Actor Jared Leto’s band Thirty Seconds To Mars wrote 200 songs during the pandemic

SINGAPORE – During the pandemic, Hollywood star Jared Leto coped with lockdown by writing 200 songs with his older brother Shannon Leto for their alternative rock band Thirty Seconds To Mars.

Most of them ended up in the garbage, the American actor-singer tells The Straits Times in an online press conference with South-east Asian media in early September.

But 11 of the tracks made it to their sixth and latest album, It’s The End Of The World But It’s A Beautiful Day. Released last Friday, it is available on music streaming services and music stores.

The apocalyptic title, Jared Leto says, is a metaphor. “It implies that although things may be difficult and circumstances may be challenging, we may be first faced with uncertainty and balance, (but) there’s still hope and there’s still beauty to be found in the world.”

The album cover, which depicts a scenic blue sky, is “a reminder that beauty is just above us all the time”.

The album artwork includes Renaissance-inspired artwork made by artificial intelligence (AI).

“I’ve been fascinated with AI for a number of years,” Leto says. “I like the fact that AI was taking something from the past and reinterpreting something in the present in a very modern way.”

He acknowledges that the AI-generated artwork was not perfect and was filled with inconsistencies and mistakes. “But I think in those mistakes is where you find something quite broken, but maybe beautiful as well.”

Asked what he would do if the world was really about to end, he says his last moments would probably be filled with “thoughts of gratitude”.

“My brother and I have been doing this for so long, and we’re just so grateful to be able to continue to make music, to make albums.”

It’s The End Of The World But It’s A Beautiful Day took three years to finish, says Leto, whose recent roles include horror comedy Haunted Mansion (2023), superhero film Morbius (2022) and biographical crime drama House Of Gucci (2021).

“Because I’m very slow, and I am old, and I’m taking my time,” the 51-year-old bachelor says.

Leto – who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for playing an HIV-positive trans woman in biographical drama Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and is most recognised for his scene-stealing turn as supervillain Joker in superhero movie Suicide Squad (2016) – formed Thirty Seconds To Mars with Shannon in 1998, four years after he made his proper acting debut in teen drama series My So-Called Life (1994).

The duo released their self-titled debut album in 2002, but it was only with their sophomore release, A Beautiful Lie (2005), that the band truly made an impact.

The album included some of their best-known songs such as The Kill and Attack, and was hailed as one of the year’s best albums by rock music publications such as Kerrang! and Rock Sound.

Over the years, Thirty Seconds To Mars also included a rotating line-up of musicians like guitarist Tomo Milicevic, who left in 2018.

“It’s always nice to have someone who’s loyal to you and to be loyal to someone else, to have commitment and to be able to share a journey with someone. That’s a beautiful thing,” Leto says of playing in a band with Shannon, 53.

“Of course, we’ve had our difficult times with each other. But as we’ve got older, like I said before, we really have just so much gratitude to do this.”

Leto acknowledges that even though he has enjoyed success in both his acting and music careers, it has not always been smooth sailing.

He tells young actors and young musicians that their most successful moment “could also be the time you’re most criticised”.

He says: “It’s also the most dangerous time for you as an artiste. It’s a time that’s full of seduction to embrace the material world or to get lost in some of the excesses and to lose focus and to be distracted.”

His life, he adds, has been a series of both failures and success, with a lot of stress and anxiety in between.

But he says that is part of the process, “that’s the game and there’s just enough fulfilment, just enough joy and reward” to keep him and his brother moving forward.

Leto says that Thirty Seconds To Mars are keen on a concert tour of South-east Asia in 2024. They performed in Singapore in 2010 at Fort Canning Park, a show that was part of music festival SingFest.

“It’s always an amazing thing to play in that part of the world and we always feel really lucky to go there,” he says. “I’ve always been fascinated with that part of the world and really drawn to it.”