Actor and musician Jared Leto joined Audacy's Klein.Ally.Show at the KROQ studios in Los Angeles to talk new music and more as his band Thirty Seconds To Mars gets set to drop their forthcoming sixth studio album.
LISTEN NOW: Jared Leto talks with Klein. Ally. Show
Normally an early riser, Jared Leto of Thirty Seconds To Mars dropped by the studios with perfect timing today as the morning crew was just about to play the band's 2023 single "STUCK" on the air. The song, which marks the group’s first new material in five years following their 2018 album, AMERICA, is the first tease from their upcoming It's the End of the World but It's a Beautiful Day, set for release on September 15.
After a multi-year break that has seen a number of their contemporaries, like Sum 41 and Panic! at the Disco, for example, recently announcing they would be calling it quits, the same luckily can never be said about 30STM. "You know, the band is my brother [Shannon] and I," he says, "so if we did that we'd have big problems." Of course, Oasis's Gallagher brothers would certainly have a few beers for him to hold after that statement. "We, fortunately, have a really good relationship," Jared says of his older bro. "It hasn't always been easy, but I don't think we would be Thirty Seconds To Mars if we weren't brothers, and I don't think our relationship as brothers would be the same if we didn't have Thirty Seconds To Mars. It's a real labor of love for us, so actually breaking up the band is probably not gonna happen. It would be very strange."
"We might stop touring," Leto adds. "I think it's good to take breaks too."
The new record was born during the height of COVID, a time when Jared says both he and his brother finally had "solid ground" under their feet for the first time, "maybe in our entire lives because we moved around so much as kids. But there was something beautiful about being in one place. I remember I called him up... and I said, 'Let's just get started.' So we wrote a couple hundred songs during that time. It was a really productive time and a great time for both of us."
Obviously, the new record would need to be whittled down, and whittle they would. What happens to the rest of the songs that didn't make the cut? "Right in the garbage," Jared explains. "I chuck it. You know, you'd make voice notes... there's just too many, you could never go through. I have audio cassette tapes, like boxes of them from back in the day, filled with songs that'll never... they probably don't even work anymore."
Listening back to his own massive hits, like 2006's "The Kill," Jared admits there's always something that can be fixed. "I never, ever think it's the perfect song," he says. "That's why I can't listen to my own music. Once it's done you just gotta let it go." On the movie side as well, he admits, "It's that weird thing you hear actors say from time to time: I don't watch my films. I've seen a couple -- I saw Requiem For a Dream at Cannes. Darren Aronofsky was like, 'You're gonna see this movie!' I was glad that I did it."
"With the music, you know you play it on stage night after night, so you have a chance to be with it," he continues. "But now, with 'The Kill,' I mean it is what it is. I wouldn't change a thing because it affected people in a certain way and something about it worked."
The band's latest, "STUCK," Jared tells us, "is really a song about being in a certain place in your life -- caught in a cycle, caught in a place that maybe you want to break out of. There's a sense of liberation there, a sense of celebration, a sense of freedom and I think when you watch the music video you get that feeling."
Listen above for Klein and Ally's full chat with Jared Leto, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite stars and artists right here on Audacy.
Thirty Seconds To Mars' "STUCK" is out now. Grab your Pre-orders for It's the End of the World but It's a Beautiful Day HERE.
Listen to more of your favorite music on Audacy's Emo Kids, Alt Now, Rockternative, Drivin' Alt, New Wave Mix Tape, 90s and Chill, Alterna 00s, IndustriALT, Greatest Guitarists, Greatest Drummers, and ALT Roots stations -- plus check out our talent-hosted Kevan Kenney's Music Discovery, and Megan Holiday's My So Called '90s Playlist.
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