The Airborne Toxic Interview

The Airborne Toxic Event has had a really big year. In August of 2008, their self-titled album was released; in March, they were signed to a major label, Island Def Jam, and in April, their album broke #1 on Billboard's Heatseeker chart. So yeah, they've had a good year. But it hasn't made "rock stars" out of them – at least not the kind that destroy hotel rooms. They're still just a bunch of musicians from LA who, until recently, held office jobs and delivered pizza (in the case of drummer Darren Taylor, at least).

The humble band had some humble beginnings. Frontman Mikel Jollett was, essentially, procrastinating. He was trying to write a novel but instead put his talent and attention to writing songs. When he looked up, he had more than 100 of them. That's when he decided to start a band.

The sheer volume of work he had to choose from probably has a lot to do with the stellar quality of their debut. (When you've got that many songs, you can afford to throw away the duds.) But the band's chemistry also has a lot to do with it. Listening to the album, you can't imagine that any single band member wasn't involved with the songs from their genesis; the songs are just so crisp, so organic – its as though they just popped into existence (there is no evidence of the toil that surely went into them).

So it will be interesting to see what the experience of the past year, and the band's – well, band-dome – has on their followup. We'll have to wait a while for that one, but not too long. Jollett has already started writing songs for one. As for that novel...he'll get around to it. Eventually.