ultimately winning the battle. It's about renewal, regrowth, change, rebirth."
Perhaps the biggest shift on A Beautiful Lie was one of simple structure. On the debut album, the Leto brothers played everything in the studio, then brought in bassist Matt Wachter and a battery of guitarists to recreate the album on the road. This time, Wachter and new guitarist Tomo Milicevic, with new producer Josh Abraham, were integral parts of a band unit that worked together to create the new album.
"It was kind of seamless," says Leto. "With Matt and Tomo, it was great because it freed me up to not think as an instrumentalist. I really tried to write the songs in my imagination first, well before I even picked up an instrument, and have them finished in my head. I'd often grab Tomo and hum him the guitar lines and have him play it in certain places. Same with Matt. They helped me enormously in being there that way. And they added their own colors at times and completely surprised me by doing something unexpected in a song when I would think a song was completed. It was exciting to have those different opinions."
Leto wrote 40 songs for A Beautiful Lie, 30 of which he dismissed. One that almost didn't make the cut is the album's first single, "Attack." The song had been around for a while and Leto was unconvinced of its worth. One night on a break, he was outside the studio with his acoustic guitar when Abraham joined him.
"I said sarcastically, 'Hey, man, you want to hear a hit song?,' just talking s***," recalls Leto. "I started playing 'Attack,' and he stopped me after the first chorus and said, 'That's the best song you have. You have to record it.' I said, 'No way in hell.' But he encouraged me, so I went in and grabbed the guys and things just fell into place. Not only is it the first song on the record, it's the first single, and it's getting a tremendous response. I told Josh that night, 'This song deserves to be a hit just so we can tell this story.'"
Source: Ziazine