Page 111 - Sharp September 2023

“I always thought that I would be a painter, or a sculptor, or a photographer...”
J ARED LETO IS FROM MARS — AND WE’RE ALL FROM VENUS.
That’s how it feels most of the time. He’s one of the last true enigmas: a star who, despite spending almost 30 years in front of the camera, remains curiously out of focus. The on-set stories, of course, are legendary. Tales of Leto’s intense character commitment have rocketed him to an almost mythical method acting status. These exploits have seen the actor transformed into one of the most surreal, celebrated, and paradoxical performers working today, embodying everyone from arms dealers and serial killers to supervillains and vampires. And, thanks to this unique talent for shapeshifting, it’s very likely that you’ve seen scenes, shows, or even full-length films starring Leto — and not even realized who you were watching.
And then there’s his music. Thirty Seconds to Mars, a band co- formed and fronted by Leto, has been releasing its genre-twisting tracks for over two decades. Yet, when the group started out, the actor refused to use his Hollywood pull to push the band into the spotlight. As a result, Leto has always remained slightly obscured in the musical world too. That could be why the press and the public, left largely in the dark all these years, have tended to typecast Leto as a sort of superlunary luminary — an acclaimed yet alien presence in the entertainment industry who manages to hover, ever so slightly, beyond the celeb-sphere.
Today, Leto is in Los Angeles. Standing in solidarity with SAG- AFTRA and his fellow striking actors, the Vancouver-based production was paused on his latest film several days ago. But we’re not here to discuss acting. We’re here to talk music, and the sixth studio album from Thirty Seconds to Mars. Dreamed up during lockdown, It’s the End of the World but It’s a Beautiful Day finally arrives on September 15 and promises to knock fans’ pre-launch preconceptions out of orbit. But that’s just the way Leto likes it. Because, he tells SHARP, while the band’s music has morphed and mutated over time — warping its way from cosmic space rock, through expanses of symphonic electronica, to headbanging heavy metal — this latest album steers things onto a fresh, techno-pop trajectory and reveals parts of his own character he’s always kept hidden.
“You know,” Leto considers, “I think that it’s a new chapter for Thirty
Seconds to Mars. We take so long to make albums that we change a lot. The world changes. Technology changes. The way we record changes. The place you live changes. Maybe the type of guitar you like to play changes. Your voice changes. But all of that is kind of great. It can really push you to new places.”
Of course, Thirty Seconds to Mars — which Leto founded with his brother Shannon — has always had an intrepid streak. Several past tracks, in particular, embraced the extraterrestrial promise of the band’s name, transporting fans to “Jupiter,” “100 Suns,” and the “Edge of the Earth.” A 2013 single, “Up in the Air,” even had its first play onboard the International Space Station, hitching a skyward ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. But the latest album, Leto says, is more introspective than intergalactic — and brings the band back down to earth.
“There’s a vulnerability, an intimacy, and an intensity in my voice on this album that I haven’t heard from myself ever before,” he says. “And people have asked me — multiple people — when I’ve played them some of these songs, they’ve said: ‘Is that you?’ Which I take as a compliment, that I’m still, somehow, discovering new parts of myself. I think that’s a good thing.”
It’s the End of the World opens with the pulsating, high-powered “Stuck” — an upbeat, anthemic answer to the down days and doldrums of the pandemic. The album switches gears after the first few tracks, offering up the contemplative, slower-paced “Seasons” and “Get Up Kid,” before building back to “Avalanche,” the final blood-pumping, heart-thumping number (and Leto’s favourite track). There are eleven songs in all, and some of the most experimental echo the band’s critically acclaimed, confidently nonconformist 2009 album This Is War.
“I think it’s great to be free from any constraints,” says Leto, “because it would be a shame to just make This Is War: Part II — unless you were really trying to make This Is War: Part II. Which we have thought about, actually. That would be interesting. And I haven’t seen anyone do a ‘Volume Two’ in quite a while. But we’ve also been thinking about making a full-on rock record. You know, make a rock record and then that’s it, the definitive piece of our career. Say goodbye, or something. I don’t know.”
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