NME – New Music Radar
New Music Radar – The Airborne Toxic Event
When death haunts you, your music really starts to matter
By Mark BeaumontSeptember 13, 2008
“My whole life I was invincible like everyone else,” says Mikel Jollett, singer with L.A.’s The Airborne Toxic Event, fingering the patches of his scalp. “You’re the talented one, the smart one, the cute one, and then suddenly it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re gonna lose all your hair and your face is gonna turn white and you’ll die. Oh and so’s your mom.’”
At the start of 2006 Mikel was diagnosed with a genetic over-active immune system which could cut 20 years from his life. The next day his mum rang to tell him she had cancer. The day after that he split up with his long-term girlfriend. The day after that he quit his job to dedicate his life to writing the Great American Novel.
One month later, finding his intense personal gushings better suited to rock than fiction, he picked up a guitar and poured his brittle heart and battered soul into hundreds of tracks. “All I did was make music. The feeling wasn’t that I had so much more to say but that I had so much less time to say it.”
The result, the band’s home-recorded debut, is a record where the expanse of ambition of Arcade Fire and MGMT gets a hypodermic of The Clash’s wild, gnashing stem cells. Within months their album went Top 20 in the iTunes Rock Chart on the back of their brilliantly unpredictable Silverlake scene shows.
“The idea of punk rock is that you’re gonna go to a show, and some fucking shit is gonna go down,” Mikel says. “You might get in a fight, the cops might show up, the place might get burnt down, you might meet a girl and get laid, but whatever it is, the music is visceral and engaging. You’ve only got so long to live, so it’s vital. Let’s scream and stomp our way through our worst fears and greatest desires and let’s everybody shed a tear and say, ‘Fuck man, that was amazing.’”
The Airborne Toxic Event: art for heart’s sake.
NEED TO KNOW
What: Psychamerica with a punk punch
For fans of: Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, MGMT, Band of Horses
Live:: UK dates TBC
Download: A free Airborne Toxic Event song from NME.COM/NEWMUSIC/RADAR
11 Comments
God, if I could be any more addicted to this music I’d be a bit concerned. In the words of Mikel Jollett “it blew up in my face….oh my god oh my god.” That is how this music and band make me feel. Like music like this was just meant for me, just me.
The rawness of Mikel’s vocals and lyrics seem so apt, knowing the history behind the writing.
I went to the first 2 of the UK shows, and all I can say is roll on the next ones…. Leicester, Manchester, Nottingham, and Sheffield. The UK following at the moment is small, but it can only grow and grow with such performances as they have given.
What a fantastic band.
What a find!! This band played Carlisle Brick Yard and blew the small audience away. I have not seen a new band of this calibre in years.Their song Sometime around Midnight is an anthem fit for a stadium. Their crowds will grow and they will return to bigger venues.Try and see them now and get close.
They look like a rock band, sound like a rock band and they are a truly super rock band. The UK festivals will be all the better next year with The Airborne Toxic Event!!!!
Need to get them on the radio and into the charts!!!!
Well done NME plugging this band!!
Fantastic band. Sometime Around Midnight is a truly awesome song. This band deserve to big, massive, huge. Heard them on Radio 1 here in the UK a few weeks ago – just caught the end of the track but it was enough to hook me…Good luck guys, hope it turns out well for you.
Absolutely love this band. Heard them on Zane Lowe the other week and have been tracking them down ever since. I could play their tracks over and over and over. Really want to catch them next time they play the UK. Nice one guys!
Amazing.. listening to Zane Lowe on BBC 1 last Wednesday on my computer while I was working away here at home (in Canada) and as “Sometime Around Midnight” kept building in the background, my attention went from the work to the song. I had missed Zane’s intro, so had to check out his archive track listing the next day. That was it… the song haunted me… I just received an email from Amazon letting me know the CD has been shipped. Can’t wait to crank it!
Great work guys! Well done! Bravo! Woot woot! So powerful and refreshing, yet a touch of clear influences in the vocals and guitar.
I cannot say how long I’ve been waiting for a band like The Airborne Toxic Event to surface. It seems everyone wants to compare them with someone else. But the truth is no one is like Airborne. No One! The layers of rhythmic brilliance mixed with the words, heart and soul of Mikel Jollett are intense to listen to and to feel.
I first heard “Sometime Around Midnight” and was amazed by how it matched a night of my own life. After listening to the lyrics I immediately praised Airborne for its lack of a chorus, which in my opinion would only hinder the intensity of emotion that explodes into a person when they listen to this song.
After hearing “Wishing Well” and “Innocence”. A person can actually feel what Mikel is portraying, it’s beautiful and refreshing in a music industry that has lost so much of this type of emotional explosion for that quick high.
Thank you Mikel for not becoming a writer, you’ve given so much of your heart. And thank you to the rest of The Airborne Toxic Event for putting his words into such a fantastic voyage of the senses.
All I ask is that Airborne make an acoustic album. You guys are brilliant.
I read “White Noise” for a lit class recently, from which the band name probably comes. While I was driving, I heard the name of the band on the radio after their song, and my jaw dropped for a few.
Very cool to have a band where someone is into literary production, and evidently literature. “White Noise” was about the near-impossibility of finding something visceral and real like Mikel mentions music being about in the quote.
Anyway, I’m pretty stoked about the music. Keep it up.
I’m from Toronto and 1 of our locale radiostations The Edge played Sometime Around Midnight last weekend and I was hooked.
When I got home that night I went to iTunes and downloaded the album and I’ve been listening to it ever since. And I’ve been telling everyone about it. It’s amazing! I was happy to see that the band is making its way to Canada and especially Toronto. I will definitely be @ the El Mo for that show.
Thanks for making good music!
Pat
ur music rocks, listened to sometimes around midnight, downloaded the album as soon as i was on itunes, i live in brighton missed your gig there but im gonna see you in glasgow, good work
Ok, so, I have loved this band for so long, before they came to the UK before many people in the US did, before they released anything, when all they had was their myspace… these guys aren’t a band to me, they are amazing friends. The music was just our opening conversation. When I read articles like this it brings it home, it makes it real and things like Mikels illness is heartbreaking to read but he is right, we only have one life. Live it.
xxxx
This band is so talented! I am a child of the late 60’s and I have heard a lot of good music in my time but this group is an epiphany to the current culture. I can’t wait to see them perform.