THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS

Take bad things you've heard about this band and completely erase it from your mind.   They are not some stuck up "actor's band" just messing around for shits and giggles.  Thirty Seconds to Mars is one of those great bands that there simply aren't enough of.  You know, the type of band that you can't exactly describe their sound, or what their all about, because they add a lot of mystery to their lyrics as well as originality.  Seeing them, one of my favorite bands, for the first time (would have been 2nd time if I didn't get lost of the way to see incubus back in September!), I went to the show with a lot of thoughts in my head.  First off- I had heard the band was really snobby and rude.  Couldn't be further from the truth.  I got the chance to sit down with (Renee from Staticnoise.net) and Shannon (drums) and Matt (bass).  I felt completely at ease with them, they were completely down to earth and made me even more excited to catch their set, after what seemed like forever!  Which brings me to another little 'rumor' I've heard, that the band sucks live.  That's so not the case!  Although they played a short 5 song set, I was very impressed and satisfied, and tried to admit to myself maybe it was worth the long wait!  Well back to what's important, here's our little interview with these lovely talented men!

LAURIE: HOW DID YOU DECIDE ON THE NAME 30 STM AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?

Matt: the name actually comes from a thesis that we found online it 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 expediential 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.

Shannon: I completely agree with you.

Matt: Thank you.

LAURIE: DO YOU THINK THERE IS TOO MUCH FOCUS ON A BAND'S IMAGE RATHER THAN THEIR MUSIC?

Matt: I think with certain bands there is, I mean I wouldn't say as a whole. There does seem to be a lot more energy wasted on people focusing more on a band's image instead of the music. There are definitely cases of it. For us, we're not really concerned with it, I mean if you look at our site there's no photos of us. We want the music to speak for itself.

LAURIE:  WHAT DO YOU HOPE PEOPLE WILL TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR MUSIC & WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AS A BAND?

Matt: I like them to take away what ever they want really. We're big on interpretation. We like people to make their own interpretations and their own conclusions to our music. We're not setting out there like this is what this means. We want people to take away what ever they want from it. What was the second part of that?

LAURIE:  WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AS A BAND?

Matt: I think our goals as a band are just to create music that's interesting, that's provocative, that's engaging. Something that's not like everything else out there right now, that's not mundane. Not to say there isn't good music happening right now, but I just think there is a lack of it. And we're trying to do something a little different.

Shannon: Yeah, and also just to keep pushing ourselves as artists, and always remain creative and taking risks is really important for us. Being open minded, and just really, the most important thing, is to keep pushing ourselves.

LAURIE:  HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH BAD PRESS, OR PEOPLE WHO QUICKLY DISMISS THE BAND AS "ANOTHER ACTOR TURNED MUSICIAN BAND"?

Shannon: I really don't give two fucks about it really. I could give a shit. We ignore it, I mean, the people that have a problem with it and I mean, the only people that ever bring it up is the press and the media. Not you guys, but I'm just saying, they're the only ones. The fans don't bring it up it's not a big deal, and if they do its like two seconds. It's like 'Jared, you were great in Requiem, you're album's amazing when are you coming back?' and that's it.

Matt: It's a waste of energy to really concern yourself with that, there's so many other things we have to  concentrate on, its just a waste of energy.

Shannon: It's such a waste, we let the music speak for itself, it's not relevant to the interview. We're a band, if you want to interview 30 seconds to mars, then you're going to interview 30 seconds to mars, you know what I mean?

LAURIE:  YEAH, ARE THERE ANY NEW SONGS OR PLANS FOR A NEW ALBUM, AND WHAT CAN US FANS EXPECT?

Matt: There's plans for a new album, we've been bouncing around ideas for new songs, right now our focus has been this album, and touring. There's ideas for the next record, but we're not like writing the new record, there's ideas.

Shannon: We started on a small scale tapping into our next record and what you guys should expect is...

Matt: the unexpected.

Shannon: you know, it puts a lot of pressure, expectations. Like I said, we want to try new things out and want to be open to try new things out and be free to do so. One thing that's really important to us is not to be pigeonholed in any direction, and not cornered off. If we want to do an all acoustic album, we're gonna do that.

Matt: a polka record, we'll do that.

Shannon: We're going to do anything we want to do, anything we wanna do we're gonna do it. So, uh yeah, that's it.

LAURIE:  HOW HAVE THE CROWDS BEEN SINCE YOU'VE BEEN ON TOUR AND HAS IT BEEN GREATER SINCE YOU'VE GOTTEN MORE MEDIA ATTENTION?

Shannon: The crowds have been amazing. We started a club date tour in January. We've been on the road since January and from the get go it's been really amazing. It started off like us playing in front of fifty people, and then it started building from there. The media has definitely helped us out, and definitely playing with Puddle of Mudd, the first band we toured with. Although it was completely different music, it was amazing to play in front of thousands of people. To reach that many people every night is great. The audience is accepting, very
responsive to the different music that we were playing. Then, we did more club dates and there was more people that came. Fifty turned into one hundred fifty or two hundred, then we went with Incubus, and that was even greater, an even bigger audience. Every one of our shows has been really positive, everyone's been really accepting and enthusiastic. It shows us people want something new, something fresh. Which has always been one of our goals, to make music that's, you know, fresh.

LAURIE:  WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BE IN A BAND, WAS THERE SOME DEFINING MOMENT OR PERSON THAT MADE YOU WANT TO PICK UP AN INSTRUMENT?

Matt: No, for me, it's hard to remember that far back. That's all I wanted to do. I don't remember why. I just felt drawn to it. It's the only thing I felt like I wanted to do.

Shannon: I grew up with music in my family. And I just remember, music is such an amazing language. You can just totally lose yourself and find yourself in it. It's just a natural thing that happened, it just made sense when I finally decided to focus my attention and energy into music. I don't know what was the defining moment, but definitely it was the right thing to do.

Matt: Yeah, I can't imagine doing anything else.

Shannon: Yeah, not at all. I mean, yeah

Matt: being a janitor.

Shannon: oh maybe, on the weekends.

RENEE: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WOULD BE DOING IF YOU WEREN'T A MUSICIAN?

Matt: I'd be a janitor.

RENEE: CUSTODIAL ARTS.

Matt: yeah, exactly.

RENEE: WHAT WAS THE HARDEST TRACK TO LAY DOWN ON THE ALBUM?

Shannon: They were all challenging, some songs took really not long to make, then others took a long time and needed to be massaged and worked on and thought of. We put a lot of thought into those songs. But, I don't know which one song, cuz each is really separate from each other, and we all work hard to make each song the best that it could be.

RENEE: I GOT A PROMO CD ONCE THAT HAD A BUNCH OF OTHER BANDS AND THERE WAS ONE 30 STM SONG ON IT AND SAID 'ALBUM DUE OUT IN 2000' AND WHAT TOOK SO LONG TO GET IT OUT?

Shannon: What happened was, first of all we take our time and we're real patient and we wanted to do the best job that we can and sometimes that takes a long time. There was stuff going on with the higher people...

Matt: the powers that be

Shannon: yeah, they were having troubles with their own lives and what they were involved with in their corporation and it just takes a while. We're really precise, we're real tedious. This album was intense. As you know, we were in Wyoming, in the middle of nowhere, for months just doing this album.

Matt: smoking peyote

Shannon: smoking peyote and you know, discovering ourselves, and losing ourselves.

Matt: not really

Shannon: don't lie dude

Matt: okay maybe a little

Shannon: it was definitely a discovery. Also, we had 100 songs, we put aside a lot of them, and made what would
best

Matt: what would fit together best, what would have a linear motion from beginning to end. it's like a big jigsaw puzzle.

RENEE: IS THERE A SONG THAT YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO PLAY EACH NIGHT?

Matt: for me, it kind of changes from night to night, there's not just one. when you're in the moment, one song may just feel right. so I guess I'm not consistent in that!

Shannon: I agree, I absolutely agree with you. It's different every night.

Matt: there's different energy from the crowd, something maybe going on, different energy with us, it could be anything. someone may just throw a water bottle at your head.

Shannon: wanting you to sign it in the middle of playing and it's just like, you can't do that, I'm busy!

RENEE: WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR YOUR NEXT SINGLE?

Shannon: what do you think our next single should be?

RENEE: I read on the website, it was going to be "Edge of the Earth"

Shannon: What do you think?

LAURIE: I like "Welcome to the Universe"

Matt: wow

Shannon: Oh? For a single?

LAURIE: Yeah, I like that a lot.

RENEE: or "Buddha for Mary"

Shannon: Yeah, its going to be "Edge of the Earth", you're the first to know!

LAURIE: woo hoo!

Matt: We just found out.

RENEE: ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE A VIDEO FOR THAT TOO?

Shannon: yeah.

Matt: I'm not sure what the plans are for that yet, we have a lot of stuff to do first.

RENEE: ARE YOU GUYS GOING TO KEEP TOURING THROUGHOUT THE NEXT YEAR?

Matt: yeah

Shannon: We are going to tour as long as it's necessary.

Matt: Until we physically fall apart *laughs* till one day we just can't get out of bed!

Shannon: *laughs* exactly.

RENEE: WHAT'S THE CRAZIEST THING A FAN HAS EVER DONE FOR YOU?

Matt: oh...*laughs*

Shannon: There's this one that tattooed all the glyphics all over their back. It was crazy. Just all over their back. That was crazy.

Matt: I think that classifies as crazy.

Shannon: yeah, insane!

Matt: I don't consider crazy, but there's been a lot of enthusiasm from our fans, they go out of their way to make hats, and shirts and they're very proactive. You don't see that a lot with other bands nowadays.

Shannon: We have this amazing following, we go to shows and notice people following us to the shows.

Matt: It's like their on tour with us, like we're the Grateful Dead.

Shannon: It's crazy.

Matt: Except, you know, we're not the Grateful Dead.

Shannon: No, not at all.

Matt: thank you.

Shannon: God bless you.

Matt: Amen.

Shannon: Anytime.

RENEE: WHAT EXACTLY DO THE GLYPHICS MEAN?

Shannon: *whispering* if we tell you, we're going to have to kill you!

LAURIE: I've heard that before.

Matt: That's the standard answer, yup. They represent different factions within 30 STM. There's no one specific meaning. It all goes back to the interpretation thing. We don't want to just lay it out there, you know, they may mean something different to you. Why steal the piss out of that?

Shannon: yeah the piss, why steal the piss? the piss.

Matt: yeah the piss, p-i-s-s, the piss.

Shannon: yeah, the piss. yeah, they represent different levels, different subdivisions within 30 STM and they'll
be revealed as time goes on.

RENEE: SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO.

Matt: yeah, stay tuned.

Shannon: Don't turn that channel!

RENEE: DO YOU HAVE ANY HOBBIES, OR ANYTHING YOU DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME?

Matt: Masturbation.

Shannon: wow, Matt, so do I! HIGH FIVE!

*laughs* and they high five

Shannon and Matt: Ewww.

Matt: sleeping is something we don't get to do often. so yeah, we sleep when we can.

Shannon: Right now this is taking up a lot of our time, which is great. It takes up a lot of our time. It's great, and it needs to. We love it.

Matt: I like long walks on the beach, horseback riding in my spare time.

Shannon: Wearing a long blonde wig, I don't know! eating chocolate!

Matt: wearing a loin cloth, nah we read, watch movies, go to museums, adult book stores...

Shannon: yeah. Plus, there's a lot of acoustic guitar playing on the bus too.

Matt: Yeah, we're always playing music, even when we're not on stage. We're fans of music.

Shannon: We're always listening to music, different kinds of music. We love music.

Matt: smoking opium *laughs*

Shannon: yeah that's right, naked, blonde wig, on a horse, eating chocolate!

RENEE: HOW DID YOU GUYS GET TOGETHER?

Shannon: Well...

Matt: Juvy.

Shannon: that's where we first met, all three, well not my brother. Me, Matt and Solon met in juvy.

Matt: But that was before, I mean, we just became friends, then the band was more of a progression after that. We were bad boys.

Shannon: bad boys

Matt: bad boys

Shannon: bad boys running wild!

Matt: We're good boys now.

Shannon: yeah, we're good.

RENEE: WELL DO YOU GUYS HAVE ANY LAST WORDS?

Shannon: what are we going to be executed?

Matt: yeah!

Shannon: I hope we're not going to be executed!

Matt: Are you trying to tell us something?

Shannon: is this some kind of hint?

LAURIE: OKAY THEN, WHAT ARE YOUR FINAL WORDS BEFORE YOUR DEPARTURE?

Matt: thank you.

Shannon: departure into what? what world?

Matt: well yeah!

Shannon: nah, alright

LAURIE: THERE'S NO WINNING!

Matt: no, there really isn't!

Shannon: No there isn't! None at all! I want to thank you guys, you've been really sweet!

LAURIE & RENEE: THANK YOU!

- Laurie & Renee