THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “This record is not what I expected to be making after Hollywood Park,” says Airborne Toxic Event singer-guitarist Mikel Jollett, referring to the acclaimed 2020 album and memoir that chronicled his traumatic early upbringing — an incredible tale of being raised in poverty by a single mother on the run from a violent cult while his father languished in prison.
“I’ve always believed songwriting should capture one’s journey through the world, emotionally, spiritually, ontologically — and this record Glory is very much about the child running through the night you see on the cover of the record, the person he becomes, the ghosts he carries,” Jollett explains. “Is he seeking a glory he is forever unable to capture? Is the act of seeking itself a result of living with these ghosts? What does this mean for his relationship to his art, to his family, to his relationships? In what ways does he lament it, brag about it, express anger, sorrow, regret? How does one think about death in this context?
“Again. I never thought this is the record I would make after Hollywood Park. Because the journey continues and the answers are different from what I thought they’d be. The journey through the world that you document through songwriting is not manageable. It just happens. I get in certain moods and all I want to hear is a person singing the thing I’m feeling. Even if the thing I’m feeling is so fucked up. It’s a relief. I don’t know why that’s true. But it is.”
