Mikel Jollett tossed aside a novel he had been working on when, in the space of days, his mother was diagnosed with cancer, he contracted an autoimmune disorder which graced him with alopecia (baldness) and vitiligo (skin lightening).
Oh, his girlfriend broke up with him too.
A Series of Toxic Events
“My mom getting sick, me getting sick and my dad was already sick, there was a sense that there was only so much time. There’s always things you want to do, but suddenly, it was, ‘(Expletive), I really don’t have long to do it.’ I suddenly felt motivated to go, ‘You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to write songs, drink whisky with my friends, play some shows, sing these songs and I’m going to talk to people and engage them, and I want us all to be there, and I don’t want anyone to die…’” Jollett told New Musical Express. “It was that kind of feeling: let’s just bring everyone close.”
So Jollett spent a year writing about 100 songs in his apartment. One track, “Sometime Around Midnight,” was picked up by an LA radio station. The band was signed to Island Records, home of U2, after putting out a well-received EP on indie label MajorDomo Records.
U2’s Adam Clayton offered his approval, which gave bassist Noah Harmon the willies.
“I tried to play it cool but I was like holy (crap),” Harmon told Rolling Stone. Jollett added, “I checked that off on my list of things to do before I die. Now all I have to do is father a child and write a book.”
Jollett and Harmon, who are joined by drummer Daren Taylor, guitarist Steven Chen and keyboardist Anna Bulbrook, took their name from the Don DeLillo novel White Noise. Their debut album is a delicious mélange of punk odes to teenage sex, grand anthems devoted to decidedly less-than-grand events. It’s all held together by melodies so potent that the albums can stalk listeners for weeks after the first run-through.
From Toxicity to Coachella
Airborne Toxic Event has opened for indie gods Franz Ferdinand, gained almost instant credibility by playing Coachella, the see-and-be-seen music festival of the moment. Morrissey showed up at one their shows in LA. The band has also gotten Stateside TV exposure with appearances on “Late Night with Carson Daly” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
What’s next for Airborne Toxic Event? Jollett told Q that his life has leveled off a bit for now, but, “I’m a writer, so our songs can be stories, but there’s one about my brother kicking heroin.” In short, bliss will not rule the day.
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