Borne To Do It

February 2009

Ask most musicians what aspirations they have for their band and they’ll share grand desires for Almost Famous-esque success and seminal accomplishments. But not for The Airborne Toxic Event’s Mikel Jollett, as he solemnly reveals his wishes to The Fly: “I hope nobody gets sick. I hope nobody catches a horrid disease. I hope nobody gets in a car wreck. If somebody goes to a bar, I hope they get back home safe. I only worry about keeping everyone together.” His fretfulness isn’t surprising when you hear the emotional carnage the frontman has battled, though, and, after a few minutes on the phone to Jollett, The Fly realises his ominous approach to life was instrumental in the formation of the band. “I’d taken a year off to write a book [about, umm, 4 friends who must confront their terminal illnesses] and then my mum got cancer,” Mikel explains in his reposeful lilt. “I’d been dating this girl for a long time and we broke up. Then I went and saw a doctor and he told me I had Vitiligo and Alopecia ...
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Borne To Do It

February 2009

Ask most musicians what aspirations they have for their band and they’ll share grand desires for Almost Famous-esque success and seminal accomplishments. But not for The Airborne Toxic Event’s Mikel Jollett, as he solemnly reveals his wishes to The Fly: “I hope nobody gets sick. I hope nobody catches a horrid disease. I hope nobody gets in a car wreck. If somebody goes to a bar, I hope they get back home safe. I only worry about keeping everyone together.” His fretfulness isn’t surprising when you hear the emotional carnage the frontman has battled, though, and, after a few minutes on the phone to Jollett, The Fly realises his ominous approach to life was instrumental in the formation of the band. “I’d taken a year off to write a book [about, umm, 4 friends who must confront their terminal illnesses] and then my mum got cancer,” Mikel explains in his reposeful lilt. “I’d been dating this girl for a long time and we broke up. Then I went and saw a doctor and he told me I had Vitiligo and Alopecia and he said that those things wouldn’t hurt me but other thins might now potentially kill me…” Jollett laughs at the absurdity of it all, before manically exclaiming, “I was like, ‘FUCKING SHIT!!’ This all happened in a matter of days!”

Where most people would feel emotionally pummelled by this succession of heartache and prospective death, Jollett felt compelled to pick up the guitar and utilise his emotions into the collection of intensely pulverising tracks that form TATE’s eponymous debut. “I started playing every day and I couldn’t do much else—I wanted to write this novel but everything was cloudy, then I just decided that all I’d do was play music. I spent a year locked in my apartment, the book was maybe a quarter done and I had around a hundred songs instead,” he says in his drowsy LA drawl. With the help of bandmates Steven Chen, Anna Bulbrook, Noah Harmon and Daren Taylor, The Airborne Toxic Event (aptly named after a chapter from Don DeLillo’s death-obsessed White Noise) formed and began making jovial art-pop grooves out of the misery. For some, the band’s expansive Arcade Fire orchestration and despaired vocals might suffocate with their sheer brooding ambition, but this shouldn’t put you off. Throw down your barriers, accept TATE’s earnest foreboding and cease the day—you don’t know when it might be your last.

‘The Airborne Toxic Event’ is released on Major Domo Records on February 9th.