30 Seconds to Mars Bring Their 'Summit' to Iran

Iran and the US may continue to have their diplomatic struggles, but proving once again that the cliché "music is the universal language" is true, an Iranian fan and 30 Seconds to Mars have moved past that for the band's new record, 'This is War.'

After the band initiated their innovative Summit in Los Angeles this past April, where they invited fans to come to the club Avalon and be on the record, the response was so great they opened the experience to eight other cities in Mexico, Canada, the UK, Japan, Australia, Germany, Italy and France. But there were still countries left out.

"We got an e-mail from a fan in Iran saying he really wished he could be on the record," frontman Jared Leto says. Flattered and surprised they had reached people in Iran, the group teamed with Twitter to use Twitvid to open up the Summit to fans around the world.

Sure, 30 Seconds are crowd-pleasers, but Leto says the Summit is no gimmick. "The Summit is an integral part of the making of this record and that recording experiment succeeded in our eyes, minds, and ears," he says. "And it serves the songs."

Having had the chance to hear the results now on both the rocking title track and 'Call to Arms' we can tell you it certainly does work, delivering what Leto calls "another instrument" to the songs. And now with even more fans on board, thanks to an email from Iran, he is even more curious to see what fans deliver. "Once we're done with the digital summit it'll be even more exciting cause there'll be more countries, more people, sharing further in the experience."

The idea of the Summit is keeping with what Leto calls an interactive record, which he can't wait to bring to the stage. "I think it's very much a live record," he says. "I closed my eyes, picked up a guitar and imagined myself on a stage and what would be the song that I would play? So it's very much intended to be presented live."