It's 30 Seconds to Mars. And close to half that to file a lawsuit.
Jared Leto and his bandmate brother, Shannon, were sued Friday by Virgin Records America for failing to add up through on a five-album deal the eyelinered duo and the now-defunct indie label, Immortal Records, inked with the plaintiff nine-spot years ago.
While Leto exploited a couple of those years to appear in movies like Girl, Interrupted and American Psycho, his band finally got the ball wheeling with its 2002 self-titled debut.
The alt-rockers followed that up with 2005's A Beautiful Lie.
But since their sophomore endeavor, according to the causa filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, 30 Seconds to Mars has remained three albums short of the promised land.
Virgin and parent company Capitol Music Group call that the Letos opted out of their 1999 contract in July by citing a section of the California Labor Code which states that a contract cannot be enforced against an employee beyond seven years "from the commencement of service under it."
In order of magnitude to invoke the loophole, employees involved in "the production of phonorecords" moldiness also give written notice that it won't be providing its services in the future.
And 30 Seconds to Mars may very well have laid it all knocked out in writing, but the labor code also states that, in such a case, an employer is entitled to recover damages for severance of concentrate, which is exactly what Virgin and Capitol ar looking to do, to the tune of more than $30 million.
A repp for the band tells TMZ, still, that it's 30 Seconds to Mars that is getting the short end of the stick�the leash, which as well includes Tomo Milicevic, has sold more than 2 million albums and has not been paid accordingly.
Meanwhile, though the guys haven't been putting out whatsoever new music lately, they sure ar stretching their A Beautiful Lie success as far as it will go.
They issued a deluxe edition of the album in 2006 and rereleased it again final year with a different set of bonus material, hoping to capitalize on the good will picked up on a European club circuit. A short-film music video for the album's title track premiered in January on the band's MySpace site as well.
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