Amyl and The Sniffers

Editors’ Notes When the Melbourne punk band Amyl and the Sniffers first started, it was for one purpose: to play live shows. Their self-titled debut album has captured the raucous, wild energy that their shows quickly became famous for, but make no mistake—this is music that exists for the stage. “We write new songs so that we can have more in our set,” singer Amy Taylor tells Apple Music. “At first it was like, ‘Our set is only 10 minutes, we better write four more songs so it can get to 25 minutes.’ Then we’d been playing those songs for two years, so we wanted to put new ones out to play longer sets that were more relevant to ourselves right now.” Still, there's much more to Amyl and the Sniffers' debut album than set-filling songs. Here, Taylor talks through the things they couldn’t have made this album without.

Anger
“There’s so many things to be angry about: people in general, everyday casual sexism, breakup shit, everything. Your whole life, people are trying to control you, and it makes me mad. Songs like ‘GFY,’ ‘Control,’ and ‘Gacked on Anger’ are all about that shit. ‘Punisha’ is about somebody who’s just a huge c**t. At first you’re like, ‘Fuck you, asshole,’ but then you’re like, it doesn’t matter how good you’ll do, I’m just gonna work harder and make myself and my life better. That’s gonna be punishment, that’s my revenge.”

The music community
“It’s a big part of our lives. We go to gigs as many nights as we can; we love and support the other bands in the community and vice versa. I love watching the bands we play with. It’s so fucking cool to watch them do their thing. There’s always someone you can look up to, and there’s always a new band doing something cool. Everyone’s so supportive, stoked to be there and up for a chat. There’s such a broad range of people that play music; it’s like a big family with different opinions. You get to meet all kinds of people.”

Playing gigs
“I like taking up space. I like that there’s a rowdy bitch taking up space in the punk rock world in Australia. I’m such an energetic person, and it’s real fun to just run around and yell. Our producer wanted to make the album sound as much like us playing live as possible, but in the past it’s definitely been a challenge, because I’m so used to just running around with the microphone onstage. When you’re standing still, it’s hard to pull out the same fury.”

Being a crazy, independent bitch
“‘Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled)’ is my breakup song. It’s about when you see someone you used to be with with somebody else, and you’re like, ‘Fuck them!’ This song is about how I’m a crazy bitch and I’m proud that I’m a crazy bitch, because I can live free. I’m kind of saying, I was me. And because I was me, I wasn’t right for you, but I’m glad I stayed like me. And you’re with someone else who’s a boring-ass motherfucker, but that’s okay, I’m staying true to me.”