This quick succession of traumatic events spurred a period of intense songwriting, and it was around this time that he first met Taylor through a mutual friend in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

After a few months of rehearsals, Jollett ran into Anna Bulbrook one night at El Gran Burrito, a popular outdoor Mexican restaurant in Silver Lake.

Jollett then asked Harmon, a Tucson native and graduate of the Herb Alpert School of Music at the California Institute of the Arts, to join his fledgling band, having seen him perform in Los Angeles with other acts and been impressed with his background in rock and jazz, as well as his skill with the upright bass.

After a few years of living in New York, Chen made a return to his hometown of Los Angeles, upon which Jollett contacted him and asked if he'd be interested in playing the keyboard in the band.

Prior to the formation of the band, and to supplement his fiction writing, Jollett supported himself as a freelance writer, contributing to NPR, Los Angeles Times, Filter and Men's Health, among other organizations.

[5] In keeping with his literary background, Jollett named the band after a section of the postmodern novel White Noise by Don DeLillo,[6] which won the National Book Award in 1985.

The reason for choosing this as the name of the band, he has stated, is that the event described in the novel triggers a fear of death and a sense of mortality that fundamentally alters the protagonist's outlook on himself, his family, and his life.

[11] During the second-to-last week of the residency, Los Angeles commercial radio stations KROQ-FM and Indie 103.1 (KDLD) officially added the as-yet-unsigned band's song "Sometime Around Midnight" to regular rotation.

On August 5, 2008, the band released its first full-length album, The Airborne Toxic Event, featuring ten of the 14 songs recorded at Min's home studio at the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008.

[15] To promote the album, the band released a series of one-take acoustic videos for each song on the record, filmed in different locations around Los Angeles.

The band has largely attributed its subsequent success in the U.K. to this tour, which also included shows in Derby, York, Birmingham, Northampton, Leicester, Aldershot, Yeovil, Hayle, Southampton, Liverpool, Carlisle, Middlesbrough, Manchester, Hull, Leeds, Oxford, Brighton, Nottingham, Barrow-in-Furness, Stoke-on-Trent, Cardiff, Bristol, Sheffield, Preston, Dundee, Glasgow, and Fife.

Meanwhile, bolstered by an unexpected addition to the playlist at the U.K.’s BBC Radio 1—an unusual occurrence for an unsigned American band—the group released its debut through an independent distributor in the UK on February 9, 2009.

The quartet had previously played with the band for its record-release show at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles in August 2008, as well as appearing in two of its one-take acoustic videos, for "Sometime Around Midnight" and "Innocence".

On May 20, 2009, an entire episode of Last Call with Carson Daly was devoted to the Airborne Toxic Event, featuring interviews and excerpts from a show at the Glass House in Pomona, California.

[18] On December 4, 2009, the Airborne Toxic Event played its final show in support of its debut album, giving a sold-out performance at the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in Downtown Los Angeles.

The group was accompanied by the Calder Quartet, the Lalo Guerrero Children's choir, The Belmont High School marching band, Mexican Baile Folklorico dancers, and a number of guest musicians, including horn players and an accordionist.

On July 14, 2010, the band announced the release of the documentary DVD and CD All I Ever Wanted: Live From Walt Disney Concert Hall, on September 7, 2010 in North America and October 4, 2010 in Europe.

The film, directed by Danovic, features the Airborne Toxic Event's December 4, 2009 Walt Disney Concert Hall performance in its entirety, interspersed with a behind-the-scenes narrative chronicling the band's extensive preparations for the show.

The non-concert footage includes extensive rehearsals with the Calder Quartet, the Belmont High School marching band, and the Lalo Guerrero children's choir.

They performed at a series of non-traditional venues, including the Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington D.C., Town Hall in New York, Trinity Church in Toronto, the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, and the Union Chapel in London.

In John Earls News of the World review of the Union Chapel show, he wrote "Debuting seven terrific new songs to make the heart soar, Toxic's stirring tunes certainly get in the bloodstream."

An acoustic version of one of the songs from the album, "Half of Something Else," appeared on the soundtrack for the film Going the Distance, directed by Nanette Burstein and starring Drew Barrymore and Justin Long.

"[22] Also on February 1, 2011, the band embarked on a one-month tour of continental Europe, composed partly of three simultaneous musical residencies in Amsterdam (Mondays), Berlin (Tuesdays), and Paris (Fridays).

[24] On February 22, the Airborne Toxic Event released its second "Bombastic" video, a performance of the song "All for a Woman" inside the First Baptist Church in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

[26] On March 9, 16, 22, and 30 and April 7, 13, 20, and 27 the band released acoustic versions of "It Doesn't Mean a Thing", "Welcome to Your Wedding Day", "The Kids Are Ready to Die", "Strange Girl", "Changing", "Numb", "Half of Something Else", and "The Graveyard Near the House", respectively.

The video for "Changing" features members of the Strikers All-Stars, a Los Angeles–based dance crew known for its community outreach, as well as collaborations with artists such as Rihanna and Lil Wayne.

Following a showcase in March at Stubb's BBQ for 2011's South by Southwest music conference, the band embarked on a North American and European tour in support of All at Once, which began on April 4 in Nottingham, UK.

4 on the Alternative Song charts, "Changing" was also featured, throughout June and July, on a television trailer for Crazy, Stupid, Love, starring Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling.

On July 26, 2011 the group announced its Fall World Tour, with dates in North America and Europe, beginning on October 9 in Denver and concluding on December 6 in Tempe, AZ.

[34] On November 12, 2019, frontman Mikel Jollett announced via Twitter that the band would be releasing their sixth studio album, Hollywood Park, on May 8, 2020,[35] through Rounder Records.