11-04-2025
Amyl and the Sniffers Bring Freaks to the Front at Coachella
One of the most invigorating live shows you'll see on any rock stage right now comes from Austrailia's Amyl and the Sniffers, who are primed to win new hearts (and banging heads) playing Coachella this weekend. Yes, their name references Amyl Nitrate aka 'poppers' and yes, it's appropo, especially where lead singer Amy Taylor is concerned. This band is a party with a spitfire performer that's intoxicating to watch and mates that are equally manic on stage. Their snarling yet undeniably catchy ditties capture rage and revelry on record and in the flesh. We spoke with Taylor, who calls L.A. home when she's not touring, just before she left town for touring and the desert festival. Here is our full conversation. (Q&A edited for clarity). LA mag: So can you tell me about your perspective on Taylor: Yeah, we've played it before… in 2021. It was the first one after COVID, so I think it was still getting its feet back as were a lot of other festivals. That first year back was a bit tricky for everyone, but it was really fun still. There was some great bands playing that year as well, like Viagra was your experience playing it? The funnest. Obviously it's such an important event especially for Americans. It's like a big part of American culture. So I think just like, getting a window into what that was like was cool. And just walking around... shit like that. Princess Nokia played that year too, and I'm a fan of hers so I was happy I got to see you notice growth in your fanbase after playing? I would think festival exposure is a big deal. I would say so, yeah. We played inside a tent. Everyone goes there to see a mix of bands, so I think we probably walked away with some you have any observations about playing festivals in general? You've played them all around the world… what do you like about them and what do you not like?I just think they're really fun. Behind the scenes, you get to hang out with so many different bands and shit like that. And there's usually catering and shit… I like the audiences because they're usually there to see a bunch of bands and they're just there to party. A lot them are not really expecting anything. Whereas I feel like, at your headline show, you already know that most people there love your music and stuff. So it's fun to play to people that might seeing your show for the first time. There's not too much negative. You moved to L.A. from Australia recently. What made you come here?Australia is so fucking far from everything especially when you're traveling so much. Being in the southern hemispheres you're in different seasons, different climates. If its cold over here, then you go back, then you're hot. It's just all a shock to the system… L.A. is so central, like, basically everywhere is a short flight from here, like, 13 hours max. I'm only here for a couple of days and then we start touring.
So you guys are majorly touring in addition to the Coachella dates? Yeah. So this year we have, I think, 90 shows. So we're just here for a bit, then in and out. So even though we live here, we don't really live anywhere. It's very love to hear some of your favorite things about L.A.I love the weather. Like, I love the consistency of the weather. I think that's really special. It makes everybody just like… there's really a friendliness to L.A. It's such a variety of people– like you got the craziest people in the fucking world, just free and psycho. Then you've got, like, you know, celebrities; and then you've just got, like, really down to earth people. You got rockers. There's so many different kinds of people and a lot of them are such big characters. And I think that's really fun. Also, I love Mexican food. Australia has the worst Mexican food. So I'm obsessed with it here. What's your favorite Mexican dish? Honestly I love that mole stuff. I love just like anything spicy. Tacos are delicious. They really are. Do you plan to keep L.A. as your base moving forward?Yeah, for now. We basically just take things as they come. Like I said, we kind of just live out of suitcases. So I just have a bag here, and I'll just keep it here for a while and then see where the next adventure takes us… until Trump revokes our visas. Well, I hope that doesn't happen. Leaving Australia and then coming to the U.S. during these crazy times must have been a bit daunting. Do you pay attention to the politics?I think for someone with a platform paying attention is important, because it affects so many people. You try and be aware of the things that affect the people that you're playing to. It's just fucking crazy. So it's hard not to pay Especially as a woman. That actually leads me to another topic. A lot of your songs deal with your experiences as a woman. Especially right now with our government, it feels like women are not supported as equals. Do you have any thoughts on that?I think it's really scary. It really feels like it's leaning more and more to a place where basically nobody will have a voice. And I think even just silencing people who talk against him is, like, basically just a telltale that it's moving into authoritarianism. But if everybody just keeps talking about it, especially with women's stuff and especially with like trans stuff, and the list could go on and on, right? It affects everybody. We have to call it out, that's powerful. .
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Being in a band and promoting yourselves on social media. Have you noticed any crap from people who don't like the way you speak out as you do in songs like "Cartoon Darkness" and "U Should Not be Doing That." I'm sure we have, but I don't check. I don't read the always best, for journalists too, but sometimes we can't resist.I can't remember who said it. But I remember seeing a comedian once, and they were saying what a bad comment or criticism feels like. They're like, 'you have a beautiful sunny day, it's perfect– it's hot, there's an ice cold pool and like a margarita in your hand… But if there's one shit in the pool you don't want to go swimming."Let's talk a little bit about the music. Most bands tend to evolve and experiment with different sounds. I think listening to your records, the Sniffers have done that. For somebody who's reading this and maybe isn't real familiar with the band, can you tell us abut your musical evolution?So when we first started, we were all just housemates, like none of us could play our instruments at all. None of us had any kind of training in our instruments, or played in any bands playing the same instrument. The boys had played in other bands before, but all of them playing different instruments. So we're all super DIY and we recorded in my bedroom. We put it up on Bandcamp the next day. It's basically like, just rough DIY and not thought out at all. And we basically just started because we wanted to play punk shows. We wanted to play backyards, we wanted to play just anything, because we just really adored and had a lot of admiration for the bands that were playing in our local Melbourne music scene. It's such a strong scene. And then we just basically played and played and played, and kept growing and getting better at the instruments. We'd be playing a 15 minutes set and think, 'we better write more music, because we're going to have to play a half hour set.' So we wrote more music and then the story just kept going like that, basically. And it got us all the way to it was like a local thing that just sort of grew? What were your influences? Honestly, it was mainly just local stuff. Like, I just love seeing live music. I love seeing the bands that we were playing with, our peers. There definitely were some big Australian bands that we loved like The Cosmic Psychos. They're a big influence on us and Aussie rock. When we first started, we honestly wanted to sound like the B 52's, but we just couldn't play well enough. We couldn't play, so it sounded more punk. But that's what's good about punk, it can just the world where everything has to be so perfect and polished and everything's so criticized, I think I love that we play a genre which is so scrappy and so imperfect, and there's mistakes all the time. There were mistakes when we started, and it was messy, and we were all crap at what we did, but we were also good at it because we had the spirit of it. And I think that's a good thing to remind people that stuff can be messy. I think a lot of people hold back because they're waiting for something to be perfect, the right time or the right sound or the right thought, but sometimes it's good to just be like, 'Eh, fuck it. This is awesome.'The Go-Go's, also playing Coachella this year, started the same way. And they evolved and found their sound. Would you say at this point in your career, you've all honed your skills vocally and instrumentally?We started this band almost 10 years ago, so when I was 20, and just grew up together. Seeing everybody mature and, you know, change over the years and get better but still remain, like, who they are, it's awesome. And its definitely the same for me. I've been through so much with my voice… I've had vocal surgery from overuse, and, so I've done like, a couple of vocal lessons. Even just learning how to sing– because I just go so hard... I learned how to do go hard but that's what us fans love. How is the natural evolution of the band reflected in the latest record?[For] a lot of bands, audiences really want them to stay exactly the same as when they started. But I think people have really come along on the journey with us, and just supported the fact that we've put in time and we want to make different kinds of music and more polished music. Producer Nick Launay really brought that out with the new one, right? Yeah. He's awesome. I think having his mind in there, and just like pushing the boys especially, and getting the right sounds and, and especially the studio that we're in... I think all of that stuff really made it special.
And it might be more accessible to new fans too. You're a punk band but I think you have pop appeal. What are your thoughts on pop music? I love pop music. I think, especially at the moment, there's some really interesting stuff, like, even with Chappell Roan and Charli XCX. They're big pop stars, but they're also breaking so many boundaries for pop— Charli XCX is lyrically super strange and unusual. And Chapell is just like a queer drag icon. At the moment, pop is in a really interesting space. Like we were talking about, the world is so crazy and it is a weird state of affairs, to say the least. And I think sometimes, tuning out with some pop music is kind of relieving. It's like watching TV that isn't like a documentary, but more like watching The Simpsons.I think Charli, who's playing Coachella, would think Amyl and the Sniffers are very BRAT. I bet her fans will love you guys. And Lady Gaga's And she's a freak, like, she's a certified freaking up space in the mainstream, in pop. I think they are both like rockers and punkers in some ways. And I'm like, 'Yeah, girls, you get it.'I remember seeing Chappell Roan on the Coachella YouTube live stream last year and thinking, who is that? She going to be huge. And that set was breakthrough for her. I know you played it before but I think this year, Coachella is going to be huge for you. I see similar breakthrough and I feel like the genres are just kind of opening up and the barriers between different types of music are being broken down. The festival is reflecting and I feel like women are super open minded with genres. We're not ashamed to like different genres a lot of the time, whereas all of that purist 'you like pop so you're not a real punk' stuff tends to come from super masculine types. I'm not shooting down the boys, because, obviously I love boys, but I'm just like, 'Come on, guys, enjoy some pop music too.'Thinking about Chapell and her outfits... you're known for having amazing stage wear too. And lately you've even been getting more flamboyant and creative on yeah. I'm trying to push it because it's so fun for me. When I first started, I didn't think about outfits much, but now I see it as an extension of a way to be creative and to have fun and to just have some autonomy over my body. What I wear can create a fantasy for myself to be like– this is not the real world. And I love just expressing myself. It's so fun. And I like supporting local designers and just pushing myself.I love that. Have you given thought to what you're going to wear for Coachella?I've been trying to think about it… that's what I gotta do today. I'm like, gotta get organized girl. Most of the stuff is vintage, secondhand, upcycled, or just from small Green Day headlining, and other alternative acts on the bill, I hope it signals a return for more style rock genres on the pop I think for the most part, rock is the minority. But I still feel like there's such a good support of rock music in local venues and by listeners all over the world who just love it. So even though it's not like the biggest thing or the most like prominent, there's still such a sick network. So it'll never disappear, because there's always people who love it, even if it is just more of an underground thing.I think for a lot of bands who are starting as well, it is such a hard slog, especially at the moment, with lots of venues shutting down and the cost of living going up, and visas are expensive. It's so hard to tour. It's hard to get yourself out there. Hopefully, being on Coachella is a glimmer of hope that, like, 'okay, there's people want to see rock music too! '
