The Airborne Toxic Event has released “Hollywood Park,” the title track to their forthcoming sixth album, and their first in five years. Today they are releasing the title track to the record, “Hollywood Park”, five weeks early. There are many reasons for this: we had to push the release date due to the Covid-19 crisis, we’re all locked indoors so we think it’s best to share as much as we can at this time, etc.. But this song is very very special to me.
At 6 1/2 minutes long, it’s a sprawling, Boss-like anthem, with Mikel Jollett’s lyrics painting a picture of the time spent with his father at the now-demolished Hollywood Park racetrack. It’s kind of a musical Cliff’s Notes to the parts of Jollett’s book “Hollywood Park: A Memoir” about his difficult relationship with his father. “I wrote this song for him,” Jollett says. (He waxes philosophical on the song here.) When I was child, when my father was still alive, I would talk to a voice in my head. If something good happened, like I got on base at a little league game or landed a trick on my skateboard, I would look up to the sky and silently say “thank you.” I talked to the voice. I reasoned and negotiated with it. I understood this to be the voice of God. Since he died, this voice, this presence in my mind, has become the voice of my father. This song is about him and the seedy racetrack they tore down after he died where I learned what a family was.
The release dates for both the album and the book have been pushed back because of the COVID-19 crisis. The album is now out May 22nd; the book published on May 26th.
Jollett will do a virtual book tour for the memoir, kicking off May 1st with an event hosted by Book Soup.
In his book “Hollywood Park: A Memoir” and in his band’s accompanying album “Hollywood Park,” Mikel Jollett of the Airborne Toxic Event raises the curtain on his troubled childhood, which included being born into an infamous cult, his family’s escape from it and the long healing process that followed him into adulthood.
Director Silvia Grav’s new video for the single “Come on Out,” its narrative culled from a chapter in the memoir, follows an 11-year-old Jollett (portrayed by Jacob Sandler, who played Brad Pitt’s childhood character in the film “Ad Astra”) as he runs away from home to escape an abusive stepfather. In an incredible performance as a young Mikel. We are very proud of it. Visually stunning, emotionally poignant, at turns uplifting and heartbreaking, it’s more like a short film. The video is a dramatic adaptation of the chapter in Mikel Jollett’s memoir which was the inspiration for “Come on Out,” in which a 11 year-old Jollett runs away from home due to an abusive step father.
In addition to Sandler, the video stars amazing child actors including Bryce Patterson as a young Daren Taylor, Milo Borghello as a young Steven Chen and Jeremiah Gonzales as a young Adrian Rodriguez.
So this is the story of the song “Come on Out.” It’s a true story about running away from home when I was 11 years old, going in search of my first step father who had disappeared (or died) after an incident in the home where we lived in Salem, Oregon. I found myself standing on the West Salem Bridge, over the Willamette River, smoking cigarettes and thinking about jumping. I’m going to try to be real with all of you here, that’s sort of the nature of this project, so this is the unfiltered story, which is also in my book. (though told differently).
Hollywood Park was the very last book to be printed at the plant before production was halted due to the coronavirus pandemic. There are still some issues though so we are moving the release dates back to Friday, May 22nd for Hollywood Park, the Album and Tuesday, May 26th for Hollywood Park the Book.
Hollywood Park – the new studio album out May 8th (Rounder Records)
Hollywood Park – Mikel Jollett’s debut memoir out May 5th (Celadon Books)
The Fat Angel Sings 