Ten years ago, a distraught freelance writer locked himself in a room and furiously scribbled his way out of a cataclysmic week. Though Mikel Jollett entered his hovel intent on penning the great American novel, when he emerged a year later, it was not with the fictional book he had in mind, but a book of songs fueled by all too real tragedy. Those songs required a band, and that band would be The Airborne Toxic Event. This unlikely group, a collection of five players from wildly diverse musical backgrounds, became an even unlikelier success story. Defying all established conventions about...