Thirty Seconds to Mars New Single "Kings & Queens" Soars Into Alternative Radio's Top 5

(New York, NY – Nov. 12th, 2009) – Multi-platinum rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars have been climbing radio charts with the first single “Kings & Queens” off of their highly anticipated upcoming album THIS IS WAR available for pre-order at ITunes. Soaring into Alternative Radio’s top 5 only four weeks after impact, the track is also working its way up through the Active Rock format landing in the top 25 this week. Thirty Seconds to Mars will be debuting the single live on the Tonight Show, December 10th. Set for release on December 8th, THIS IS WAR (EMI/Virgin Records), the follow up to their incredibly successful sophomore release A Beautiful Lie, has already been deemed notable as Billboard Magazine proclaimed “’Kings & Queens is epic rock at its most affecting”. The video, a short film entitled “The Ride” shot this past month in Los Angeles is inspired by the critical mass and crank mob movement, founded with forward thinking and eco-conscious intentions, and celebrates this amazing community of riders on a night time journey downtown LA to Santa Monica. For this epic short film the band shut down Hollywood blvd, Santa Monica pier and sections of downtown Los Angeles, making this their love letter to the city of angels. “The Ride” makes its global premiere today on MySpace and “Kings & Queens” is currently available on ITunes.

Thirty Seconds to Mars recently teamed up to headline the in-game soundtrack for Electronic Arts Inc. epic new game; Dragon Age: Origins with the title track off of THIS IS WAR. Fans and press can get a first-listen of “This Is War” in an exclusive game trailer co-produced by front-man, Jared Leto. The trailer received over 350,000 YouTube views in only a few days. The band will be spending November overseas playing a set of European dates and will return stateside at the end of the month to kick off a nationwide radio show tour through December.

Formed by brothers Jared and Shannon Leto, Thirty Seconds to Mars have over 100 million views on YouTube, 40 million plays on MySpace and more than one million fans on iLike/Facebook. The band have won numerous awards and accolades, including an MTV Video Music Award, three MTV EMA’s, an MTV Latin and Asia Award, a Fuse Award, and three Kerrang! Awards. Thirty Seconds to Mars’ sophomore record, A Beautiful Lie hit multi-platinum status after two years of heavy touring and winning fans over, one-by-one, garnering the band a growing and loyal fan base. The record spawned two Top 5 Modern Rock singles, “From Yesterday,” which hit #1 and "The Kill". The latter set a radio record for the longest-running hit in the history of Modern Rock radio play when it remained on the national airplay chart for more than 50 weeks following its & peak in 2006.

Westlife talk us through their new album Where We Are

Westlife have been talking to us exclusively about their eagerly-awaited album Where We Are - and revealing what they did on their year off, before they got back into the studio to record the new record.

The band's Nicky Byrne explained: "It's great to be back. We talked about a year off for a long time. We did things we all wanted to do - we travelled, we spent time at home.

"We also needed to refresh our heads, we needed to get away from each other. We needed to miss it again."

Mark Feehilly that they had also taken time to develop their sound.

He explained: "We wanted to make the production better, to have the vocals as good as we knew they could be, we wanted a variety of sound, not have every song sound the same...luckily, we pulled it off. We're really proud.

"We didn't want to change who we are, just do it better than we'd been doing it."

They also revealed that their manager, X Factor judge Louis Walsh, and fellow judge and label boss Simon Cowell were "really excited" about the album - and that they'd roped in former All Saints star Shaznay Lewis to co-write one of the tracks on the new record.

Where We Are, featuring hit single What About Now, which the band played on the X Factor, is in the shops now.