Airborne Toxic Event had so much potential that major L.A. radio stations were playing their music before they were signed to a major label.  With an invite to the inaugral Pemberton Music Festival, you know this band is on their way to major success.

By: Amanda Waschuk (Calgary Correspondent - Canada)

Agust 2008 

Airborne Toxic Event had so much potential that major L.A. radio stations were playing their music before they were signed to a major label.  With an invite to the inaugral Pemberton Music Festival, you know this band is on their way to major success.  With soulful lyrics and a creative new sound filled with viola, keyboards, and a bass sometimes played with a bow (similar to violin), Airborne Toxic Event is a band worth checking out.

Amanda (A ‘n' E Vibe):  Can you introduce yourselves and tell me what you play in the band?
TATE(The Airborne Toxic Event):  I'm Noah Harmon and I play bass.  Anna Bullbrook and I do viola and keyboard.  I'm Steven Chen and I play guitar. 

Amanda:  You're name The Airborne Toxic Event came from a chapter of the book "White Noise", what's it about?
TATE:  (Steven) It's a post-modernism book about the absurdity of modern life with all this consumerism that makes everyone afraid of dying.  And in the book, it talks about a railcar disaster that releases this toxic cloud "The Airborne Toxic Event" and everyone is afraid they're going to die and the thing is you don't know if you've been affected.  It's this absurd commentary on media and mortality; a lot of stuff that Mikel, our singer, had percolating in his mind.  That's how our name came about. 

Amanda:  You were played on two major radio stations in L.A. before you were even signed, how did this come about?
TATE:  (Noah) It was sort of a demo of the track that they started playing.  We had played a ton of shows and just wanted to get our name out around L.A. and then a station called KROQ actually added us into regular rotation.  It's a huge rock radio station in L.A. and we had no label, no management, nothing.  And they were just really into the song and had heard us live and were into what we were doing.  And they actually called Mikel's cell phone while we were at a sound check to say: "well we usually call the label to let them know a song is in rotation but you don't have a label and secondly we would call the management but you don't have that either".  So it was literally this message on Mikel's cell phone before a gig and he said listen to this message and it was a conference room from a radio station.  We were pretty pumped to play after that and then the phone calls started pouring in for the next month. 

Amanda:  What song was it?
TATE:  (Noah) "Sometime Around Midnight" 

(Steven) There's another really big hit radio station Indie 103.1 and they added us also at the same time; so the two of them together changed everything.  I can pinpoint the moment, literally the next day we were sitting down having meals with labels and all the "important people" of the music biz in L.A. 

Amanda:  What's the music scene like there?  Is it very competitive?
TATE:  (Anna) Well I don't know if competitive is the right word but it's a very happening, special, music scene right now it's a warm community and a lot of really amazing fans. 

Amanda:  Is there any genre in specific that's big?
TATE:  (Anna) There's a few different scenes the indie rock scene is super happening.  There's a sort of revival of the sunset strip scene like a dance rock.  I don't know how to describe it.

(Noah) We don't really have a lot to do with L.A. really outside of the east side of L.A.

(Anna) The Silversun Pickups and The Cold War Kids are some of the more known bands that came out of our neighborhood. 

Amanda: Your new album debuts August 5, what can you tell me about it.
TATE:  (Steven) It's a completely hand-made album, we recorded it with a friend of ours in his great home studio and he's out of L.A.; it's like he co-produced it with us.  It's as close to a live show as we could get a record to sound.  We kept pushing our live show and the chemistry between us was working so we wanted to make it sound as close to a live show as possible on the recording. 

Amanda:  So you all recorded at the same time, or separately?
TATE:  (Noah) We would play through the song in a room all together all five of us.  And on a lot of them we would keep the drums, the bass and one guitar and keyboard and then we'd go back and do very few overdubs to change tones and stuff like that.  And logistically, recording vocals can't be done next to a drum set. 

Amanda:  How long did it take to record your album?
TATE:  (Anna) Three songs a day. 
(Steven) We started January 2008 and finished January 2008.  The bulk of recording was done in January but mixing takes a long time.  We didn't have a label so there was no pressure.  And we thought it was time to do an album, which we had in essence, and it didn't seem like a big deal at the time because we didn't know who we were recording for.  When K-rock picked up "Sometime Around Midnight", I remember recording that one song and K-rock is the biggest rock station in the States so we recorded that track and two weeks later it was on the radio.  It blew my mind! 

Amanda:  What do you think having a viola does for your band, as it's not a very common instrument?
TATE:  (Anna) Well, what do I do for the band?  Initially I just came in to play for a couple of songs and in the first rehearsal I think I picked up a tambourine for another song and we were all like yes this works.  Then I figured out how to play keyboards. To me it makes sense in our music just to have it.  Like how you have bass, vocals, guitar, in our band we have viola and it just makes sense.  I was a classically trained violinist and I quit the violin and picked up the viola... 

Amanda:  Are they similar?
TATE:  (Anna) Pretty similar but unfortunately the viola doesn't have frets so it's a little bit bigger than a violin and harder to play in tune. 

Amanda:  What's it like touring with a bunch of boys?
TATE:  (Anna) That's a great question, I mean I definitely feel like I have the front seat on guy culture and I come back with a much filthier mouth than I would ever have on my own.  They get used to my crying, I get used to their beating each other up and it's fun.

Amanda:  What do you think of festivals like Pemberton that showcase a lot of different styles of music? As many festivals, for example Ozzfest, tend to stick to a similar genre.
TATE:  (Noah) It's awesome, I can't wait to see Jay-Z.  I was hoping the bassist of Jay-Z would fall ill, and I'd be here...

One-On-One with Lead Singer - Mikel Jollett 

Amanda:  You formed your band after experiencing a bout of bad luck, do you feel something good can come from something tragic?
Mikel:  Of course, that's the whole point.  If something really bad happens to you and you let it disfigure you in some way and turn that disfigurement into art then that's the whole point. 

Amanda:  Do you believe in karma?
Mikel:  Maybe a little bit, my friends will say that sometimes how "man you had a couple of really bad years there and now you're having some really good years." 

Amanda:  Tell me about how you write your songs?
Mikel:  When the band first started I wrote a ton of music just alone in my room, all the lyrics and parts of music.  And I had actually recorded a lot of it, then I recruited the band.  And then there's a few songs that I brought to the band and said "hey, I wrote this", then we work it out.  Lately Noah and I have been writing songs together, we'll write a bunch of riffs and work out how the arc of the song's supposed to go.  And then I'll go home for three days and assess it and turn it into a song about something. 

Amanda:  Which instruments do you play?
Mikel:  I play guitar and keyboard. 

Amanda:  What do you play with when you write?
Mikel:  Acoustic guitar but sometimes piano.  It's sort of just whatever.  Sometimes I'll hear something on a ukulele and think hey I can play that on acoustic guitar. 

Amanda:  A goal of this festival is sustainability.  What do you think is the most important thing for us to do today to save the environment?
Mikel:  We were talking about this, the whole world needs to go solar and shut up.  You could put solar panels on everything, that technology has really increased in the last couple of years with all those cells that are super thin.  It's an economy of scale thing, if you really just take all these surfaces and all these roofs and put solar panels on them then you would have free electricity.  You just have to make the capital investment on it first.  It's kind of like when we went to trains or to the telephone, we just need to go through the last mile and actually put the work into making it everywhere and once you have that economy of scale then the world just functions.  And I think the future for that's just so great. 

Amanda:  A car was developed in Calgary that ran on solar power.
Mikel:  It doesn't necessarily need to be cars but surfaces have the potential for limitless electricity.  You could put fields of that in a city on every roof.  It's about making the initial capital investment and we've done that in history a bunch of times whether it be sewage systems or telephones or the internet, and it's time to do that with solar. 

Amanda:  Did you ever think you'd be playing in a band when you were older?
Mikel:  I wanted to be a writer, a novelist. 

Amanda:  You used to write for a music magazine, right?
Mikel:  I wrote for a bunch of different places.  I wrote on music, on politics, personal essays and I was working on a novel.  I have a short story that is going to be published by McSweeney's.

Amanda:  Did you go to school for journalism?
Mikel:  No, Science... 

Amanda: A young fan approaches you and asks how to break into the music industry, what would you tell them?
Mikel: Just lock yourself in a room and write songs that you really mean and don't worry about the rest of them.  And do everything with all your might to reach out to people and say something honest.