Maybe they’re taking their name a little too literally, or maybe they just really want the aliens to like their music. Either way, 30 Seconds To Mars released the first single of their newest album into space last Friday with Jared Leto, the band’s frontman (and sometimes Hollywood actor) relentlessly tweeting about the literal “launch” of their single.
As International Business Times reports, the band’s latest single, ‘Up In The Air’, was launched in the Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The rocket also contained around 550 kilograms of scientific instruments and playback instructions (in case any extra-terrestrials decide they really love Jared Leto’s emo rock).
The single was encased in a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule, placed into rocket and hurled into space, and is set to arrive at the International Space Station where it will be greeted by astronaut Tom Marshburn.
Marshburn and the band will be doing a live chat Q&A on March 18, which will be streamed on the band’s website, which also happens to be the earthbound release date for ‘Up In The Air’.Leto tweeted that sending a song into space was finally something he could check off his bucket list.
Jared Leto, and his bandmates Shannon Leto and Tomo Miličević, were present at Cape Canaveral for the launch and posted a picture online afterwards of the lift-off; Leto tweeted that sending a song into space was finally something he could check off his bucket list.
The launch of the rocket containing the band’s new single was also streamed on NASA’s website, and is the lead track from the band’s fourth album due later this year.
Jared Leto has already noted his excitement to be recording again. Especially without a lawsuit hanging over their heads, where the band was sued for $30 million by their label in 2008 after a refusal to deliver three albums. They eventually released This Is War in 2010 and the lawsuit was annulled.
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30 Seconds To Mars is familiar with these huge promotional efforts, they set a Guinness World Record for most shows played in support of a single album after they toured for two years, and played 311 shows in 60 countries, off the back of their 2010 album This Is War – according to The Huffington Post.
Also this is not the first time music has been sent into space. NASA launched The Golden Record out into space in 1977, it has since left the solar system. The record featured mostly international and classical music, with the notable inclusion of Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B. Goode’.
Later in 2008, NASA played ‘Across The Universe’ by The Beatles into space. Yoko Ono said that it marked “the beginning of the new age in which we will communicate with billions of planets across the universe.”
