The Airborne Toxic Event

×

Expand

James Davidson

The Airborne Toxic Event

press release: The Airborne Toxic Event has announced the release of "Come On Out," the first single from their eagerly awaited new album, HOLLYWOOD PARK. The track is available now at all DSPs and streaming services. The Los Angeles-based band's sixth LP and first new music in half a decade, HOLLYWOOD PARK arrives Friday, May 8 via Rounder Records

Uniquely, HOLLYWOOD PARK arrives alongside a new literary work of the same name by Mikel Jollett, to be published by Celadon Books, a division of MacMillan, on May 5. Hollywood Park: A Memoir sees Jollett chronicling his extraordinary personal journey, from his early childhood in one of the most infamous cults of the 1970s, through a childhood of poverty and emotional abuse, before finding his voice as an artist among the confusion of an adult life spent nursing the wounds of childhood, and the redemption which came from looking inward and an acceptance of self and the fierce love of family.

"I mostly grew up in the wreckage of the cult where I was born, since we left when I was so young. It came to me like a puzzle I had to put together, almost like separate realities with different rules. So I wrote the songs on the record (and the book) from that perspective: that of a child trying to piece together the reality of the changing world around him; because that's how I experienced it: like a mystery I couldn't quite fathom that I had to piece together over a lifetime," says Airborne Toxic Event founder and front-man Mikel Jollett.

Hollywood Park: A Memoir has already been hailed as a milestone work, with Newsweek declaring it one of "40 Must-Read Fiction and Nonfiction Books to Savor This Spring," writing, "(Mikel) Jollett was raised from childhood in a cult, brought up under the leaders of Synanon. With stunning clarity, he tells of his mother's escape and the subsequent trials his family endured." "A shocking but contemplative memoir about the aftermath of an unhealthy upbringing," declared Publishers Weekly in a starred-review. "Jollett also talks about turning pain into music, getting help for abandonment issues, and finding love and starting a family." O The Oprah Magazine named Hollywood Park among "The 30 Most Anticipated Books of 2020 (So Far)," writing, "The front-man of rock band Airborne Toxic Event chronicles, in gorgeous and exacting lyricism, his harrowing coming-of-age within (and eventual escape from) the Church of Synanon, a violent religious cult." ABC's Good Morning America included Hollywood Park: A Memoir in its own "20 Books We're Excited For In 2020," writing, "What comes through the pages is a story of fierce love and family loyalty. This moving and profound memoir is for anyone who loves a good redemption story."

Produced and mixed by the band's longtime collaborator, multiple GRAMMY® Award-nominee Mark Needham (The Killers, Fleetwood Mac), HOLLYWOOD PARK serves as both companion volume and musical soundtrack to Jollett's remarkable memoir, adding vivid sonic color to his wrenching and ultimately life-affirming personal chronicle. Indeed, both the album and book were fueled in large part by the untimely death of Jollett's father. Devastated to his very core, he withdrew from both the world and his work for nearly a year before ultimately finding the strength to begin anew.