Transition to rock star complete for Jared Leto




With a new album and sell-out tours sometime actor Jared Leto and his band are living the dream, he tells Scott Kara.

Sometimes actors don't always make the best rock'n'roll stars. Let's face it, Russell Crowe was a better gladiator than he was frontman in 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, and Keanu Reeves was better as a stoned metaller in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure than playing bass in Dogstar.

Then there's Jared Leto who, as well as his acting career, has fronted Thirty Seconds To Mars since forming the band with his brother and drummer Shannon in 1998.

The 38-year-old's songs, which are often punctuated by his overwrought delivery might not be for everyone, but the band has fared well. And with the release of their latest album, This Is War, they are bigger than ever. So has Leto, unlike some other actors, made the actor-musician transition pretty well?

"I can only speak for myself," he says with a wry little chuckle, because after all, we all know you don't want to get on the wrong side of Russell Crowe. "We've all got our own challenges," he continues amicably. "I'm just pretty grateful that I'm sitting here talking about coming to New Zealand." The band will soon tour here for the first time, and play the Logan Campbell Centre on August 3.
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"And, you know, the experience we've had just this year with This Is War, this is the stuff of what dreams are made of."

It might sound odd for an accomplished actor with an equally successful music career to be living his dreams but that's exactly what Leto reckons he's doing. The band recently completed their biggest tour of Europe, selling out the likes of Wembley Arena, and their show at the more modest-sized Logan Campbell is sold out too.

"We couldn't be happier."

Acting-wise Leto's had many diverse roles, most notably as heroin addict Harry Goldfarb in the dark and disturbing 2000 film Requiem For A Dream, "best friend" Hephaistion in failed Oliver Stone epic Alexander, and more recently John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, in Chapter 27.

But he's not particularly interested in talking about acting today. He says there are no new roles on the horizon and his focus for the next year or so is music.

"Right now we've got a record out, a world tour, and I'm committed to this right now, and who knows what I'll do a year from now. I might go and wander in the mountains or something. You gotta follow your dreams."

And he's even a little dismissive when it comes to talking about how his acting crosses over into his music - and his live performance.

"It's as different from being a sculptor or a writer. You can learn from whatever you do, but when you make films you are building a character, collaborating with the director and other actors. When you make music you are really channelling and revealing yourself - and when you make a record like [This Is War] it's very personal. So it's different in a lot of ways."

Leto has played music for most of his life, having been in a band for 10 years before Thirty Seconds to Mars, which he and his brother started as a family affair.

"It started out really unconsciously. It wasn't a conscious thing. We just simply played and then we recorded and then we shared the music and then we played shows and then we recorded an album of these songs that we'd been playing. And then we went on the road to celebrate.

"And it's just consumed more and more of our lives ever since."

It's been five years since their last album, Beautiful Lie was released. The main hold-up was a showdown with record company Virgin who filed a US$30 million lawsuit in 2008 claiming the band had breached its contract. The case took more than a year to settle, and Leto admits there was a time when they thought there might not be another album.

"That was a pretty big deal, and something that weighed heavy on us, so it was a relief to get it out."

Their therapy, if you like, was to keep recording. They hunkered down in a house in the Hollywood Hills, where they built their own studio, recorded most of the songs themselves, and then hired in-demand producer Flood, who has worked with everyone from U2 and the Killers to PJ Harvey and Sigur Ros.

"We went about the business of trying to make the best record of our lives. Because we had such a big battle outside the studio I think it [recording] was a big creative diversion, and we had some personal battles and things that were happening, but it was pretty synergistic between the three of us."

So no wonder songs like Closer To the Edge and Vox Populi are dramatic and over the top - like a poppier, more American rock version of Muse.

"There are moments that are incredibly intimate and fragile on this record too," offers Leto, "like Alibi and 100 Suns, which is just me and a guitar. There's minimal against the maximum and we wanted to do that. We wanted to make a really dynamic record and I don't think you should be afraid, or shy away from what your creative goals are."

A song like Stranger In A Strange Land recalls the synth-powered industrial sound of Nine Inch Nails, and it's a hark back to the band's debut album.

Elsewhere on This Is War they also used a lot of vintage synthesisers and sequencers, including a keyboard Flood brought along that he had used on U2's Achtung Baby and Violator by Depeche Mode.

"They are sounds that are nostalgic for us, we grew up listening to a lot of that sort of stuff. It was a little bit about coming back full circle."

fonte: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment ... d=10660434

INTO THE WILD WITH JARED LETO

YourGigs caught up with Jared Leto as his band were about to declare This Is War across Australia.
"Are you hung like a wildebeest, too?" were the first words uttered to me by actor and musician Jared Leto after an admittedly flimsy icebreaker that we share the same birthday. The bouncing baby Leto was born in Louisiana but moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990s to pursue a music career, with acting initially as an aside, and started the band 30 Seconds to Mars with his brother in 1998. The band is embarking on their Into the Wild world tour to support their third album, This is War.
YourGigs (yG): How was the recent American tour?
Jared Leto (JL): It's been pretty great; it's been the tour of a lifetime to tell you the truth. We've just finished off the US leg of the tour and it just went by too quick. We're so happy to be coming down to see you guys really soon — it's been too long — we've been planning on getting down there for a while; it's nice to be coming back.
yG: The shows were rather large-scale productions. How did they go? Do you enjoy getting involved in the technical side of it, too?
JL: Yeah I do, I really do; it's been a lot of fun. We started the year with our first ever arena tour in Europe and have taken that energy and crammed it into every room since. The shows have been chaotic and spontaneous, and it's a night that we all get to just be free and have some abandon.
yG: It has been five years since your last album. How do you think the amount of time it took has shaped the album?
JL: I think we've grown a lot, just as people and artists, and that's been essential. Every time you make a record you have an opportunity to rediscover, redefine and reinvent and we took full advantage of that. This was a record we knew we had an opportunity to transform and reset the bar for ourselves as musicians and creative people and the response has been extraordinary. It's been wonderful; we're just so happy we get to come around the world and share our music with people.
yG: Did the protracted legal dispute [a $30 million lawsuit filed against them by their label, Virgin] the band was involved with affect the album?
JL: It inspired us and made us more determined to do it the way we did it. Those challenges made the record stronger, made us stronger.
yG: Has the visual accompaniment to your music always been an important thing to the band, and has it let you draw upon both of your creative backgrounds?
JL: The videos have always been a pretty big part of what we do and who we are, and I've had a lot of fun with them. I've always taken the approach that these little film projects are as important as the songs themselves and it's been a blessing to be able to make them.
yG: Your fans have always been a huge part of what you are doing. Can you tell us about the "Summit" concept?
JL: I was interested from the very beginning of having an interactive element to this album and utilising new technologies to involve our audiences from around the world in the recoding process, and we did exactly that, and it's turned into a very interesting and exciting part of the live shows as well.
yG: Do you embrace incorporating technology into your music and shows?
JL: Yeah, there is a lot and I think as technology evolves there are always new opportunities that present themselves. We've always been pretty forward-thinking about how we utilise it and are always thinking about having a deeper and, the most important thing is, having a more meaningful conversation with our fans across the world.
yG: As we are a gig guide, we have some regular gig related questions we like to ask. Do you remember your first time on stage?
JL: Not really, but I remember the feeling: accomplishment and excitement and all of the possibility of dreams coming alive.
yG: Best gig you've played?
JL: The gig we played a couple of days ago in LA was the best gig of our lives. Everything just came together and it was the biggest show we ever played in LA. Something happened and there was a spark and it caught fire in the audience and everyone, everyone was just so alive and the feeling was a celebration, it was great. It's hard to compare that to anything.
yG: Worst onstage moment?
JL: I've had so many things happen, I could send you a list — when you are as crazy as what we do live, it just happens. The accidents are usually a blessing that are exciting live and are good to see. For the audience, I think it's important that it's not too perfect. We keep it really spontaneous.

Check gig guide for details of the 30 Seconds to Mars tour.

Andy Ryan
19 Jul 2010