• Home
• News
• Features
• Reviews
• TV
• Photos
• Win
• Blog
• Magazine
• Merch
• Festivals

Interviews: 30 Seconds To Mars: The Fans’ Verdict

So how good is the new 30 Seconds To Mars single 'Kings And Queens', we asked a group of the band's fans for the real verdict!

Rock Sound recently invited a select group of 30 Seconds To Mars diehards into the office to listen to the band’s new single ’Kings And Queens’. Is it the band’s breakthrough moment? We’ll let those who know best tell you…

We’ve just played you ’Kings & Queens’ for the first time. What are your initial reactions?
Lisa: “Wow!”
Nicola: “Haunting, my first thought was, ‘It’s haunting’. It was awesome, everything we wanted and more.”

You all feature on the track but, at the time of recording, that was the only part of the song you were able to listen to. How was it recording vocals without knowing what they were going to be used for?
Lisa: “We went to the [UK] summit and they recorded what Jared and the rest [of the band] had done. So basically, Jared would sing certain lyrics and we would have to sing the same ones.”
Nicola: “It was all very official and kept hush, hush. They checked us when we were going in to make sure we had no recording equipment.”
Clare: “While we’re on the subject of the summit, I was one of the ones who couldn’t make it but there was something called a digital summit. They posted on the website clips that they had recorded, so you could hook up your webcam and make a short video of yourself singing that part as well. Somehow they’ve gone worldwide and put it all together on a track. It’s phenomenal really.”



Did being invited to sing on the record feel like a payback? Do you feel like it’s the band’s way of saying thank you?
Clare: “I wouldn’t like to feel like they owe it to us.”
Piewacket: “They came over for some awards last year just to say, ‘Thanks for voting for us’. They involve us all the time.”
Nicola: “They come into the chat rooms sometimes and talk to us on there. I can just imagine all of us at a live show – 6,000 people singing the new song! Every country has a national anthem, every football team has an anthem, this is ours.”

How do you think the song will do commercially?
Piewacket: “It really depends on the video because it’s a whole package, but I think it’s a stand-alone song anyway.”
Lisa: “It really is quite catchy.”
Nicola: “In my mind I’m still humming it.”
Clare: “It’s going to get a lot of airplay.”
Piewacket: “And it’s not emo!”
Clare: “It’s not heavy at all.”
Sue: “It’s going to reach a much wider audience.”
Clare: “I think I speak on behalf of all the Echelon here, everything that the band have done in terms of meeting their fans at gigs and going that extra bit further for the signings and things like that, I wouldn’t expect them to do that much with this record. It’s so global and for them to reach the people that they want to reach they’re going to be hopping from one place to the next so quickly. Just be happy and take the music for what it is. Don’t just be a fan thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to get to meet Jared’ because it really is just amazing music. Just listen to it.”



What do you think ‘Kings & Queens’ says about the album? Is it making you more excited?
Sue: “Totally, I can’t wait!”
Clare: “There has been talk about DVDs and short videos, and Jared is quite a genius when it comes to putting a story in pictures to his songs.”
Nicola: “All of his songs are chapters which create a book and ‘Kings & Queens’ is in the middle, so what’s at the beginning and what’s at the end?”


'Kings And Queens' will be released on November 30 with album 'This Is War' to follow on December 07.