How Amyl and the Sniffers found their voice: “The world’s filled with junk. I don’t wanna be contributing to that”

Amyl and the Sniffers guitarist Declan Mehrtens leaps from his chair and stands in the middle of the room, Scarface-style, legs apart and both hands frozen in a gun fingers pose. “I’m comin’ for everyone!” he cackles. “This is the last interview of the day! Fuck everyone!”

We’re only halfway through our audience with the world’s brightest punk band and already he’s suggested a renowned guitarist plays stadiums without their instrument plugged in. He soon makes a jokey claim about another musician that’s such tabloid fodder it prompts singer Amy Taylor to suggest we sell the story to TMZ, before drummer Bryce Wilson jokes that Oasis should be supporting them. Not to be outdone, Taylor stuns the room with a gag so outrageous – if ultimately inoffensive – that she immediately insists it’s off the record. Our ears are still burning.

We’re in a fairly upmarket hotel plonked amid a posh shopping district in London’s Islington; it’s not quite Mayfair, but definitely a sign of a band on the up. Just over six years ago, Amyl and the Sniffers were relatively unknown outside of their native Australia. Their 2019 self-titled debut album, a tightly packed aural nail bomb of crunching power chords and Taylor’s explosive energy, soon changed all that. While there was coiled super-strength in its simplicity, the four-piece’s upcoming third album, ‘Cartoon Darkness’, is perhaps best described as a ‘punk opus’ – not a contradiction in terms, it turns out.

The record is studded with their straight-up, self-proclaimed ‘pub rock’, but also sees them delve further into classic rock, new wave and even bruised balladry. Somehow, they knit all of these elements together into a cohesive whole. The result is a late contender for one of the best albums of the year.

So, Amyl are now in a fancy hotel suite, but Taylor’s white vest is splodged with an ugly coffee stain and there’s an unmade bed in the corner that would make Tracey Emin blush. It’s hard to think of a better metaphor for where the band find themselves in 2024. “We’ve evolved in so many different ways,” says Wilson, “further than pub rock or punk rock kinda thing. Not better or worse or anything, just different branches of a tree.”

“A lot of people are anti-people and they’re actually the snowflakes” – Amy Taylor

In the past, Taylor’s lyrics were thrillingly broad swipes at piss-poor wages, sexism and – in one instance – pub bouncers. Now, though, she presents a deepened worldview: the record’s title refers to her vision of a future transformed by the climate crisis and the rise of AI. The ‘Cartoon Darkness’ hovers in the distance, colouring everything.

Surprisingly, considering its all-round richness, the record was made against the clock, with no big ideas about scaling up. Still, punk purists might bristle at its spruced-up sound and the wider audience it’s destined to court (soon after our interview, Amyl announce a 2025 date at London’s 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace, their biggest show yet). This isn’t the first time they’ve resisted old-school dogma, mind.

Taylor and the gang appeared in a Gucci ad before their debut album was even released. But it an era when streaming has decimated musicians’ incomes, they insist there’s no such thing as ‘selling out.’ “We got paid from Gucci well before we ever got paid from music,” notes Romer.

“It’s like people want bands to make music,” says Taylor, “but then they’re like, ‘You’re not allowed to have food. If you have a tummy ache, you can’t go to the doctor.’ If anyone does anything for an income, they’re like: ‘You’re a fuckwit.’ It’s like: ‘Well, actually, you’re a fuckwit.’”

‘Cartoon Darkness’ was recorded at Foo Fighters’ Studio 606 in Los Angeles (Taylor and Mehrtens moved to the City of Angels back in March, while Wilson and Romer remain in Melbourne, where the band formed in 2016). Here, they used the soundboard that spawned both Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ and Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’. Did it feel like Amyl were taking their place among the greats?

“Nah,” replies Mehrtens, “I don’t think so. We got mates’ rates on the studio.”

“It was cheap and open,” laughs Romer. “I don’t think any of us ever really gave a fuck about the fact that it was the Foo Fighters studio.” This isn’t a diss against Dave Grohl and co. – Mehrtens fondly recalls the embattled frontman barbecuing on the premises – but it is about keeping their eyes on the prize. “I think people who respect that sort of stuff,” suggests Mehrtens, “don’t make the best artwork.”

Taylor’s more impressed by the free coffee backstage than meeting celebs, though relishes the chance to wax lyrical about one of her actual heroes, the late Wendy O. Williams of lesser-known New York punks Plasmatics: “She’s just a bad bitch. She’s incredible. She was the queen of body autonomy and she was very wild, very anti-consumerist and anti-American culture. She was so outspoken and, like, fuckin’ aggressive.”

“We got paid from Gucci well before we ever got paid from music” – Gus Romer

The singer welcomes comparisons to Williams, who would surely have appreciated ‘Cartoon Darkness’. Taylor has discovered her political voice in recent years, decrying former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison as a “tosser” and talking publicly about her own experiences of sexual assault to address the broader issue of gender inequality.

“I was intimidated by politics,” she says. “I didn’t grow up around it that much. I finished high school, but barely. It’s really easy to feel kind of ashamed of yourself for not being sure how to get your foot in it, or to get the confidence to speak out about stuff.” She’s wary of “isolating” those who are politically unengaged, but stands against right-wingers opposed to “basic social caring” on the basis that it’s ‘woke’: “A lot of people are anti-people and they’re actually the snowflakes.”

Anyway, Taylor adds, “I don’t just wanna be singing about crap. The world’s filled with junk – layers and layers and layers of junk. Pointless crap. I don’t wanna be contributing to that.”

She isn’t flat-out anti-AI, but is concerned that the technology could lead to further isolation. Here, though, she is pragmatic: “I’m pretty aware that things happen with or without my consent in terms of the world moving forward. If it’s not now, it will later be a part of my life – the same way nobody really wanted smartphones.”

In their latest era, Amyl and Sniffers aren’t claiming to have all the answers, but they are summoning the courage to ask the right questions – and having a laugh with it, too. When Taylor looks at the uncertain world that lies ahead and calls it ‘Cartoon Darkness’, it’s about conquering her fear and forging on: “Cartoons are childlike and when you’re childlike, there’s curiosity – you can be afraid of something but you can also imagine that it’s just a cartoon.”

That emboldened stance has brought the band greater success and visibility that’s already bred criticism, often expressed online, for their supposed betrayal of that aforementioned punk dogma. Refusing to be chained to these expectations, she lampoons the haters on arena-sized lead single ‘U Should Not Be Doing That’ and lean, mean album opener ‘Jerkin’, a sensational freestyle on which she spits: “I don’t wanna be stuck inside that negativity.”

What specifically inspired the latter track? “Ah, just a bunch of crap everywhere,” she grins, before echoing Mehrtens with her final words of our rowdy interview: “Fuck everyone!”

‘Cartoon Darkness’ is out on October 25 via Rough Trade

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