Keanu Reeves is in a band. No, really. They opened for Bon Jovi once and theyre absolutely awful. Other famous actors have bands, too: Kevin Bacon, Russell Crowe, even Corey Feldman. Yet without exception (only Juliette Lewis gets a lunch pass), they hawk out some of the most horrible attempts at music ever to be inflicted upon the human ear. We can be forgiven, then, for receiving the news that 30 Seconds To Mars, a trio so hotly tipped in Hollywood that at one point they had more cover shoots than recorded songs, contained Jared Leto. You know, the blonde guy who gets his head smashed in by Brad Pitt in Fight Club. The Cali lads were up against it from the start. Leto talked of playing to entire audiences who stood with their arms crossed chatting to their friends, paying no attention to the stage except to listlessly applaud roughly every three minutes or so. Yet the debut album arrived and it wasnt bad. Leto had a decent set of lungs and exuded such passion that it was difficult not to get carried along by his intensity. Then better albums came. Jethro Tull and Tool met modern melodic rock in a bare knuckle basement brawl. Letos lyrics were abstract but heartfelt, the band earnest to the point of being cute. Cue a healthy cult following, then a large following, then a reluctant acceptance by the world at large that, try as we might to diminish the man who once filmed a sex scene with Kimberley Kates, the movie star turned rock star truly has had the last laugh. Apt, of course, given that this summer hell be grinning at us from cinema screens once more as the terrifying new incarnation of the Joker.
