It’s been a banner year for Australian punk rock icons Amyl and the Sniffers. The Melbourne four-piece have not only embarked upon a massive — and massively successful — world tour, but they’ve also played a couple of the world’s biggest festivals (Glastonbury, Coachella), appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (with singer Amy Taylor decked out in a none-more-Aussie thong bikini), been nominated for a BRIT Award, and picked up a Song of the Year APRA Award for “U Should Not Be Doing That”.
It’s hardly surprising, then, to hear Amy Taylor say Amyl and the Sniffers have been “darting about everywhere, busy as hell.”
The band will be ending 2025 with a considerable bang when they support another group of icons who Taylor accurately calls “the best rock ’n’ roll band in the world” — the legendary AC/DC. The livewire frontwoman says that getting the call to say that they’d be playing before Angus Young and co. on an Australian tour running through November and December was a dream come true.
“We were all over the moon — we couldn’t believe that they’d offered [it to us],” says Taylor on a brief break before the Amyl and the Sniffers tour picks up again in Los Angeles on October 4th. “It was surreal — they’re a band you don’t even consider as someone that you think you could support ’cause they’re so out of reach. The fact that they did reach out was like, ‘Holy shit, this is crazy, man.’
“I’ve never seen them before. Imagine ‘Highway to Hell’ live, like, holy shit. You know, ‘Rocker’ live, ‘Hells Bells’, all of it. Declan [Mehrtens, guitarist] has seen them three times, so he’s obviously really excited to see them again. That’s the main motive [for doing the tour], really – we get to see nine AC/DC shows!”
If asked to do so, Taylor says she’s raring to go if AC/DC decide they want to bring her out for an on-stage collaboration during the tour.
“Oh my God, that would be crazy!” she says. “It’s hard, but if I had to choose one song to do with them, it would be ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ’n’ Roll)’. I think that would just be the most epic thing of all time.”
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Amyl and the Sniffers’ AC/DC fandom is well-documented, with the band participating in Highway to Hell at Perth Festival in 2020 – an event that required them to repeatedly perform three AC/DC songs for two hours while being driven down the Canning Highway on the back of a flatbed truck.
“That was hilarious, that was really fun,” recalls Taylor. “There were five or six trucks with bands on the back, all driving back and forth doing about five kilometres an hour. We played ‘Dirty Deeds’, ‘Highway to Hell’, and ‘Jailbreak’ — each song only went for about two minutes, so you can imagine how many times we played them.”
While Taylor agrees it’s been a winning year for the band (“Crowds everywhere have been really enjoying themselves, lots of energy, people going crazy – it’s been mammoth,” she says), it isn’t over yet. Our chat happens on the eve of the 2025 ARIA Music Awards nominations announcement, with the band a sure bet to receive some nods.
“I’ll be on a plane tomorrow morning [when the nominations come out] – if I hear [we get nominated before the flight], it’ll be hard to sit still,” she says. “I’ll be shattered the whole trip!” (Amyl and the Sniffers ended up receiving six nominations. See the full list here.)
Despite the fact the band have played 64 shows this year (with another 22 to go), Taylor says herself, Mehrtens, bassist Gus Romer, and drummer Bryce Wilson have found some time to work on new Amyl and the Sniffers music. (When Rolling Stone AU/NZ spoke to the band for their cover story in March, Taylor floated the idea of the band recording a country album, something she doesn’t outright dismiss when it’s brought up again.)
“We’ve definitely got some stuff up our sleeve,” she says. “Aside from touring, we’ve been busy in between, because this year we’ve just been non-stop. So yeah, there’s some things up our sleeve, but I won’t say any more than that… but [it’s] things I’m excited about.”
Although fans will have to wait a while for new music, they can look forward to a soon-to-be-released remix of Cartoon Darkness track “Big Dreams” from Fred again.., the superstar electronic producer previewing the track by bringing Taylor out on stage at a show in Sheffield on August 21st.
@fredagainarchive1 Fred plays unreleased track with Amy Taylor in Sheffield #Fredagain #fredagainlive #sheffield #amylandthesniffers #australia @Fredagainagain
“It’s really flattering, because I feel like — and I told him this too — Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He’s Willy Wonka, and somehow I got a golden ticket to be a part of his world,” she says. “He’s one of the best DJs in the world, and he’s such a nice dude, really friendly and enthusiastic, and the song is a massive banger. I love the remix, and it’s taken on a whole new feeling. It was really, really fun to be able to work with him.”
More Amyl and the Sniffers shows this year inevitably also means more news headlines generated from Taylor’s on-stage comments, which often include support for Palestine and criticism of the likes of J. K. Rowling and Donald Trump. It’s something she admits has made her slightly self-conscious.
“I’m in the moment and thinking that I’m addressing the people in the audience, and I forget that there’s such a big megaphone attached to a lot of things that I do,” she notes. “I guess it does make me self-conscious. Nothing I say is ever perfect — it’s more about trying to express some way that I feel, and I guess I have the ability to maybe even change somebody’s mind who might have a different opinion to me.
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“Everybody is a part of the same society, [but the information you receive] depends on what media you get or what algorithm you’re in or what kind of friends you have. Your heart might be in the right place, but you might just have the wrong information. I feel like there’s a good mix of people that come to our shows. I just try and keep that in mind and think, ‘Well, how can I try and make them think about something from a different perspective?’
“I know that there’s some really fucked up people, but I think there’s a lot of people who genuinely want to do the right thing for the world. I think it’s important to acknowledge a lot of the things that are going on. It can be a real relief [to do that] at a live show, because it means that for the people that feel the same way as I do, they’re like, ‘Fuck, I’m not the only person who feels like this. I’m not insane, because it means that there’s 2000 people around me that have a similar ideology.’”
Amyl and the Sniffers support AC/DC on their Australian Power Up tour from November 12th to December 18th. Ticket information is available here.
