The Leto brothers, Jared (Vocals - Guitar) and Shannon (Drums) were already making music together as teenagers. With changing band names they performed in small clubs until they finally 1998 by Immortal Records (Virgin Records). The band name is taken from a chapter title from the thesis paper of a former Harvard professor, according to Jared Leto.
In August 2002 they released their self-titled debut album, produced by Bob Ezrin and Brian Virtue. During the recordings Shannon Leto played drums, while Jared operated all the other instruments, writing the lyrics and then singing them. In the following three years, Shannon and Jared had sold more than 100.000 albums, in the U.S. alone.
During their first tour in 2002/2003, where they opened for well-known bands such as The Used, Puddle of Mudd and Incubus, they were joined by a bassist, Matthew Wachter, and two guitarists, Kevin Drake and Solon Bixler. The latter left the band after a short time, but were replaced by Tomislav Milicevi´c (Guitar, keyboard).
On 30 August 2005, their second album “A Beautiful Lie” came out, this time produced by Josh Abraham who famously produced the winner album of the Gammy Award, Velvet Revolver. A Beautiful Lie was recorded exclusively on four different continents in five different countries, besides the U.S., including Morocco, Thailand and South Africa. From a selection of forty songs, only 10 are to be found on the album, with an extra two bonus tracks. By January 2008, over 1,000,000 CDs have been sold worldwide.
From early March until 1 June 2006 they were in the U.S. on their first official and - with numerous sold-out concerts - very own successful tour called Forever Night - Never Day. In the end, the band got awarded a Chainsaw Award. On 1 November 2007, the group received the MTV Europe Music Awards in Munich: the Rock Out award. 2008, the group won at the Kerrang Awards. The band was to take it personally in England to receive the coveted trophies and to make the acceptance speech directly to their fans. On 14 October 2008, they received the coveted "Best International Band" at the MTV Awards in Latin America.
On 6 October 2009 was a radio premiere for the single "Kings & Queens". The third studio album, "This Is War" is on appeared on 8 December 2009.
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