It’s not every day that a song comes along and is instantly adopted as a battle cry. But that’s just what This Is War has done. From being used at anti-legislation protests in the US and anti-government rallies in Iran and home-made protest videos on YouTube, the song, written by 30 Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto, has attained anthemic proportions.
“To the right, to the left, we will fight till the death; To the edge of the Earth; It’s a brave new world,” Leto screams in the song, also the title of their third album.
That war is coming to Abu Dhabi on Friday.
Shannon Leto, the band’s drummer and a founding member, tells tabloid! it’s quite poignant to be coming to the region at this time. The band, he says, was going through its own transformation when his brother Jared wrote the song two years ago.
“We were going through major changes,” he says. “We were being sued for $30 million [Dh110.18 million] by our former label and had to finance our own album, a new president was being sworn in in the US and the financial world was having a melt-down.
“I think if we weren’t going through those experiences, we wouldn’t have the album we have today. It wouldn’t sound like it does and it wouldn’t have been called This Is War.
“But sometimes you have to go to war and fight for what you believe in and fight for what is fair. And here we are today,” he adds.
credit: jared-leto.net