How Thirty Seconds to Mars made Chad Smith more famous

“For the first time” continues, the series which has become a success on YouTube and which sees musicians playing a song on the drums that they have never heard before. The credit for giving the series wide notoriety goes largely to the viral video from 2023 in which Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers faced the challenge of play “The Kill (Bury Me)” by Thirty Seconds to Mars, without ever having listened to them. “Who are they? They sound like My Chemical Romance or something”, said Anthony Kiedis’ companion immediately after finishing playing the song, of which he gave a good and energetic performance, as if he almost instinctively knew the development of the piece despite it being new to him.

That video starring Smith has been racking up 28 million views since its release in 2023. Two years later, it was the turn of Shannon Leto, drummer of Thirty Seconds to Marsto visit Drumeo’s studio. In addition to tackling his own “For the First Time” challenge with Alter Bridge’s “Metalingus,” Leto was also asked to play a version of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “By the way.” It was during this last performance that Chad Smith entered the studio and sat silently next to Drumeo host Brandon Toews, without Shannon Leto noticing. Only after finishing the song, Leto noticed the presence of Smith, who pointed out a couple of small errors during the performance, however he told the Thirty Seconds to Mars drummer that he “rocked”.

Speaking about his participation in the series two years ago, Chad Smith also shared that his viral video for Drumeo brought him new fame outside of the Red Hot Chili Pepperstelling Leto: “I had multiple people come up to me for that video of me playing Thirty Seconds to Mars. I was going to dinner, there was a long line of people trying to get into the restaurant, I pass by and a guy goes, ‘Hey, the guy from Drumeo!’ Not ‘Chili Peppers’, not ‘Will Ferrell’.”