Thirty Seconds To Mars released “Kings And Queens” digitally in the United States on October 13, 2009, introducing their third studio album, This Is War. Its massed voices included recordings of the band’s fans, making the audience part of the music before the album reached listeners. That shared participation would also shape the song’s video.
The first verse arrived just as Jared Leto was preparing to leave America for South Africa. He told MusicRadar that he completed the rest after landing, connecting the song with a place he already considered creatively productive for the band. “I took that as a good omen,” he said. The arrangement, however, needed more work before it became the single.
An early version ran eight minutes. Leto changed the bridge’s chord structure, while Steve Lillywhite helped work out how the sections should fit together and what could be cut. Lillywhite joined the album process late, following the band’s work with Flood. His role included helping the musicians organize their material, with “Kings And Queens” requiring both structural changes and a shorter running time.
The sessions had unfolded under pressure. In 2008, EMI sued the band for $30 million over a dispute about its recording contract. A new agreement followed in April 2009, and the band continued under the label’s umbrella. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Flood described how the strain affected the musicians during recording and how he worked to keep them moving through periods of discouragement.
Leto’s writing looked beyond that immediate conflict. In a January 2010 interview with Noisecreep, he described “Kings And Queens” as a song about both the opportunities and dangers of the American dream. He treated This Is War as a chance to reconsider the band’s identity, with different songs approaching the album’s broader concerns from different directions.
The recording also opened a way for listeners to participate. For the Summit sessions, the band invited fans to contribute vocals, claps and stomps. Leto told Noisecreep that almost all the contributions were used on the album. The project began with a gathering in Los Angeles and expanded internationally, followed by an online version that allowed people to take part from home. In a 2010 LAist interview, he explained that the physical Summits had reached nine countries before that digital expansion.
Those recordings made the crowd part of the finished music. When “Kings And Queens” moved to film, the band extended that approach into the streets of Los Angeles. Its video, The Ride, follows the musicians and a large group of cyclists through the city at night. Members of the Midnight Ridazz cycling community joined the shoot, with the route taking in the Sixth Street Bridge, Second Street Tunnel and Santa Monica Pier.
Directed by Leto under his Bartholomew Cubbins name, the film connected the band with a community already using those streets together. Leto told the Los Angeles Times that the album had been about “reclaiming public space for art.” The video put that idea into practice, using Hollywood Boulevard and Santa Monica Pier as locations for a collective ride. Its closing credits named the participating cyclists.
The Ride premiered online through MySpace Music in November 2009, ahead of the album’s December release. On September 12, 2010, “Kings And Queens” won Best Rock Video at the MTV Video Music Awards.
