Jared Leto: ‘We’re Taking Full Advantage Of The Digital Age Here’

TThe legendary frontman of 30 Seconds To Mars, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, actor, speaker and who knows who else Jared Leto just talked to Ultimate Guitar’s Steven Rosen about the band’s third album This Is War, and some music marketing topics which I really loved to see covered in this interview. As always, be sure to check out the full article when it goes live on UG Here is the full interview, and meanwhile – enjoy the inspiring snippet.

You’ve always thought outside of the box in terms of presenting 30 Seconds to Mars. Your marketing projects and the different ways you’ve used the Internet really represented new ways of promoting a band. Did you know from the beginning that you were going to use these alternative avenues to publicize the band?

Yes; we tend to look for things that have been tread upon just a little less than others. I think that it’s exciting to do things that haven’t been done so many times before or not at all. And it keeps it interesting for us and I would hope the audience as well. And, uh, it’s a way to deepen the conversation with our audience around the world and to have a stronger connection as well.

Does this harken back to your early days when you were listening to bands and hoping to somehow meet your heroes? Did you ever think, “I’d love to go and meet Jimmy Page or hang out with the Who?”

Photo credit: nicogenin on Flickr

I think for me, some of those bands – whether it was Zeppelin or Pink Floyd or the Who – they certainly had an idea of community that went along with their bands. And I always responded to that. I was always interested in a very active participation from the audience and the bands. We’ve always been really open and engaged with our listeners.

Does that give-and-take with your fans truly inform your music? Or is it more of a social networking type of situation?

It’s definitely informed us; it’s inspired us. And I think the interactivity on This Is War is really a huge part of the album. The Summit that we did, the very first one in Los Angeles, was so encouraging that we ended up doing eight of them around the world. And then eventually a digital version as well.

Can you explain what the Summit is?

For people who don’t know what the Summit is, it was just really a collaboration between our audience and the band. And we invited people to participate and record on the new album. It made a big impact on This Is War.

Where did this Summit interactive material end up on the album?

Yeah, they appear on every single song except for two or three.

Another tactic you undertook was a live chat on MySpace. What were the results of that?

It was inspiring; it was exciting. We enjoyed it a lot and we’ve done it now and I’m not so sure we would repeat that but maybe in a different way we would build upon that idea. It was definitely an interesting thing to do and we learned a lot from it.

If the band had come out back in the days of vinyl, how do you think they might have been perceived? Could 30 Seconds to Mars have created the same musical profile in a pre-Internet world?

Uh, not in the way that we’re doing now. We certainly utilize new technologies and we’re able to further some of these ideas and make these projects work in a way they wouldn’t have been able to in a different age. We’re takin’ full advantage of the digital age here and it’s exciting to use some of the new technologies to help implement creative ideas.

Read the full Steven Rosen‘s interview at UG!

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