BAND TO CELEBRATE ALBUM RELEASE WITH
FREE LIVESTREAM TONIGHT AT 7:00 P.M. PACIFIC TIME

HOLLYWOOD PARK: A MEMOIR
THE CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED BOOK BY FRONTMAN
MIKEL JOLLETT COMES OUT TUESDAY, MAY 26

READ FINNEAS O’CONNELL’S INTERVIEW MAGAZINE DISCUSSION WITH MIKEL JOLLETT HERE

“This memoir, by the lead singer of the indie band the Airborne Toxic Event, is far from your standard rock autobiography, and no wonder: Jollett was born into a violent cult and overcame a chaotic youth.” – New York Times, New and Noteworthy

“A gen X this boy’s life, Hollywood Park is a triumph….” – O The Oprah Magazine

“…an exquisitely deep and moving tale of transformation and the search for love.” – People Magazine Book Of The Week

“…towering, triumphant” – Exclaim!

"Jollett was raised from childhood in a cult, brought up under the leaders of Synanon. With stunning clarity, he tells of his mother's escapes and the subsequent trials his family endured."
– Newsweek 40 Must-Read Fiction And Nonfiction Books To Savor This Spring

“…feels designed for arena-sized singalongs and big ticket headlining slots." – Los Angeles Times 

“a transformative, impassioned outpouring of emotion… a renewed Jollett & Co..They hold nothing back…full of humanity and grace” – Atwood Magazine

Toronto, ON – May 22, 2020 – The Airborne Toxic Event have released their eagerly awaited album, Hollywood Park, via Rounder Records. Next week, on Tuesday, May 26, the highly-acclaimed, Hollywood Park: A Memoir, by the band’s frontman, Mikel Jollett, will be released by Celadon Books. Together, the album and book represent a towering musical-literary achievement that shows both the breadth of Jollett’s talents and the powerful ways those talents intersect. 

To celebrate the album’s release, the band will perform songs from the new album in a live stream concert today at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time. The concert will stream live from the legendary Studio 1 at East West Studios in Los Angeles, where a vast array of iconic musicians including Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones and Elvis Presley have recorded. The live stream will be available on Facebook and YouTube.

Hollywood Park is easily the most ambitious album ever made by The Airborne Toxic Event; who are, with Jollet, original members Steven Chen (guitars, keyboards) and Darren Taylor (drums), and also bassist Adrian Rodriguez, who has played with the band since 2014. On the album, Jollett uses songs to give further depth to stories from the book. He has woven references ranging from shoegaze to Springsteen into a cohesive musical tapestry, and produced an unsparing memoir full of intimate, often painful personal details, that unlock universal coming-of-age themes. With these towering twin works, Jollett has channeled his artistry into a compelling and multi-layered pop-cultural milestone.  The album was produced and mixed by the band’s longtime collaborator, multiple GRAMMY® Award-nominee Mark Needham (The Killers, Fleetwood Mac).

Both album and memoir tell the story of Jolett’s traumatic early life. It begins with a four-year-old Mikel and his brother, Tony, being spirited out of Synanon, the notorious and violent Santa Monica, CA, cult, by their mother. Jollett spent his life to that point with no parents, and no idea of them, in what cult leaders called a school but which was, in reality, an orphanage meant to keep children from their families. On the run from Synanon with their dangerously narcissistic mom, Jollett and his brother embarked on a harrowing journey that eventually led them to Salem, OR where they lived in poverty. It’s his father (a former inmate at Chico State Penitentiary who Jollett didn’t really know until he was seven) who recognized young Mikel had special gifts and urged him not to be like any of the other Jollett men, but to aspire to something bigger and better. This put him on a course to getting a scholarship from Stanford (where he graduated with honours) and to starting the Airborne Toxic Event, which became an immediate sensation the moment they released their first single, Sometime Around Midnight.

While the album and book detail Mikel Jollett’s unlikely journey, one gets the sense that once both are consumed by the public, he and Airborne Toxic Event will be launched on yet another amazing adventure.

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www.theairbornetoxicevent.com