Amyl and the Sniffers Class of
r 2019
I
t’s 10:03am at a boxing club somewhere on the outskirts of Sheffield and Amyl and the Sniffers are in trouble. This time, it’s not the quartet’s fault – we’re shooting today at the venue of a sportsman who really, really values time-keeping – but it seems fitting that wildcard singer Amy Taylor and her band of Melbourne misfits are the ones who’d inadvertently wind up pissing off the most punctual man in the north. Since day one, it seems, the band have existed in a kind of reckless bubble that started off as a glorified piss-about and has now landed them as one of the most hedonistic, fresh new punk outfits out there. “I just love chaos, I guess...” she decides later in the day. And chaos seems to love Amyl and the Sniffers. The origin story of the band couldn’t be more spontaneous if it tried. One day in 2016, at “around 4pm”, Amy remembers, the four pals – completed by guitarist Dec Martens, drummer Bryce Wilson and bassist Gus Romer – got back to their shared flat, set up some gear that they had knocking around from other projects and wrote and recorded a few songs in a night. One of their friends
34 diymag.com
Causing hedonistic chaos wherever they land, these are the mullet-sporting Melbourne punks who just wanna have fun. Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Jenn Five.
mixed them, Amy whipped up some artwork, decided on a name and the next day, Amyl and the Sniffers were born. “We really didn’t think about anything at all. We literally just picked up shit and just went for it,” she shrugs of the band’s less-thancorporate beginnings. “I’d not done any music before, but I used to go to lots of shows, like five shows a week, and when I was heaps younger I used to go to hardcore shows. I guess I just thought I could do it better.” The point, says Amy, was to have something to bring to the table at the “house parties and shed shows” that the friends all used to frequent – raucous, DIY gigs with bands called things like Drunk Mums and Dumb Cunts all getting sweaty in pleasingly shitty small rooms. From that first EP (entitled ‘Giddy Up’) of scratchy, short’n’sharp garage rock – its four songs clocking in at just seven minutes in total – the band got their first gig. “There weren’t many people there and we fucked up heaps, but it was so fun and the best thing ever,” the singer enthuses. “We covered four songs because we had no songs to play and then the bartender [took the piss] because we only played for 15 minutes. But it’s nice when you start something new and you haven’t figured it out yet; the exciting part is learning and working out what you’re doing.” However, despite the singer’s complete novice status, it became pretty clear pretty quickly that the pint-sized punk was pretty good at this kind of thing. If you’ve caught one of Amyl and the Sniffers’ incendiary sets across the UK and beyond this
“I grew up on hardcore and punk shows where it was just a load of sweaty dudes punching each other.” - Amy Taylor year, you’ll likely have been party to the kind of mad, thrashing scenes that rarely surround bands on their first outings abroad. Amyl shows are not ones to go quietly into the night. “Because I grew up on hardcore and punk shows where it was just a load of sweaty dudes punching each other, I really love the crazy energy where everyone’s pushing each other and going for it,” she says. “I love the fucking chaos of when it’s crazy. I’m onstage how I would be if I was at a gig that I really loved.” And so word started getting out about this vital new bunch of maniacs unleashing songs about being losers and getting their bikes stolen, and the gigs became more frequent and all of a sudden what started off as a bit of a laugh had taken them to the other side of the world with a record deal offer from Rough Trade. “It’s pretty fucked up!” Amy laughs. "But in the best possible way."
