As far as I know, you just arrived straight from Japan: what was your favourite venue to play at during this tour?

TM: Well, that's a really hard question because what I do is that I always try to find the best about each country we play in. Tonight it's Budapest and Sziget.  

You were born in Sarajevo, have you ever been to Hungary before?

TM: No, this is my first time here, but I really do know a lot about the country. Furthermore, I even have some Hungarian blood running in my veins, my grandmother was half-Hungarian, so this way I'm a bit Hungarian, too.

You took a rather long break before This is War came out, why did you need to wait so long?

TM: It took us two years to make the album, beforehand we had been on tour for three years, continually, so we really needed to go on holiday for a while. Then Jared came up with a couple of songs, and soon we began to record them. 

Do we also have to wait this long for the next album?

TM: Hopefully not, but it's hard to say because we are going to work on it as long as it's necessary... and you never know how long that takes.

But what happened to those more than 100 songs you guys wrote, once you only have 12 on the album?

TM: Those disappeared forever, lost in space and time.. We also recorded some acoustic songs with Jared, but we still have no idea what's going to happen to them, whether we will release them or not. Perhaps we could release a collection of those songs, but anyway, it would be too early to discuss this stuff.

You used to learn to play the violin for many years, do you still practice a lot?.

TM: Indeed many-many years, but these days I barely get to practice... though sometimes I play the violon on stage.

How come that you actually fell in love with heavy metal?

TM: That's a good story. Actually, I played the violin all my life, and then I was hanging out with a friend of mine who asked me if I liked Metallica. I told him that I had no clue what that was, so he just grabbed his guitar and began to play a couple if songs. Then he passed on the guitar to me and that was when I played my first chord. It was an incredible feeling.

Who are your favourite bands right now?

TM: These days I really have no favourites, I mainly listen to electronic music like DJ Shadow or Deadmau5. But of course there are all the classic bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd or the Beatles, it's impossible to exist without these bands. 

You never had the feeling that you guys are just background-musicians behind Jared so that he could try himself as a musician, too?

TM: Never, not a bit. Well, of course yes to a certain extent, but then again I play guitar for him and that's the way we work together as a band. 

You showed your audience a bit of your documentary film Artifact when a guy with a weird package disturbed you...

TM: We played the first twenty minutes of the film when a guy showed up with a weird box which everyone thought to be a bomb. It really scared the shit out of everbody, but luckily nothing serious happened, it could have been a lot worse. .

When is the movie ready?

TM: Perhaps by the end of the year, the latest by the beginning of next year. Whoever watches it, gets a glimpse of the life of Thirty Seconds to Mars, you really get to see everything: how we work on the album, the law-suit, performances, people who surrounded us, who helped our work.   

How did you manage to handle all the mess around the law-suit?

TM: It was hard to handle, and I cannot tell you how happy I am that the whole thing is over. I don't mind it did happen though, because it inspired us to create an even better album, and all the obstacles we had to face made us even stronger.

And what do you expect from today's show?

TM: Nothing at all, we just play and hope we can make the audience forget their everyday-problems for a moment, and forget abour reality in general.