Created in 1998 by Jared Leto (a Hollywood actor who’s known for his work on “Urban Legend” and “Alexander”, to name a few) and his brother, Shannon, 30 Seconds to Mars began as a small family project. Things began to speed up quickly, and Matt Wachter later joined the band as bassist and keyboard player. After working with a number of guitarists (as the band's first two guitarists, Kevin Drake and Solon Bixler, left the band due to issues primarily related to touring), the three auditioned Tomo Miličević to round out the band's roster.
According to an interview from Virgin Records, the band's name
"...actually comes from a thesis that the band found online that was written by a former Harvard professor. And one of the subsections of the thesis was titled 'thirty seconds to mars' and he goes on to talk about the exponential growth of technology that relates to humans and saying that we are quite literally thirty seconds to mars. What it means to us is, we thought it best described our music, in short."
The band's debut album 30 Seconds to Mars, produced by Bob Ezrin, was released in 2002 to mixed reviews and achieved sales of just over 100,000. The album produced two singles, Capricorn (A Brand New Name) and Edge of the Earth. The former peaked at #31 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart.
• Capricorn (A Brand New Name)
• Edge of the Earth
• Fallen
• Oblivion
• Buddha for Mary
• Echelon
• Welcome to the Universe
• Mission
• End of the Beginning
• 93 Million Miles
• Year Zero
Their sophomore album, A Beautiful Lie, was released on August 30, 2005. Because the album was leaked five months before its release, the band decided to include two bonus tracks: "Battle of One" (an original song that was also set to be the album's title track when it was first announced) and "Hunter" (a cover of the Björk song). To further promote the album, the band also enclosed "golden tickets" in 12 copies, which granted their owners access to any 30 Seconds to Mars concert free of charge, along with backstage access.
• Attack
• Beautiful Lie
• Kill
• Was it a Dream?
• Fantasy
• Savior
• From Yesterday
• Story
• R-Evolve
• Modern Myth
• 2 untitled hidden tracks
The band's phoenix logo (which the band named "Mithra") bears the phrase "Provehito in Altum", the band's motto. Roughly translated from Latin, this means "Launch forth into the deep"; but a more stylized version would be "Rocket in(to) High(ness)". The logo was primarily used for promotion of the band's debut, whereas for A Beautiful Lie, the new Trinity logo was created consisting of three skulls, along with the band's name and motto. They really talk latin!
And for the fan base, the band has what they called The Echelon. Which actually is a publicity street team for the band 30 Seconds to Mars, which helps in bringing friends to the shows, phoning local radio stations to request the band’s songs, putting up posters, posting to band forums or related bulletin boards online, and maintaining magazines or websites dedicated to the band? It is also the name of one of their songs in the album 30 Seconds to Mars.
For me, this band offers me a sound that I never heard before for like, whole years of my life! The beat of the drum, strings on the guitar, and especially Jared’s scream. They’re what I called in one simple word, awesome!
Source: www.wikipedia.com, www.starpulse.com, www.30secondstomars.com
