Label Sues Jared Leto's Band For $30 Million

LOS ANGELES — Hardcore fans of 30 Seconds to Mars aren't the only ones who want more of the band's music. Virgin Records has sued the group for $30 million, saying it has failed to deliver.

Virgin Records sued the band and front man Jared Leto in Los Angeles on Friday, claiming they refused to deliver three albums as required by its contract.

The band's last album, "A Beautiful Lie," was released in 2005.

A publicist for Leto, an actor who starred in the film "Requiem for a Dream" and the TV show "My So-Called Life," did not return a message Friday.

According to the lawsuit, the band "repudiated" a 1999 contract in July.

Despite the absence of a new album, the band's hit "From Yesterday" was deemed one of 2007's Top 10 "Hot Modern Rock Songs" by Billboard magazine.

Comments

[deckard70]

The band provides further information in this blog post:
http://thirtysecondstomars.forumsunlimited.com/index.php?showtopic=312534

The post is by Jared Leto.

[alted1663]

Not that I care about the band ( and I don't ) but when a record label can sue you for 30 million it's time to put your music out using the internet. F*@k the record labels!!!

[Adrienne Williams - Huffpost Blogger]

Actually, they sued both Jarred and his brother Shannon, and we need to change that image, Matt (bassist) isn't apart of the band any longer....

[RobinLandseadel]

Somehow the Rutles, that legend in a lunchtime---"The Pre-Fab Four"---comes to mind:

"Their first record took three hours to make. Their second took even longer."

Seriously, how long does it take to crank out a cd's worth of I/IV/V screeds?

[duckcrackers]

Look, I agree, this is an important story and deserves to be told, but for godsakes Ernest Borgnine is masturbating a few stories over. Can we keep it quiet for a few minutes.

[Cranky1]

LOL good one

[ScandalousCandice]

The record company said look we'll put up the money for your eye liner but you need to get out and keep making awful poseur rock.

[MaracaKabob]

Hopefully Donald Trump will save the day and record an album for Leto.

[pkafin]

Nice point.

[commentguy1234]

Ripping off artists for decades, ripping off consumers with $15-$25 CDs, radio payola, DRM and rootkits in their product, suing children and dead grandmothers, then putting out crap and calling it music (Paris Hilton, anyone?). The major record labels should collectively go &*#! themselves.

[Eric8869]

Amen! They screw artists over as a business. I just saw one of the artists say "you don't make money from the music comanies - just hopefully they get your name out there so you make money in other ways" WHAT???? Not even expecting to get money from the music companies.

The band should call their bluff and roll out two albums of feedback.

[JTaverner]

Lou Reed did something like this with "Metal Machine Music" and Neil Young had an album released in the 80s he recorded all with vocoder - if Jared Leto pulls a Lou Reed/Neil Young it would only up his cred - he could use it

[MTGradwell]

This sort of thing goes back a long way. Amarok (1990) was Mike Oldfield's goodbye to Virgin, who he reportedly felt had ripped him off. It contains some good music - Mike's too much of a musician to compromise on that - but it also contains loud noises, and sudden key and tempo and volume changes, and other dissonance, which make it utterly uncommercial. There's no way to pull out a three-minute section and make it into a self-contained single. It also contains a hidden message in Morse code which, when deciphered, reads "f**k off RB" (a reference to Richard Branson, the boss of Virgin).

Virgin, not surprisingly, didn't promote this album very much. So Mike did his own promoting, including offering a £1000 prize for the first person to decipher the hidden message.

Surely it shouldn't have been beyond the abilities of "30 seconds to Mars" to come up with something along similar lines, had they wanted to.

[RobinLandseadel]

"The major record labels should collectively go &*#! themselves."

While I agree with your sentiment, the major labels have been pulling a Borgnine for the better part of a decade now. CD sales? What CD sales?

[deckard70]

Yep, the blog points out that EMI sold 2 million copies of their first album yet EMI claims they never made any profit. Figure each album sold for at least $10 and that's 20 million. The IRS needs to shut down the major labels once and for all.

[InformedSources]

Not every artist cranks out product consistently. Sometimes the creative process doesn't happen according to the convenience of the industry. Maybe Virgin Records should understand that. Get real, Virgin!

[Tenley]

Don't care one way or another about the guy, but I did notice that the article said it's a 1999 contract. Waiting nearly 10 years for someone to carry out their end of a contract is pretty lenient.

[PhantomAviator]

..

Get bent.

These jokers aren't musicians, they're media whores.

If they can't deliver three CDs in five years, then they aren't sh*t.

.

[pkafin]

"If they can't deliver three CDs in five years, then they aren't sh*t."

Tis true.

The Beatles recorded 4 albums in 1964 and then 5 albums in 1965. Clearly, it takes longer these days due to higher level of production. However, the entire Beatles catalog was created in 7 years.

If this lame ass band can't make three albums in 5 years (or 9 years as the 1999-2008 dates seem to indicate) then they are both lame and worthless.

This isn't a case of a "creative process" that isn't progressing according "the convenience of the industry". It is a case of a "creative process" that is non existent.

[mredder4]

The band Tool, inarguably one of the greatest current bands in modern rock history, in terms of talented music produced and popularity, regularly takes five+ years for each album. Now, I am not comparing 30 Seconds to Mars to Tool in any way. Far from it.

My point is, I would rather wait more than five years for a great Tool album than get some of the mass-media-oriented crap music that PhantomAviator is talking about.

Three albums in five years? Sounds like a band that's recycling the same garbage sound album after album after album. No decent band that I know of works on that lame schedule.

[petecook5]

horrible actor. Even worse band. How does this guy continue to build a fanbase?

[marcain]

because he's good looking. most if not all his fans are girls.

[sarasotajeff]

source ?

[ElPerro]

Lots of really terrible bands are checking much bank.

There's no accounting for taste.

[Eric8869]

I don't care how he acts - I just want to look at him

[petecook5]

Then he should be a model and spare our ears.

[BarackMan]

They put on a great show and I love their music. Would love to hear more from them...but whenever. Screw Virgin Records!

Obama/Biden '08!

[commentguy1234]

That band blows.

P.S.: Hopefully Obama DOESN'T pick Biden for his VP, because when you sound out that ticket it just reinforced the whole Obama bin Laden meme. Obama Biden is exceedingly suggestive.

[rockyersocksoff]

Same reason he should NOT pick Evan Bayh.

"Bye Bye Obama/Bayh" has a nice crash-and-burn ring to it, no?