"[silence] [ambience ♪]" "[ambience continues ♪]" "[alternative instrumentals ♪] [chattering]" "[vocal warmups] [crowd chattering]" "This record is about overcoming challenges." "[Milicevic] It's very important important to fight for what you feel is right." "[crowd cheering]" "[Jared Leto] We were backed into a corner." "For us, it was all or nothing." "Sometimes we have to fight in order to be free." "[deafening cheers]" "This Is War is an album about conflict." "We got in a huge battle with our record company." "The album kind of documented this, really, uh, turbulent time in our lives." "[Shannon] There's always been a serious distrust between an artist and their record label." "[man] I never heard of a label that doesn't screw an artist." "That's the business model is screwing the artist." "[Jared] None of us in the band ever dreamed that we would be so lucky to have this success that we've had." "[drumming] [Jared] Now here we were, faced with the possibility that everything was going to be ripped right away from us." "♪ This is war ♪" "[ambience ♪]" "There's a kind of economic perfect storm brewing." "T's a disastrous situation." "They're losing their jobs." "[Reporter] Rising gas prices." "My friends and fellow Americans." "[Supporter] Thank you, John!" "I am very pleased and very privileged to introduce to you, the next Vice President of the United States." "Governor Sarah Palin of the great state of Alaska!" "[patriotic music ♪]" "♪ [rhythmic thumping]" "I can hear the bugles blaring." "The sound of the battle cry." "The march of the drum, calling me from my slumber." "Pushing me toward... a new day." "A new fight." "[electronic pop ♪]" "Oh, wow." "Oh, wow. [Chuckles]" "It's early." "It's too fucking bright." "[sighs] All right." "[Jared, voiceover] It was 2008." "We were on the road for over two years and had recently returned to Los Angeles to work on our third album." "After over a decade of struggling, we finally had a breakthrough and achieved more success than we ever dreamed." "Our second album, A Beautiful Lie, sold over three and a half million copies and gave us a chance to tour the world." "We were all incredibly excited about this time in our lives and we decided to make a film about the next album, but... it quickly turned into something else." "[MTV News musical bump ♪ ] 30 Seconds To Mars is being sued for..." "30 million dollars." "Cute, right?" "This summer, the band's label, Virgin EMI filed a breach of contract suit against" "30 Seconds To Mars, however, Jared insists that the band was just exercising their legal rights." "[rhythmic heavy bass ♪ ]" "♪" "What do they want?" "30 million dollars." " [laughs] Really?" "You're being sued for 30...million... dollars." "What are you...[stammers] How do you sleep at night?" "I have no idea where the number came from, other than... it-it certainly wasn't a- a wink to the-to the press or weren't we clever to use the same number." "30 Seconds To Mars had just sold a lot of uh, a lot of albums and never made any money." "We weren't really expecting a bunch of money, we just thought it bizarre that... that all of this revenue was being generated and that we're still 2.7 million dollars in debt, so we started to look into it." "30 Seconds To Mars suffered a contract that wasn't even really a direct contract with EMI." "It was a bad deal." "They basically told us to-to shut up and go make another album." "They weren't addressing our concerns, that we had with the contract, so we decided to terminate with EMI." "We've been signed for nine years." "Under California law, you can't be held bound to a contract for more than seven years, which the courts and myself and we all feel is pretty reasonable." "[Jared, voiceover] On July 4th, 2008, we sent a termination letter to EMI." "We cited the seven-year statue, which legally ended our contract with the company." "With any lawsuit, there's-there's two sides of the argument." "Your side of the argument was um, our contract is no longer valid because of the seven-year statue." "And their side of it is, no, that's not applicable." "You have a commitment based on a number of albums, based on the amount of money we've spent and you're not free to terminate this." "It really is David against Goliath and they and-and in this case, the label-the Goliath-was, well, here's a 30-million-dollar lawsuit, like I'm just gonna keep you awake." "They don't-it doesn't keep them awake suing for 30 million dollars, it's just," "I'm just-stress you out, you know, emotionally and financially until you cave." "[intense ambience ♪]" "[♪ ]" "30 million dollars." "Yeah." "I think it's so crazy that it doesn't even really register with me." "Like, it's so... fucking..." "like, just fantastically huge that I don't really... get it." "You would hope that..." "in success, that they would even take the initiative and be like, "Hey, look."" "You guys, you have the worst record deal on the planet, let's make this right." "Because we know at some point, you're gonna educate yourselves and you're gonna realize" ""that you're being stolen from and you're being hijacked."" " But they don't do that." " No." "They make the artist do that." "And they don't want to do what's fair or what's right." "You have to threaten them with legal action, you have to threaten them with creating precedences in order to get them just to make a slightly fair deal that still leaves them with complete line in share of everything and a complete domination of 30 Seconds To Mars." "[electronic ambience ♪]" "[♪ ]" "Musical taste actually begins to form in the womb." "The developing fetus has a fully functioning auditory system at 20 weeks." "And it's hearing all the sounds of the environment." "Music is everywhere." "It's really woven into the fabric of everyday life." "Perceptual studies have shown that in the hierarchy of needs, the two things that people care most about are music and sex." "So, there's no question that music is-is a primal need and it's unbelievably powerful." "No other art form works like music." "Paintings are beautiful, but, you know, once you see it, eventually, you- you see everything in it." "With music, I-it's rather changing." "For a piece of music to succeed, it has to take you through some sort of emotional journey." "The right chord sequence, the right few seconds of a song and you're right there. [Snaps fingers]" "That's exactly how I feel." "I love in trying to interpret what the music is saying." "Both lyrically and musically, that's why I like music." "And once I try and figure it out I have cr-personally crazy fantasies of what the person was thinking about when they wrote that and why they wrote that and how does it relate to me." "That's what music is." "You mix the right word at the right time with something that's-that's beautiful and moving and sort of... makes you, you know, the hair on the back of your neck stand up, it-it's an incredible moment." "That's probably why we need it, because it's-it's wonderful." "A song has a story in it." "There's a heart behind it, there's a frequency within it and you as a person delivered it and that's why people care." "Music is the most powerful vehicle in the world." "Period." "[techno beats ♪]" "[Jared, voiceover] Despite the lawsuit, we decided to move forward and start making our new album." "And that meant financing it ourselves." "So, we built a studio in the basement of a house in Hollywood Hills, hired Flood and began the process." "[techno beat continues ♪]" "Flood is like this superstar producer." "A legend, a guy that has made albums that will live forever." "I mean, 20 years I've been listening to his work." "I used to look at the back of albums and CD's and tapes and who's this guy, Flood?" "I didn't even know if he was a real person." "You always see this mysterious little name, Flood." "He produced Depeche Mode." "U2." "Nine Inch Nails." "PJ Harvey." "Smashing Pumpkins and the... the most important, obviously, is 30 Seconds To Mars, so." "His wide range of creativity is-is aspiring." "For me, creativity is about vulnerability, taking risks, showing one's true emotion." "And to be able to make everybody feel as though they can make mistakes." "They can put themselves out there and there's no recriminations." "Jared took on a huge responsibility and a huge burden when he chose to start making This Is War without a label on board." "He didn't know what the future held for the band." "It was very scary because he was letting me know, like, look we're alone." "There ain't gonna be any money coming in, whatever we as a band, or really me, Jared, as like, the leader, did good business to save some of the money that we made." "That's now going to pay for our album and our producer and our studio, which may result in zero dollars." "[chattering]" "We had to bet on ourselves, even if using Vegas terminology, it's like, if we are the black square, we put everything on black." "And... and we roll the dice." "[elongated cheer, laughing]" "[Jared] Well done." "We are heading to see our manager," "Irving Azoff and our lawyer, Peter Paterno." "[car honking in the distance] [indistinct talking] [Azoff] How you doing, man?" "[Jared] I'm good." "Okay, what do you want to do?" "What I'd like to happen is that I would like to go to court." "I'd like to sit in front of a jury of my peers." "I think in any lawsuit, that's a slam dunk, you're still at 20 percent chance you get screwed." "Let me ask a big-picture question." "Signing a record deal with a traditional record company, or not, what are the other options?" "[Azoff stammering] My view has always been that any deal that doesn't involved a major record label is better than any deal any major label would offer you because you have your ownership to your masters." "[Paterno]:" "The other issue too, you gotta keep in mind, is either if you sign with one of these other alternatives," "E-EMI's still suing you." "It seems like we're between a rock and a hard place, either sign some antiquated, dinosaur deal..." "[Paterno] Right..." "But what's the new model, then?" "[Paterno]:" "The new model is worse." "So the antiquated, dinosaur deal is a good deal." "Why isn't there a new model that's better?" "[Paterno]:" "Because...[indistinct] [Jared]:" "People are listening to music more than ever." "'Cause they're all losing money." "[Paterno]:" "They're not buying it." "They may be listening, but they're not buying it." "They're not paying for it, it makes it even less valuable." "[Azoff] If it were a traditional record company owner, we wouldn't be sitting here," "I would've settled this a long time ago." "We-we-we drew a bad card, we drew a guy from outside the business, who doesn't play by industry rules, who doesn't give a shit." "We can't get them to-to settle?" "[Azoff] They're not gonna settle now." "They said to me, uh, "I don't care how long it takes"," "I don't care how angry it makes the other label groups," ""I will go to court to a decision."" "[sad ambience ♪]" "The record business is in very, very serious trouble." "If you look at historically, other businesses that have gone away, uh, I just think there's kind of a gradual decline- well, gradual-it's been pretty s-severe, but like this." "And then, it just reaches kind of a tipping point and just falls off a cliff." "[rhythmic ambience ♪]" "The economics around the record business, is based on selling albums." "You know, growing up you had to buy the entire album to get the song you loved- you had to!" "And now what happens is, a kid is sitting at home, and goes, "I gotta hear that 'Kings and Queens' song."" "I gotta hear that."" "They don't have to get in a car or ask their parents and save up 12 bucks to go buy it." "Now that you're given the choice and you can buy the song that you love without buying the album?" "People are going to do that." "Not only that, when you can buy-have it for free!" "Record sales have dipped 20 percent a year for the last six years now." "That's a lot." "The music business has really become decimated and it has been largely because of illegal downloads, other factors, too." "But the predicament we're in now is that an entire generation of music listeners, virtually everybody under the age of 21, has grown up in a world where, for their entire sentient lives, they've never had to pay for music." "And they look at people my age and who buy music, they think we're saps." "I mean, why would you pay for something that's free?" "It'd be like paying for air." "I've heard someone like Trent Reznor say," ""You know, you work like a fucking year on something,"" "and you put all of this time and you spent all this money on creating... these songs." "And a cup of coffee, at the end of the day," ""costs more than your song."" "Consumers wouldn't walk into a grocery store and steal a loaf of bread and have it." "But it became okay to steal music." "Um, that really isn't something you blame the labels for." "You know, that's technology." "The labels have never been cohesive enough to create their own future distribution systems, which is why it took a computer company to start iTunes." "Um, had they been smart enough, they would've co-owned their own digital delivery like iTunes." "You know, that was a big mess up." "When Apple, which is a great company, don't get me wrong, is the third largest company in America and the biggest music retailer in America, [stammers] I think, that's concerning." "It's a device manufacturer." "The labels are petrified and terrified and they don't know what's going on, they don't even understand their own industry anymore." "They were too big and slow to change, so I do think that's-they're just gonna start to crumble." "[birds chirping] [guitar ambience ♪]" "[Shannon saying something indistinct]" "[drums playing]" "Let's play the, uh, Kings and Queens." "[ambience ♪]" "[Jared]:" "One." "♪ Into the night [soft guitar ♪...] ♪ Desperate and broken" "♪ The sound of a fight" "♪ father has spoken" "[Jared] There's definitely something in there." "Let's try it again." "[Flood] It's really good. [Jared] I think this is the part." "I think so, too." " It's too-I'm sitting here I-I-I'm singing it in my head." "It's infectious, I want to hear it again." "That guitar creeping up at the end." " Great." " Yeah." "So, I know from making records like this, the hard work, the struggle..." "is all part of it." "It's about being truthful to yourselves." "That's what I mean about now, it's like you can take it and embrace it." "And go with it." "You know?" "[very distant singing] Be a bit off balance, try out a few mad things and now you're in a great place to do that." "♪" "♪ We were the kings and queens of promise ♪" "♪ We were the victims of ourselves ♪" "♪ Maybe the children of a lesser God ♪" "♪ Between heaven and hell" "♪ Heaven and hell" "[Jared, voiceover] In the middle of all this, we got some good news." "We were nominated for a Latin MTV Award." "So, we packed our bags and flew ourselves to Mexico." "[girls screaming] [electronic music ♪]" "♪" "[presenter] 30 Seconds To Mars!" "[cheering]" "We are working hard in the studio... [translator speaking in Spanish]" "As excited we've ever been." "Inspired and-and so happy to be finally working on new songs." "It's Flavor Flav right here with Tomo and the motherfuckin' boys!" "The real fuckin' McCoys." "[giggling]" "That's right, you know what I'm saying?" "Yeah!" "Whoo!" "Even though, everybody classify us as stars, but we 30 seconds from motherfuckin' Mars." "Yeah!" "Yeah, boy!" "[cheering]" "♪ Every tune I play my game ♪" "♪ I got too many years building' a house of pain ♪" "[Jared, voiceover] After an exciting and unforgettable night, we woke up to discover that we had been served with legal papers from EMI." "This is EMI requesting every e-mail, every document, every demo, every song idea, every lyric that was written before July 4th of 2008." "Defendants Jared Leto and Shannon Leto, P.K.A [chatter in the background] 30 Seconds To Mars." "They now want to search our computers, our hard drives, our Blackberrys for any information that would help them win." "The whole thing is about them winning and us not winning." "It's not about right, or moving forward, or succeeding at this point." "Yeah." "I wonder if the whole company feels like that, or is it just the tip of the top?" "It's new people coming in and saying," ""Well, where are our problem areas?"" "and this is a difficult situation." "The whole point is to rid themselves of difficult situations." "[piano playing ♪] ♪ She said" "[Jared, voiceover] You have to understand this whole story really began before we started the album." "Before we got sued, when we were in friendly re-negotiations with EMI." "And that was going well." "Irving was talking to them." "We had made some efforts to address some commercial terms of the 30 Seconds To Mars agreement that I think we all... recognized were probably inappropriate." "And then..." "[heartbeat-like bass ♪ ] ...uh, something happened." "That effort, um, stalled out for whatever reason." "[Reporter] Soon investors won't be able to buy a piece of The Beatles." "EMI is going private next month." "The British Music Publisher is being acquired for nearly five billion dollars." "Terra Firma is a U.K. based private equity company." "They tend to buy companies that are distressed, um, not necessarily companies that are in distress industries, which is an important point when you come back around to EMI." "If you're in England," "I imagine you're looking at EMI and it's the home of The Beatles and it's one of the most iconic British companies ever." "And you say to yourself, "Wow, I can fix that, too."" "They're just-those dummies don't-I'm sure they don't know what they're doing either." ""So, let me buy that and turn it around."" "The real principle of Terra Firma is Guy Hands." "He's essentially the guy who runs Terra Firma." "Guy Hands is, uh, he's a self-made billionaire." "He's been incredibly successful." "One of the victories he had was that he bought all the, uh, gas stations on the highway in Northern Europe." "And he cleaned the bathrooms!" "Once they cleaned them, all the sudden, business went up at the gas stations, at the convenience stores attached them-to them, and he made a ton of money." "They spent billions of dollars on a company." "And I really think that they believed they could transform it." "[Jared]:" "When Terra Firma came in and purchased EMI, they became the factor regime that sued us for 30 million bucks." "Terra Firma took the negotiation away from us." "I think they looked at it and they said I think they didn't like the fact that it was a friendly nego-re-negotiation." "They came with a perspective of we got to be hard-nosed." "[dark ambience ♪]" "♪" "[metronome clicking]" "Take one." "♪" "Wasn't a bad beginning on that." "And again." "♪" "Whoo!" "Just getting warmed up, dude." "One more." "[whispers] Perfect." "Let's just do a couple more, then we'll, we'll listen." "One more." "One last one." "[singing] Uno mas!" "Give me one second, let me loosen my hand up." "One more." "Just for fun." "[producer, through intercom] Dude, you're still under a hundred takes." "You're at 97." "[chuckles] 97?" "Okay, well, fuck that, we gotta do three more." "[producer, through intercom] Yeah." "Come on." "[metronome clicking] Hold on, let me get ready." "Never met anyone as driven, who will work as hard, who will go to the... you know, end of the Earth and back just on a-on a one in a million chance that something's gonna help the music." "[piano playing ♪]" "[Milicevic, voiceover] There is nobody that I know personally, that can say that they do for their art and their work what he does." "You ask me what Jared's role is in the making of This Is War?" "It's too small of a question to encompass what he does in the world of 30 Seconds To Mars." "He's the mastermind." "♪" "[Jared, voiceover] Success on the level that we even have right now, we never dreamed- you couldn't-how could you dream of-of this?" "♪" "My brother and I were born in Louisiana." "We climbed out of the muddy banks of the Mississippi with out instruments in one hand and... a fistful of food stamps in the other." "We had a very young mother." "I think she was pregnant with me and had my brother by the time she was 18." "I was a child that had children." "I never considered that any of it was difficult." "Going to school with two babies and... being on welfare and... having food stamps and Medicaid cards." "[Jared, voiceover] When you're a kid and you're poor..." "I don't think you realize it." "It wasn't until I got much older, I realized we didn't have money to go out and buy a bunch of presents." "Every Christmas was really about making presents for each other." "We moved around quite a bit as kids." "When we lived together, it was always this... there was always something going on." "We were making art or we were making music." "There was always things around that anybody could pick up and draw or paint with." "They'd dress up, and danced around, and sing, and it was always that energy-that creative energy." "They were indoctrinated into music, like, really early." "It was like music, music, music, music." "[Jared, voiceover] My mother used to sing in the car." "I remember she would harmonize with songs." "I remembered thinking that she always had a great voice." "She was always listening to music and exposed us to a lot of great music." "I never really thought that you could be a musician in a band." "I never thought about fame, I never thought about any of that stuff." "That early childhood, that creative exposure really helped shaped my brother and I in an important way." "[birds chirping] [drums pounding] [guitar fades in ♪]" "♪" "Yeah, I like that, it sounds great." "I was just thinking, what should I play during that bridge?" "It's definitely a place to play something different, I think." "What are the vocals doing?" "Right away they go off?" "[singing indistinctly ♪] [humming]" "Wait, I don't even know the chorus." "[singing indistinctly ♪ ]" "♪ [both singing ♪" "It's also no rush." "We should just take the time it needs to get it right." "You know, if we have to do it over three days, we'll do it over three days." "I'm just in it, I just... you know, and then it's gone, like, [sighing] okay." "No, I know how that is... [both talking over each other]" "Let's encourage each other to enjoy it as well." "It's discovery." "'Cause there's awesome stuff." "The fill that you came out with with the f-the snare... totally cool, and you've never done it before." "Celebrate later." "Have a little bit of joy while we do it." "It's all good." "Different processes, man." "I am enjoying it." "Got 'em all fooled." "[music fades in ♪]" "♪ No I'm not saying I'm sorry ♪" "♪ One day maybe we'll meet again ♪" "♪" "♪ No I'm not saying I'm sorry ♪" "♪ One day maybe we'll meet again ♪" "♪" "♪ No, no, no, no" "♪" "[Jared, voiceover] We're getting' there." "But there's still lots to do." "I've never heard of a label that doesn't screw an artist." "You talk to anybody... who audits their label, they're always owed money." "And of nothing else... usually the label holds back enough money, that your cost of auditing is such that you won't do it." "So that's the business model... is screwing the artist." "Their financial practices have been shady since the beginning of time." "It's been grandfathered in since the '50s and '60s when rock and roll really started." "In the '50s, they were screwing the artists then but there was much, much less money involved." "Then as you started to go into the '60s and '70s, the hit to shit ratio is so bad that they're saying," ""Hey... you know, we can't pay the hit artist 'cause he's paying for all the bad artists."" "It goes back to how the music industry was set up in the very early stages of the recording industry, taking advantage of uneducated, easily swayed artists who don't really care about the money." "Unfortunately, there's a lot of fallout with- still, with bands getting paid, you know, we had to sue our label to get paid." "And they've created this strange... convoluted system that you have to be a lawyer to really understand or a mathematician." "[Jared, voiceover] A typical record deal is structured something like this." "The record label gives an advance, say 250,000 dollars to the artist to record an album." "The artist then records the album." "Suppose that the album sells 500,000 copies at 10 dollars each, yielding 5 million dollars." "The record label then takes their cut out of the 5 million, typically 85 percent of the total sales, leaving the artist with 750,000 dollars." "But before the artist receives any payments, the label first deducts the advance." "In addition, the record label recoups other costs such as recording costs, half the promotion costs, half the video costs, and tour support." "This leaves the artist 425,000 dollars in debt to the record label." "And then this debt gets carried on to the next album, the next album and the next album." "I don't know if most people have seen long form contracts." "They're insane and there's all these little..." "these little things thrown in." "It's kind of like legislating-you know, legislature for a government." "They put up this big issue but underneath that issue, there is like 17 other little laws that they threw in that they're not talking about." "So when you say yes to this one thing, you're actually saying yes to like 45 other things." "There's-there's a worse one." "They used to have damage fees with digital downloads." "Digital downloads, like at first they were doing that, like they're just trying to get away with murder, you know, just like, "Let's leave it in there"," ""let's see if the lawyer sees it" kind of thing." "[Jared, voiceover] Some other hidden items that the contract includes are... packaging costs." "They deduct up to 25 percent of the artist's cut, known as a royalty, to cover the expense of plastic cases and artwork." "This cost is even administered to digital downloads where packaging is nonexistent." "Ten percent is deducted to cover breakage costs during shipping." "This started in the vinyl era, continued when CDs replaced vinyl, and still applies today with digital downloads." "The 10 percent free goods deduction is an antiquated system where retailers purchase 100 albums but are given an additional 10 albums at no charge." "Since the artist is only paid on albums sold, they are not compensated for those free albums." "This deduction still continues even in a digitally-dominated market." "Artists generate so much money for so many people that have nothing to do with the creative process at all." "There is no-there is no road you can go down that the artist isn't fucked." "Most people out there who have jobs... they can go to their boss, ask for a raise." "They can leave and go get another job if they're not happy." "Musicians don't really ave that ability to do that." "And by the way, if we don't like- if we don't feel like pushing your records anymore and we don't feel like you're going to sell, we're not going to let you go," "we'll just kind of put you on the shelf over here and won't really let you work." "But we're not going to let you leave either." "It's like being in a bad marriage." "At what point does your husband beat you up or your wife beat you up, and you say," ""I've had enough, I'm leaving."" "That's the point we're at right now." "[ambient music ♪]" "♪ [muffled drums]" "I'll be back in a second, Irving is calling." "[Azoff on phone] He said to me, "What are we going to do"" "about this 30 Seconds to Mars thing?" ""Because we will sue to the end."" "Then I said, "Well, let me explain to you why you won't."" "The pother labels are going to put major pressure on you." "Trust me, you're new to this, I'm not." "You're going to get in front of a California jury with a band that's never been paid a nickel, signed for nine years, you're going to lose, and then... a myriad of acts are going to leave every label in the business," "and you're going to be hated by everybody in the business." "I said, "Look, the reality of the fact is that..."" "you guys sent 8 billion dollars to buy a company." "They're the only credible worldwide band, other than Coldplay, that you have." "You can't afford not to put this record out." ""Stop being ridiculous."" "You need to go back to Guy Hands, and he basically said, "I can't get that done."" "I said, "Oh, so you're telling me"" "that Mr. Litigious can't get that done." ""That's quite all right, I mean, it's fine."" "I said, "But you can count on this record"" "coming out really soon."" "You know what he says, "We will not settle."" "We've already suffered from the lawsuit" ""the bad press from the lawsuit."" "I said, "No, no, no, no." We haven't started promoting the lawsuit yet."" "Throughout our company we have a zillion artists." "There's only two involved in litigation with their record company," "Smashing Pumpkins and 30 Seconds to Mars, both with EMI." "[Jared] Can they stop us from putting a record out?" "[Azoff] Umm... [dramatic music ♪]" "♪" "[muffled drumming]" "This is really cool." "This is taiko drumming." "And I'm learning about taiko drumming." "[taiko drum rhythm]" "Shannon is a beast of a player." "He doesn't play on a song, he takes a song over." "He inhabits it, he lives it, he breathes it." "There's an energy he has when he drums that's-that's fantastic." "He's very animalistic." "[drumming to instrumental of "Kings and Queens" ♪]" "♪" "He's completely emotionally reacting." "It's absolutely fascinating to watch somebody like that." "[guitar music ♪]" "♪" "My brother always had a love of music." "He had a real passion for it." "I would certainly not be doing this if it wasn't for him." "The only thing I took seriously in my life was music." "Before 30 Seconds to Mars," "I wasn't sure what I wanted to do." "I was doing construction." "I was, uh breaking the law." "Jared often jokes about kids... from the wrong side of the tracks," "I was definitely one of those kids." "He would disappear, you know, he would just disappear." "I never knew what he was doing." "I reached a point in my life where..." "I need some sort of change, and music was the only thing that made sense." "He and Jared started playing together a lot." "That's when it got serious." "That's when it was like, okay, you need to follow this path." "He was the one that was motivated to make music." "He was the one that was do or die with it." "Just the energy of us playing together, that was exciting." "I just wanna play, play, play, play." "[drum outro] [car noise and inaudible talking] [engine revving] Yeah!" "Fuck, Jared." "[giggling]" "Moscow, get it on!" "Do this!" " Nice." " Oh my god." "[Jared] Okay, secret spot." "Pinkie swear." "I'll never be able to find it again, so don't worry..." "So what's the deal?" "You had a long meeting the other day." "Yeah." "EMI wants to make a deal." "Interesting." "It's a shitty deal, but... it's a deal." "So... we have a couple options." "There's the option that's exciting to go on our own." "It feels like there is a lot of opportunity with that independent... spirit and taking the mindset that... rather than sign an antiquated deal with a company that... has no interest in really... doing anything except making the numbers work." "But that's the reality." "If you want to sign a record deal... that's what you're doing." "All I know is both options... [exhales] Scary." "Both options are a big gamble." "See, I don't know enough to have a real opinion, but it seems like going on our own is the only way to go." "I don't know, it's hard." "Gimme a name of one band that's had continued worldwide success without a label." "I can't give you one." "Some people say to take the deal." " Settle?" " Yeah." "Just take whatever deal you can get 'cause it's so fucked right now." "Basically you're looking for a record company to handle very specific things like promotion and marketing and things that I don't really want to have to deal with." "Right." "If we go... completely independent," "I'll end up... that'll be my life." "From morning, noon, and night, is going to be having to... have a record company." "Feelin' a pushami?" "Yeah, I'm feelin' a pushami." "You take the rock of your choice... or a boulder, depending on how big your issue is, and you throw it over the precipice, and when you throw it you scream and you let go of this particular aspect of- of who you are," "or something in your life that's plaguing you, and you leave it behind, and um... well, we're gonna do it right now." "Want me to start, or you wanna?" "I'll go first." "Yeah, you go first." "Let's see what you got." "[screaming]" "I just heard someone say "Ouch"." "[shouting]" "That was pretty good." " It never landed." "I hear dogs barking." " What does that mean?" "This is so fuckin' nuts." "Yeah." "By the way, I think I came up with a name for the album." "What is it?" "This is War." "It's easier than ever to make music and record it." "It's easier than ever to make videos and record them properly." "It's easier than ever to put them out there, but it's harder than ever to make them heard or have them heard because there's so much noise on the internet." "So a record company still has to do the job of helping to filter that and to promote things properly so that they can get noticed." "And there are certainly exceptions, as artists that have done well without record companies, but by and large the... overwhelming majority of artists that have achieved, you know, major success have been signed to major labels." "Major labels are giant cyclopses and they have one very monstrously powerful eye right in the middle of their forehead, and when it's staring at you, you know, the world is a very bright and shiny place and when it's not," "there's no getting the attention of that thing." "If I knew a band was going to sign a major label deal," "I would probably try to dissuade them or I would at least try to figure out what they thought they were going to get out of it." "Increasingly, artist development is... a term that's not even used at record companies, you know." "They use the word artist development but it's offensive to a certain point 'cause they don't really do that." "They look at the profiles, in the old days, it was MySpace." "The profile numbers, now it's Facebook, YouTube, Twitter." "Can you sell 10, 20,000 on your own without a label and if so, then they start paying attention, you know, kind of thing." "But yeah, that's not artist development, that's already signing an artist that's developed itself." "I think that the main reason people really want labels now is legitimacy." "Especially if you're a new band that, uh... that what you're doing really kind of matters and is part of something, and to get the press and to get people to believe in you." "I'll even see bands though that they get big on their own and then sign with a label for that legitimacy." "One thing we've definitely learned is that artists need help." "Metric is a great example." "They were the first artist to break top five... in pop radio with no label." "But if you talk to Matt Drouin who manages Metric, he'll tell you, We had more people working on that record than if we were at a label." "We just hired them ourselves." "So, no, we didn't have a label but we kind of built our own staff around it." "When I got off the label," "I pretty much knew I didn't want to sign with another one and I knew nothing could beat doing direct business with my fans." "It wasn't..." "There was no deal in the world that was that good." "I cannot tell you how many emails I got from fans saying we want to directly support you." "How can we do it so your label doesn't get the money?" "Give people awesome music and then make it very easy for them to help you... and they will." "There are lots of artists, like I said, who are finding themselves with this choice and it's not to say that the labels can't win the argument as to why an artist should use them or partner with them." "But it is to say that... there's a great... number of tools available to independent artists to do it on their own and they're not necessarily considerably inferior... to the label choice." "[ambient music ♪]" "♪ [shuffling]" "What's the BPM?" "[synth chords]" "Go!" "[recording guitar tracks ♪]" "♪" "Last chorus!" "Thank yo very much!" "Have a nice fuckin' day!" "[acoustic guitar music ♪]" "I was 21 years old and I..." "would do anything in order to be able to play music for a living." "But I had made the choice to give up." "I realized I missed my boat." "I had made plans to sell all of my gear." "I didn't want to have any like memory of the music life." "The next day after like making this choice is when I got the call to see if I was interested in auditioning for 30 Seconds to Mars." "I'm like completely broke." "I have no money." "I have nothing at all." "I have a guitar and some crappy gear and I begged my parents, I was like," ""This is the one, I can feel it."" "I know." "I'm going to get this, no matter what." "Nothing is going to stop me from getting this." ""I will die if I don't get this."" "We're auditioning like hundreds of people." "And he walks in and he's like, "I just want to let you guys know", you don't have to look any further."" "And I was so cocky, and so stupid, it could have gone so badly the way I was acting." "We're like, "All right, well..."" "see what you got."" "They took a chance on me." "I wasn't the coolest looking kid." "I certainly wasn't the best guitarist out there, but there was obviously something that they saw in me." "[plucking the electric guitar ♪]" "♪" "[marimba music ♪]" "♪" "Resigning with EMI gets rid of 2 million dollars of old debt and gets rid of the 30 million dollar lawsuit, but I have to say there's a fucking piece of me," "I just want to-and it's not even the fight to fight to beat somebody." "It's the fight to-to-to- for what's right, what's fair." "If you sign the deal, in a way it's a compromise but you're doing it so that you can... you could get in on the inside, work with somebody and change the fundamentals that way, rather than confrontation." "Yeah, change it from the inside out." " Yeah." " Or... do you confront it from the outside in?" "But we will never have this opportunity again to fight over the seven year clause, and to go and, like, change a part of..." "Absolutely." "...not just the music business, but... you know, the way that, uh... contracts are handled." "So there's this kind of you know." "Moral crusade." "Yeah, there's a bit of a moral crusade." "If they gave us every single fucking thing that we wanted... they would still be winning and they know it." "That's the thing, they fucking know it." "And by the way, what the f--what do they give a shit?" "They're going to go home and get their salary at the end of the night." "They're getting everything that they want, complete domination over the artist." "Just be careful you're not addicted- well addicted is a strong word, to being the person that's always got to be in battle." "Maybe this is not the right time to fight this through this mechanism." "Just bide your time." "There might well be a different way to fight it where you don't have to sacrifice as much." "The company can always outlast the act." "And we learned this lesson primarily with George Michael." "Killed his career suing Sony, okay?" "So the act has an incentive to settle because acts are not like engineers at IBM who might work for 40 years." "[ambient music ♪]" "♪" "Prince was pissed off at Warner Brothers and stopped recording." "That's when he changed his name to that symbol." "It was a protest, it was a protest against Warner Brothers." "So was that the right thing?" "You know, at kind of his height to go sit on the sidelines and then go make music however many ever years later when people don't want to fight about it anymore." "I don't know... who won, who lost." "I just remember the whole time thinking... it was not a good idea... to go into a pissing contest with the record company... who has- who holds all the cards." "It's like a war of attrition." "It's like just whoever wears the other person down first is going to win." "♪" "Usually the company, they want to teach the act a lesson, but they also need the revenue." "So assuming the act is willing to sit on the sidelines for a year or two, they can ultimately make a better deal." "Hopefully they've not lost momentum in the process." "♪ [interviewer] do you think, as a corporation," "EMI ever lied to you?" "Uh... do I think EMI ever lied to us?" "I... um..." "I'm seeking not to get sued by 30 million bucks." "So I can't tell you whether or not they lied, sorry." "I mean, that's the only condition of our release, that I got to be a good boy." "So-so give me some counsel here, my friend." "What-what am I doin'?" "[on the phone] Let's start the premise with they're over-lawyering idiots." "They think they've bent over backwards and taken, you know, a big steel dildo up their ass, and that's kind of how they view the world, whether it's wrong or right." "So every time I ask for anything, it's like moving the dildo up another centimeter up their ass." "That's the way they kind of view the world." "And again, I'm not telling you that I agree with them or think they're right, It's just how they view the world, and it's important to understand how they think, and then you can deal with them" "You should have been a fucking poet." "[coughing and laughter on the phone] ...and getting worse." "I think I just caught your cold." "Okay, what's your advice here, as an expert in the music industry?" "[on the phone] I mean, to me... to me I think that for" "I'm taking into account what you guys are saying and I think EMI is the safe bet." "Because like I told you before," "I think you're doing one album for them, and you'll be done with them, so... that's what I would do." "It's safer, the other thing's riskier, if you want- if you wanna take a risk." "Got it." "You know it's- it's how you feel, how you and Shannon and Tomo feel about it." "Okay, bye." " Okay, bye." " Thanks." "Hey..." "I wanted to ask him how much that phone call cost me." "[♪ "Let it Snow" playing on the radio] [shuffling and chatter]" "Seems funny getting a Christmas tree when it's totally sunny outside., and a guy's in a t-shirt." "Hey, these are all like the thrifty, she says, these are all like the Charlie Browns." "The ones that have like, you know, broken branches and" " Yo." " Yeah." "I think this one's pretty fuckin' funny." "This is all fucked up, man, there's no way they even..." "It says 99 bucks." "I ain't paying' 20 bucks for that." "20 bucks." "He's got a little arthritis on the knuckle right here." "His hair's fallin' out." " Oh my god, rheumatoid." "He's got a short man's complex." "How much ya gonna pay us to drag this outta here?" "I mean look at this thing." "I know, it's so sad." "I mean, this is the ugliest tree I've ever seen in my life." "How much, you think?" " $19.99." "19?" "All right, we'll take it." "[jazzy Christmas music ♪] [singing along with "Let it Snow" ♪]" "♪" "Where ya wanna put this bad boy?" "In the corner." "♪" "It was a bargain." "She was tall, dark, handsome." "[laughter] [all laughing and chattering]" "Okay... [putting on a voice] She was tall, dark, handsome... [laughter]" "I guess cigarette gets me in character." "She was tall, dark, handsome, hung like a wildebeest." "[all laughing]" "Oh!" "God, we're being sued for 30 million bucks." "Aah, we really are." " My head hurts." " We really are." "What if they just said, "hey we want to-"" "fuck you, we're not- this is done." ""We're taking you to court."" "She was tall, dark, handsome, hung like a wildebeest... but I loved her. [Laughter]" "[Christmas music playing ♪]" "♪" "[static] [reporter] Why are you gonna restructure, Guy?" "Just tell us." "Why are the job cuts necessary, Guy?" "What's you message to staff, Guy?" "[reporter] EMI's new owner Guy Hands was tight lipped as he arrived at a cinema to outline the music group's new direction." "Inside, staff learned that EMI is set to axe up to 2,000 jobs." "They strip-mined the place." "They fired tons and tons of people." "They put people in charge that had never had any experience in the record business or the music business." "They sort of decentralized it." "They had all these strange pods instead of a more traditional structure." "They also put some people in positions of power who didn't make any sense to me whatsoever." "I see it all the time." "It's just the heavy hand of guys who don't understand the business trying to tell people who do understand the business how to do their jobs." "I met with him once and he said to me," ""All you people from the music business, you know, you really don't know how to run a business."" "They installed... a lot of people across the global leadership of the company and most people in senior management levels and these are serious record company executives, were gone within a matter of months." "Obviously, I have a certain bias that I was there and I was very vocal about any of my disagreements." "They wanted to restructure the company and under the terms of my contract, they couldn't without asking me." "And so they did it anyway." "In the old days, you'd say, what does EMI think and you would name 10 people that had worked there for 20 or 30 years, and you'd worry about what they thought." "But there's nobody that's worked there for 20 or 30 years." "It's not the company or the people that it ever was." "We have been through so many regimes at EMI since we signed a contract with Virgin Records." "I can't even tell you how many it's been." "It would be safe to say it's over eight, less than 12." "I don't think there's a single employee that was there when we signed our record deal." "♪ [speaking French] [making noise]" "[ ♪ Playing "Night of the Hunter"]" "♪" "[strumming the guitar ♪]" "♪" "♪ I was born of the womb of a poisonous spell ♪" "♪ Beaten and broken and chased from the land ♪" "♪ But I rise up above it, high up above it and..." "Who would take care of the lawsuit?" "That's already cost me more money than I have- than we have as a band." "We have spent more money than we have in the bank." "[on the phone] Right, no, I understand." "And then I have to tell them they can suck my fucking proverbial dick." "So in a sense, EMI's already bankrupt us." "Kempler really is controlling this [on the phone] No." "The money guys are controlling it, you know, Terra Firma." "How 'bout fuck them?" "That's such bullshit." "How could that motherfucking [bleep bleep]" "Sit there and tell us that he was gonna do something and then not do it?" "♪ One night of the hunter" "♪ One day I will get revenge" "♪ One night to remember" "♪ One day..." "Across the pond, it's Guy Hands." "And here in America, it's Jeff Kempler." "And I think that he is either trying to show off for Guy Hands and he thinks that he's going to strangle hold us." "We have other options." "I myself, I'm ready to go all the way." "They're acting like they're so ready and happy and willing to just go into litigation that I'm having to prepare the battle plans." "I think everyone's getting lost in the deal and not seeing what a benefit it probably could be to me and to them for us to work out something fair and reasonable." "But I can't do-I just can't do it if it's not fair." "I can't do it and feel like I'm being taken advantage of." "OK, so what the next move here?" "[birds chirping] [muffled drums]" "We need you again." "What's that?" " We need you again." "Okay." "So, I don't know if you want it to" "I thought this was gonna be an easy song." "Yeah." "I actually didn't think it was gonna be easy," "I knew it was gonna be a pain in the fuckin' ass." "Um... can we try, uh, just, you know [exhales]." "Sure." "It's pretty fast." "[emulating drum part] [recording music ♪ ]" "♪" "Is it better one foot or two?" "One, I think." "♪" "It's weird." "It's so fast." "It's very awkward." "♪" "Jesus Christ." "I don't know what you want, man." "We need power." "We need power." "It's not enough with one" "Yeah, I got it, brother." "Yeah." "My brother, ready?" "[recording drums ♪]" "We'll work with this." "We'll call you in a minute." "I don't know." "I have no idea." "So there's way too much inconsistency in the velocity going up and down on the hits." "Yeah, I'm human." "I know." "That's why I'm trying to get you to do [emulating drums]" "So it can be more consistent." "I mean the reality is- reality is that you haven't practiced it." "If you practiced it for a few days," "I bet you could do it." "Okay." "We may beed to move on to a different song, and have you practice this a little bit every day, and then we come back and play it two weeks, three weeks from now, 'cause they're just not flowing." "I'm doing what I can do, man." "Well, think of a different beat, we've got to record the song." " This is the beat." "We can throw the song out, or we can try to" "This is the beat, though." "What do you want me to do?" "I can't sing it right now." "You couldn't pay me all the money in the world to sing this song the way it needs to be sung right now." "I'm not ready." "Can you put it on the big speakers and turn it up for a second?" "What about a little bit of like- [drum beat]" "[soothing piano music ♪]" "♪" "[Jared on a recording] Some days you feel so strong and then other days... you're like, what the fuck am I doing?" "I'm wondering am I ruining... am I fucking it up for Shannon and Tomo." "Some days I feel so confident, so strong..." "I'm like it doesn't matter." "This album is going to be so good, the songs are going to be so great." "It doesn't matter what label we're on." "We're going to reach people but you need the help, you need-you can't do it on your own." "And then other days, you just feel like a fucking weakling." "And I don't know, maybe I'm fucked up to keep fighting." "I've had one successful record... and I'm fighting like..." "I'm the Rolling fucking Stones." "I mean, who the fuck am I?" "It's a fucking nightmare man, this whole thing is a fucking nightmare." "I mean, all of this could be a year from now, me looking back and saying..." ""Wow, I fucked up."" "I didn't sign with a label, the record sold 12 fucking copies..." "I put everything that I have into this... my entire life, everything." "We all have." "♪" "[wind blowing] [tense ambient music ♪]" "You don't wanna go through the fucking legal thing." "And you don't win anything." "If there was like, a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow" "The win is you don't lose anything." "Right." "That's your win." "The win is you get to pay legal fees." "That's what your win is." "That's the win." "Here, let's have some fun." "I haven't talked to Kempler in six months." "Let's call him." "He loves it." " Hey, Brenna?" " Yes sir?" "Call Jeff Kempler." "I'm gonna have trouble being nice to this guy." "[Kempler on the phone] Hey guys," "I'm at the Nashville airport, it's a little loud." "It's probably a little cold, too." "It is freezing." "It's not right." "Any place that's cold for you makes me happy," "It's Irving." "Oh man, I'm so glad I could find some way to make you happy bout me." "If it makes you feel any better," "I feel-I feel perfectly lousy right now." "Let me just say something before they take my phone away over here." " Yeah." " Um..." "I mean, you see we're trying, right?" "I call a lot, I try a lot of different ideas." "We are really trying, based on how much we want to get back to... having a conversation with you guys" "You sound like a corporate fuckin' dick, let's just talk about the deal." "The reality of the fact is- is that it's, you know, it's really hard to advise these guys to do anything with that piece of shit company that you work for." "And say yes, say no, go away mad, just go away if you don't wanna do this." "And before they fucking sell the company out from under you guys, put out the record." "Okay." "But fly safe, anyway." "Bye." "Bye." "By the way, just side issue, how's the record coming?" "[intense music and chatter]" " What?" " I just wanna feel good." "This whole-it doesn't-it's not suppose to feel good, this whole thing." "You got the unstable climate, you got the unstable EMI, you got the unstable maverick way to think." "It's all unstable so there's no feeling... that's going to be attached to like oh-- then you got the album we're doing, you got-everything's, dude, is a little unstable, you know." "...Artists' managers who are standing up and saying they are very, very worried about the instability at EMI." "Major acts like Radiohead and Paul McCartney parted ways with the company." "And I just said to my producer, I said I want to feel excited about releasing this record." "♪ [on the phone] It's just a mess." "They're trying to manipulate us with a title bit of fear." "They're pulling deals out from under our feet." "They're fucking with us." "They're toying." "They're sending emails that are just outright hostile." "[reporter] The shakeup at EMI reportedly has Coldplay rethinking a future deal with the label." "Robbie Williams' manager has been quoted as saying," ""The star is in no rush to put out a new album due to a lack of faith in the new management."" "[reporter] Today marks the deadline for Hands to meet a payment to Citigroup, one of his creditors, or he'll lose control of the firm." "These people that they say one thing and they do another thing, it's disgusting that they do business like this." "They wonder why they have a bad fucking name." "It's because they treat people like fucking shit and they deserve the fucking disaster... that they're in the middle of." "Walkin' out before I break shit." "You know, you gotta guide me here." "I'm in over my head." "I dunno what to do." "[on the phone] I don't know either." "It's amazing how this fucked up lawsuit is taking over our lives." "I feel like, fuck, we should just take the goddamn deal." "Whatever it is just fucking take it." "What if everything got worse?" "[thunder cracking] [rain falling]" "[plucking the guitar]" "This part of the record is always really, really, really important for me." "It's like the backing tracks are there and they've got a lot of strong personality." "It doesn't matter whether it's good or bad." "It could be fast, it could be slow, but they've all got some sort of essence to them that makes the song stand out." "And now it's like filling in, it's coloring the picture and I think that that's the part that... has been missing from you." "I have to say holy fuck, that's how I feel today." "We don't have like undeniable." "No, we don't right now as we speak, no." "I'll sit here for another year." "I'll Chinese Democracy this motherfucker if I have to." "It doesn't matter." "I know exactly what you're talking about and this is quite usual... at this stage making the record." "You are now in the place where... you're doubting everything." "Everything is sort of plateauing and fundamentally, there's nothing that's getting your juices going." "And what I suggest is that we need to look at the whole thing... because I'm" "We're definitely missing a song." "I can tell you that right now." "I agree with you, so it might be... that there has to be a period of just like, okay, we are missing this." "We do need to do another song but maybe it hasn't been written." "But without... at least getting some of these other songs into point, you're not going to know what you're missing." "I hope that this is mid- you know, the midlife crisis of the record." "But I don't know, I mean we have to question everything." "[tense music ♪]" "♪" "For me, I think, it's been very much a learning process of... how to make a record when... you are effectively just doing it for yourselves." "Because we've had no record company, no involvement from management." "And it's just been the four of us in the room... making a 30 Seconds to Mars record." "That's a strange place to be." "There is no outlet for this at the moment." "♪" "It's the morning." "Early, early morning, still dark out." "And we've decided... to get out of Los Angeles and go to Florida." "I just couldn't face not doing something for fucking New Year's Eve." "We've been goin' at it all fucking year." "I'm gonna dance this week." "You're gonna see a dancing fool." "Dance it off." "[dance music fades in ♪]" "♪" "I need breakfast before I face this shit." "[seagulls calling and waves crashing] [soothing music ♪]" "♪" "Everybody took a break." "Shannon went to Hawaii." "Tomo um went to Michigan." "I feel like there's a lot up in the air, and... it was serendipitous that... the holiday break came at a time when it was a... it was this make or break kinda place that we happen to be in for the record," "for the creative..." "parts of the album, for... the lawsuit." "Ready?" "My brother thinks you look like Jared Leto." "And he told me to come here and ask if you're Jared Leto." "Hmm... yup." " You are?" "For serious?" " Yep." "Are you just fucking with us?" " Nope." "How ya doin'?" "[Laughter]" " I knew it!" " What's up?" "♪ [photographer] Jared, can I get a quick shot?" "I didn't think, "Oh, it's Miami", there's gonna be all these people taking pictures on the beach." "So we escaped and went to some alligator farm, or something." "Woohoo!" "[engine roaring]" "[singing to himself] ♪ We were the kings and queens of promise ♪" "♪ We were the victims of ourselves ♪" "♪ Maybe the children of a lesser god ♪" "♪ Between heaven" "♪ and hell" "♪ Heaven and hell" "There's nothin' like startin' your new year in a swamp." "[various newscasters] 600,000 jobs lost in January" "The Dow is already down 2000 points." "[♪ "Hail to the Chief" playing]" "♪" "There's the Frank Lloyd Wright house." "I thought it would be a great place for us to record and would be really inspiring." "You know what's exciting?" "We're going to have the spirit of this house inside the record." "This is a living, breathing piece of art." "It's great in here." "[harmonics]" "[Jared singing] ♪ Choose your weapon" "♪ Carefully" "Art, it's something that we all... aspire our work to be." "Some people can do whatever they think of and what they think of is special and moves other people." "Those people are artists." "It's their bare, honest truth... about something that they love." "I think it's one of the avenues to get to one's self to find out who we are." "Timeless art is the most difficult form of art." "I see it in the Chrysler Building." "I see it in the Concord." "I hear it in The Beatles." "The business is-- I hate all those people." "Those people are leeches." "All they ever do is care about not losing their job." "They never once care about... enhancing the value of art.l" "One of the problems we have in the business at large right now is corporations own these businesses." "So, it's very difficult to change it ever because it has to be this machine that keeps going." "The other part of the problem is that the business itself has homogenized the process." "The record company tells a band what to write, how to write it, who to write with, you know, what's going to be a single, what's not going to be a single and I think" "has far too much control on a creative level." "So that everything starts sounding very much the same." "It's a pendulum, I think." "What inevitably happens is that companies that are wrestling with that creative, intuitive, blended with science, they swing way too far to the, let's be scientific and mathematical, sort of throw the baby out with the bathwater" "and lose that comfort with intuition, creative sensitivities and mistakes get made that way." "The record companies keep consolidating and so there's less of them and that's dictated by the fact that it is a business and as business shrinks and as less people buy music, what do record companies do?" "They cut costs." "So, as a result of that, you have less places for artists to go, less people getting signed." "I don't think it ever ends." "I don't think it ever ends." "I've been in this business 19 years and it was going on the day I started and it's going on now." "You know, I don't know that art and commerce ever get married like that." "Hello?" "[woman on phone] Jared, they're grabbing Irving." "Okay." "Brenna, Jared's on the other line." "It's what they told you they were going to do." "They wouldn't meet with us, they don't like us. [Laughing]" "You know?" "[Jared]:" "Yeah, I'm beginning not to like them very much either." "Documentary, you can't use your own music?" "Yeah, I don't understand how that even happened." "I don't even know why we brought this up." "We should have never even brought it up." "No, I mean, they would have said no later, you had to bring it up." "But you couldn't have just put the music in." "You'd have to say-- You know what I mean?" "So, if there's a shot of me sitting and playing one of my songs on the piano... at the house, I'll have to get permission from EMI in order to release this documentary?" "Correct..." "They're basically going to say... that we have a contract with you for two more albums so this is a settlement of that contract and under that old contract, you couldn't just put any music in the DVD without them." "They own the music, not you." "And the way they've worded it, they have like final cut over this thing." "They're like, "We need to see a copy of it"" "and then we'll talk about if we're going to license" ""you the music for it."" "Is that basically how it is?" "Yeah, they're trying to get you to abandon the project." "Trying to get me to abandon the film?" "Yup." "So, let's have a call." "Okay." " Bye." " Bye." "[sighs]" "It all comes down." "So, basically you sell the film... for the record deal." "[laughs]" "Or you just take EMI out of the film." "'Cause then they'll say," ""Sure, we'll let you put it out."" "[beep]" "What's up girls?" "Hello?" "Howdy." "To me, there's clearly two factions in this company." "There's one that just doesn't want to make a deal with you, and there's one that does want to make a deal with you." "It's a further slap in the face to say... you can't do the documentary." "It makes no rational financial sense." "I think I'd go back to them and say," ""We own the documentary and we can do what we want with it."" "Will you reiterate that there's more to life out there than a bloated failing corporation." "[sighs] Fuck..." "What a day." "What a day." "It could have been worse." "The record company could have told us to go fuck ourselves." "Oh wait, they just did." "EMI should be ashamed of themselves." "They came back with their offer today." "As soon as we're getting somewhere, some giant fucking moron at the company thinks that they're going to control and own this." "Well, guess what?" "They can kiss my fucking ass." "It's over." "We're not doing it." "I just talked to Irving." "Fucking idiots, man!" "Good." "Greedy, fucking corporate hubris." "We suggested a meeting, right?" "So, we could all sit face to face and not get lost in the deal and to be human about things." "They said no." "Just so you know, said no." "They think that they're going to own that piece of music with me just diddling on the piano." "I'll do it right now just for fun." "Look..." "That's not yours, not mine." "No, it's just-- It's just ludicrous." "Selling recorded music, that's the record." "And that's historically the only thing that a record label has cared about... until that stopped making money." "If 30 Seconds to Mars started today, they'd have an even worse deal than they originally signed 'cause they have what they call these 360 deals." "They'd have to give away a piece of their merchandising and their touring... to get their record deal." "Thank God we didn't get stuck in one of those deals." "360 deal is when a record label participates in all revenue streams of an artist." "Typically touring, merchandise, could be publishing, licensing opportunities, endorsement opportunities." "It's direct response to the fact that no one's selling 10 million records anymore." "Even when you have a big hit, they aren't as big as they used to be." "So if you're going to invest big money in making an artist famous, then you've got to find more ways to collect." "The argument I had with one of these deals is I said, "OK, if my client has a baby and sells"" "baby pictures, do you participate in that?"" ""Well, yes."" "Over the last 18 months, 90 percent of the deals that have been, you know, signed by EMI have an extended amount of rights." "If they're not 360, they are, you know, 280 or 2" " Yeah, whatever, you know." "So yes, definitely, definitely more." "Everyone wants 360 now as far as labels." "Majors at least." "Indies are still not necessarily all 360." "You know, some do, some don't." "So how does it help an artist?" "Well, it doesn't." "You've got no leverage, you're a band just starting out." "And neither label will take this off the table." "So what do you do?" "For a band to do a 360 deal, well now they're turning over... their real cash prize, which is their ability to make money touring and make money selling merchandise." "What do labels typically take from a 360?" "You know, they vary depending on" "You know, I've seen as much of 10 to 25 percent of the artist's piece." "You know, I've seen some of the television star deals go as high as 50 percent." "Pretty crazy." "They've just got this entire plantation mentality that they should own everything that an artist does." "And I've never been comfortable with that!" "I just really hate that." "I don't need your permission, massive record company owner to go do, you know, things like movies or TV shows." "Screw you guys!" "[♪ 30 Seconds to Mars:" ""This is War"]" "♪ A warning to the people ♪" "♪ The good and the evil" "♪ This is war" "♪ To the soldier, the civilian ♪" "♪ The martyr, the victim" "♪ This is war" "♪ To the right to the left" "♪ we will fight to the death ♪" "♪ To the edge of the earth ♪" "♪ It's a brave new world" "♪ from the last to the first" "♪ To the right, to the left" "♪ we will fight to the death ♪" "♪ To the edge of the earth ♪" "♪ It's a brave new world" "After we rejected their last offer," "EMI finally agreed to sit down face to face so that we could try and work something out." "So I got on a plane and headed to New York." "We'd been fighting for a long time already." "And there wasn't a lot of communication going on with us and the label directly." "I'd say virtually none." "It's freezing out." "I've always loved this city ever since I was a kid." "It's been a magical place for me." "Every time I come to New York, I'm excited." "I feel like this is my city in a weird way, more than LA is." "Something about it." "Always an adventure." " You were in a movie!" " Mm-hm." " I know you!" " Yeah." "You're famous, aren't you?" " Kind of." "You were in that really cool movie with the crazy lady." "Yeah, yeah, Requiem for a Dream." "[chanting] Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God." "You're in my favorite" " How's it going?" "I'm going to cry!" "You're in my favorite movie in the whole" " I love that movie." "Thank you." " Oh my God, oh my God." "What's in that drink?" "Extra caffeine?" "So the big meeting's on Sunday." "It was nice to be in New York." "I had a chance to get away from the studio and see some friends." "But the main focus of the trip was this meeting." "I was excited that there was a chance to work things out." "Unfortunately..." "EMI canceled." "It was a long way to go to get stood up." "But while I was in New York," "I heard that there were major changes happening at the label once again." "And that any possibility of a deal with EMI was very unlikely." "[jet engine roaring]" "Oh, I like that, what he's playing." "[electric guitar]" "Did you record that?" "No, the regular one." "Huh?" "No, no, I like the beginning how you just played that." "Yeah." "♪" "It's fucking with me 'cause it's off." "It gets off." " You just got to listen to the click, you're good." "Hold on a second." "It's fine." "You just got to keep on that beat." "That's the thing." "I'm playing to the click it's going slow." "Yeah, I know but you're right with the click, so it's really hard." "You know, you got to be like a machine." "Ah, humans." "♪" "You hear that the slicer is not with the click?" "You want me to play that?" "Yeah, go ahead." "Go ahead." "Yeah, please do." "Prove me that the slicer's not slowing down." "[chuckles] I'll prove it right now." "Where's my goddamn pick?" "♪" "That's a-- use his pull-off and use my other thing." "We got it in there." "That's like, the performances between the two are good enough so." "Oh yeah!" " Yeah, the elbow baby!" "The fucking elbow!" "Every time motherfucker!" "Yeah!" "Whoa, that was weak!" "Whoo!" "Don't you just want to make something that lives forever?" "Something that's phenomenal, something that's great, something that's undeniable that touches the core of every person that hears it." " Yeah." " You know?" "Want to make something beautiful." "Something moving, something... provocative, something that's pure and true." "We're doing that." "I hope so." "[exhales sharply]" "♪" "All along EMI had been interested in resigning us." "The problem was they kept offering us different variations of the same terrible deal." "We decided we would consider resigning with" "EMI if they were willing to make things right." "Especially as it would put an end to this brutal lawsuit and ensure that our album would see the light of day." "So we went back to them one last time and basically told them," ""Look, these are our final terms and conditions."" "Either meet them..." ""or there really isn't anything left to talk about."" "EMI responded saying they'd get back to us in 24 hours with their official final response." "That's a little weird." "We haven't heard from..." "EMI." "No word from EMI." "We're waiting for one final response." "And..." "Nothing." "Still no word from EMI." "We got to hear from them tomorrow." "Tomorrow is the day." "[vocals ♪ ]" "It's not bad." "Tomorrow..." "Which is what we've been told again and again and again... and again and again and again and again... and again and again." "That was tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow." "Jesus Christ!" "Will someone shut that fucking dog up?" "[barking in distance]" "Maybe he's pissed too." "EMI told him that he's going to get his dog food tomorrow." "We should have something tomorrow." "Tomorrow." "Tomorrow, tomorrow..." "Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow..." "Tomorrow, tomorrow... [stretching out word] To... mor... row!" "It's like a guy in a movie, you know, tomorrow..." "It's ridiculous." "All coming out I believe, five and six." "Yeah, they're all coming out in five and six." "EMI." "Holy shit." "EMI caved." "I think we are done." "Capital D-O-N-E." "Press release to be mutually approved." "But that can happen quickly after signing." "Meanwhile, could you get an approved quote from Jared and we will send you a draft?" "Thanks to all." "Now the real work starts." "Now we have to decide." "[30 Seconds to Mars' "City of Angels" ♪]" "So Shannon, Tomo, and I, got together and debated and discussed." "And made a decision." "EMI came to us and offered us the deal we were fighting for." "So we accepted." "Is it really Friday the 13th?" "It is pretty brave... bold, and stupid of them to actually... make a deal with a band, even if it's us, without having heard the record." "But at the same time, they knew there's not a chance in fucking hell" "I was going to play them a single second of this record." "You have to do what's best for the music at this point." "I think what's best for the music is... resigning with EMI and putting a record out." "♪" "Your goal on this album is to have as many people as possible find out about it so you can set up your career." "It's all about your career." "So what do you think we should do?" "Well, I think you should sign this thing, and get back to your career, and away from the courts." "What do you think we should do?" "You should absolutely sign this deal right now." "And then go back to your studio and keep working." "Yeah." "It's amazing that at the same time we're trying to make a deal, the world's falling apart." "Look, you've got seven or eight years of the record business just going straight to the dumper." "And then six or eight months ago, the rest of the world went with the record business." "It's" " Everything's in the dumper now." "So why don't I feel like... we should be celebrating." "Because it's the record business." "There's really nothing to celebrate about in the record business 'cause it's a dying business." "And especially on an international level where you guys are going to sell 70 percent of your records 'cause more records still sell overseas," "You know, you got to have one of these, guys." "And this is the one that you get without a lawsuit." "Jared, you were very idealistic and you wanted to right the wrongs of the record business and you're not going to have your chance, your day in court and to... shine a light on the corruption in the music business" "and then take it down." "But it's going down anyway." "That's the problem." "It's hard to stop fighting." " Much tougher" "How do you stop fighting?" "How do you do that?" "Because they're all fired." "This by the way, is one contract." "Take a deep breath man." "The deal that we made was a very favorable one and a much better deal than 30 Seconds to Mars had." "The goal of the litigation is to accomplish whatever goal you got in the litigation for." "I don't think that the court room is a really good place for an artist to be." "I think they're better off in the studios." "The real battle is the clock starts." "You got to finish the record." "Mmm, yeah." "[through megaphone] Time to get this show on the road." "And no excuses." "Are you finished with this song yet?" "So the new contract with EMI says that we have three weeks left to finish." "The clock is ticking." "[chanting]" "Hey!" "Is there any kind of methodology that you know about to... increase the productivity of the remaining days we have here?" "So Guy Hands stepped down today." "Oh, did he?" "That definitely means there's some shit shifting and changing around." "[female newscaster] Breaking news." "Citigroup taking ownership of one of the world's leading music companies." "[male newscaster] Guy Hands, his firm Terra Firma, acquired EMI with a lot of debt and the numbers never made a lot of sense." "And so here we are with Citigroup taking control of EMI." "The decline and demolishment of EMI is a sad 21st century story of failure." "He was running a whole company that categorically he was incapable of running." "Obviously, it turned out to be a tremendous mistake." "He bought it at the wrong time." "He really believed he was going to transform it and then sell it." "I don't think he thought that he would own it and then lose it." "What EMI now is, is a bump sitting on Citibank's balance sheet... waiting to be removed from their balance sheet and sold to the next sucker." "There is no killer app to turn around a record company." "It has to be done slowly and patiently and it takes time." "It takes time to break artists." "It takes time to sign artists." "It takes time to get the right executives in." "I think that Guy, and I'd say this to his face, is a very bright guy who unfortunately... had the... popular misimpression... that the music business is populated by idiots and thieves." "We've got our fair share of them, but there's a lot of smart, good people in the business." "Just because a guy is a billionaire, and he's made a bunch of money in other businesses, you know, we have a long list of people... from outside the music business that have come and entered the business" "and left in ruins." "And he's been the biggest fool of all of them." "[singing] The moment of truth and the moment to lie." "The moment to live and the moment to die." "The moment to fight, fight, fight." "The moment to fight, to fight, to fight, to fight." "You know what I think?" "What?" "I think we're going to finish this song tonight." "♪ It's the moment of truth and the moment to lie ♪" "♪ And the moment to live and the moment to die ♪" "♪ The moment to fight, the moment to fight ♪" "♪ To fight, to fight" "Pretty good one, pretty good one." "Let's call it finished." "Whoa!" "High five!" "Yeah!" "[celebrating]" "Come on, don't leave me hanging!" "[♪ 30 Seconds to Mars:" ""Search and Destroy"]" "The future of the music business is unknown." "That's what makes it exciting to some and really scary to others." "Because people can record in their houses and distribute overnight," "I believe that music can reclaim its space as the driving medium." "There's change, there's evolution." "If you don't ride the change, you die." "Jared always jokes around, he says," ""Some kid is going to write a song"" "and he's going to figure it out, and he's going to sell a hundred million copies of his single by himself." "And he's going to make a billion dollars." "And he's going to say," "'Fuck you, I don't need you.'" ""And then that's going to be the new beginning."" "People listen to more music now than ever before from a bigger diversity of artists." "So I think culturally we're in a much better place." "I look at it and I actually think we're sort of entering the golden age of music." "I love the idea that we may, in this next generation not be living... in a world of the possibility of you know, being successful is that you have to be Michael Jackson, Madonna," "Prince, Lady Gaga." "But that actually like the dream of being musician means that you can just make a living and connect with people and make your music." "And not have to have a job you hate." "Music will never die." "It will always drive industry." "It will always drive innovation." "It will always be available to everyone." "And everyone always is going to want it." "It doesn't really matter what the critics say or what the gatekeepers say." "Really in this day and age in the music industry, the new gatekeepers are the fans." "If you have five million people all downloading your album for free, that's still five million people you've touched." "And there's a value to me that's far greater than money." "[crowd chanting "This is War!"" "♪" "[Jared] How many people have a copy of our new record" ""This is War?"" "[crowd cheering]" "And now, how many people stole that copy on the internet?" "[crowd cheering]" "♪"