30 Seconds To Mars is being sued for over $30 million for breach of contract for not delivering three of the five albums they’re due to deliver on their contract. The contract was signed in 1999 when the band was on Immortal Records. Jared Leto says that they were able to end their contract because of that crazy California Labor Code Sec. 2855 which allows termination of recording contracts in the state of California after 7 years. Lead singer Jared Leto says that the band is recording a followup to their last album “A Beautiful Lie” and with: “So, as you may have heard we are being sued by our former record company for the ridiculously oversized, totally unrealistic and pretty silly (but slightly clever) sum of $30,000,000. Insane? Yea that’s what we said too.”
Jared says that the they’re $1.4 million in the red despite shipping over 2 million albums. That’s what happens when you spend money on making crazy long and expensive music videos, tour support, and buy ingsneakers and vacations for Program Directors and MTV people to play your fuckin song on the tv and radio. Recouping’s a bitch!
Now why would Jared and his 30 Seconds to Mars (thats what the real band name is, I swear!) wanna leave Virgin/EMI?
“We had been signed to our record contract for nine years. Basically, under California law, where we live and signed our deal, one cannot be bound to a contract for more than seven years. This is widely known by all the record companies and has been for years. In fact, so aware of it are they that they desperately try to make deals outside of California whenever possible. It is a law that protects people from lengthy, unfair, career-spanning contracts. This law also gave us the legal right to explore other possible opportunities.
Yes we have been sued by EMI. But NOT for failing to deliver music or for ‘quitting’. We have been sued by the corporation quite simply because roughly 45 days ago we exercised our legal right to terminate our old, out of date contract, which, according to the law is null and void. We terminated for a number of reasons, which we won’t go into here (we’d rather not air any dirty laundry) but basically our representatives could not get EMI to agree to make a fair and reasonable deal.”
What did EMI have to say? “EMI’s relationship with 30STM has been extremely rewarding and successful for both the band and the company. The hard work of EMI’s global team and of the band has resulted in sales of three million albums and singles, multiple awards and a growing, global fan base.
“However, we have been forced to take procedural, legal steps in order to protect EMI’s investment and rights during contract renegotiations initiated by the band and management. We hope to resolve these matters amicably and put them behind us so we can continue working in partnership with the band to take them to even greater levels of success.”
Jared’s also unhappy that a bunch of people who worked their last album are no longer at Virgin. Such is the music industry. Blame it on Label CEO Jason Flom not giving a fuck about your band when he’s golfing or skiing in Aspen.
