Amyl And The Sniffers' ‘Cartoon Darkness’: ‘It’s About Loving & Wanting To Understand The World, Not About Hating It’

If you had listened to the first singles from Amyl And The Sniffers’ new album, Cartoon Darkness, and were worried about them losing their edge or taking themselves too seriously, you had nothing to be concerned about after listening to Jerkin’ and watching the risqué NSFW music video.

Taking their love of swear words to a new level, the first song on the album finds singer Amy Taylor opening the album like this: “You’re a dumb c*nt/ You’re an a**hole/ Every time you talk you mumble, grumble,” displaying the band’s playful side beside some classic punk riffs.

While Cartoon Darkness finds the Melbourne punks at their cheekiest (and funniest), there’s a sense of melancholy behind the songs, too.

Big Dreams is a stormy ballad, Bailing On Me is a rockabilly meets pub rock tune about heartbreak, U Should Not Be Doing That is a middle finger up, empowerment anthem (with the music video featuring Steven Ogg of Grand Theft Auto fame), while Tiny Bikini explores bodily autonomy and peels back the layers of voyeurism and hypocrisy in the music industry (and it’s probably the most fun song you’ve heard about swimwear).

Amyl And The Sniffers kicked off the follow-up to 2021’s excellent Comfort To Me with singles U Should Not Be Doing That and Facts (during this chat, Amy Taylor tells us that she actually prefers Facts but was outnumbered and U Should Not Be Doing That made it to the album when the band realised it needed one more song), followed by Chewing Gum, Big Dreams, and now, Jerkin’. All singles couldn’t be further apart, highlighting the artistic leaps displayed on Cartoon Darkness.

We catch up with Taylor ahead of the release of Cartoon Darkness. She’s running late to our Zoom meeting, explaining that she’s put in the effort to look good for her first interview of the day. And she looks like a glamorous rock star.

Digging into Tiny Bikini, Taylor reveals that the riff comes first in the band’s songwriting. “I'm always scribbling away little thoughts, but most of the time, the lyrics that we end up using are just lyrics that I'll freestyle or riff,” she says.

“I might have an idea about a song, but then when I hear the guitar riff or the bass line, I'm like, ‘There's no way I can make these the same thing.’ A lot of the time, the song's energy speaks first, and then I'll try and respond with lyrics.”

The creation of Big Dreams was a bit different. Recalling that she and guitarist Declan Mehrtens were sitting in a room when he started playing the opening riff, Taylor says the song evolved naturally from there.

“We wrote the bulk of that song in just one go. There [were] no other bandmates there, so it was easy to make it kind of quiet,” she explains. “I didn't have to yell over anything because it was just me and the guitar. So, I think that's where the softness came from. And then, we were like, ‘Oh, [this is] actually kind of nice and chill.’ I really wanted it to almost feel like a spaghetti western song as well,” Taylor laughs. She was drawn to something different: melancholy.

“After the big lockdown Melbourne had, which is where I've lived for the last ten years, up until recently, the city felt like [it had] this really big sadness because a lot of people’s dreams couldn't really persevere, and we all got older, and we're all stuck. Even I was stuck, and not even just in the lockdown, but the way that still affects the city.”

She continues, “I felt a lot more isolated, even post-COVID, up until now. I don't know why that is, but I guess that melancholia is about having big dreams and seeing people's dreams not really come true.

“We're all getting older, and I just really hope that everybody's dreams can come true because a lot of people I know haven't yet, but when I see them doing what they're really good at, like, you know, I've got friends who are amazing performers, really good musicians or great filmmakers, whatever it is.

“When I see them doing it, I'm like, ‘Damn, you're lit. You've always been lit.’ It doesn't matter what happens; it's what you're good at, it's who you are. It doesn't matter if you get success or you don't, or you get money or you don't. That's what the beauty is: your talent.”

Even the sound of Cartoon Darkness is great, from the glam of U Should Not Be Doing That to the sass of Me And The Girls. And the production, helmed by Nick Launay (Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, IDLES) at Foo Fighters’ studio, Studio 606, shines as bright as the songs.

“There was a lot more instruments and stuff… I honestly don't know a lot about gear and that kind of stuff,” she says. “But because we recorded it on the same desk that Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was recorded on, and the same desk that Nirvana's Nevermind was recorded on, there were all these instruments and different things that the boys could play with.”

In a statement about the album, Amy Taylor said the album is about the “climate crisis, war, AI, tiptoeing on the eggshells of politics, and people feeling like they're helping by having a voice online when we’re all just feeding the data beast of Big Tech, our modern-day god.”

It finds the band in a space where they’re aware of being spoon-fed information that media and politicians want us to know, the numbness of doomscrolling, and the reality of a dark yet beautiful world. Somehow, somewhere, someplace, you’ll find Amyl And The Sniffers celebrating our weird and wonderful universe.

Her initial statement about the album continued, “Cartoon Darkness is driving headfirst into the unknown, into this looming sketch of the future that feels terrible but doesn’t even exist yet. A childlike darkness. I don’t want to meet the devil halfway and mourn what we have right now. The future is cartoon, the prescription is dark, but it's novelty. It's just a joke. It's fun.”

The album arrives after Taylor detailed her experiences of being treated with prejudice. She previously said that she feels people make rushed judgments about her voice and look without seeing the nuance and complexity she possesses, labelling her as “one-dimensional.”

“People think I’m one-dimensional,” Taylor said on the Boldly Me podcast with Chloé Hayden last year. “Or they go like ‘Oh, cos of the way she looks and dresses, like, oh her arse cheeks are out, she must be a dumb-arse.’ 

"Or, you know, like, ‘Because of the way she speaks, you must be uneducated’ – and look, I’m not crazy educated… but the main thing is I’m hungry to learn, and I ask questions, and that’s what a smart person does… It’s like all these prejudices wrapped up in one, but I’m just existing, and it can be complicated for people to understand that.”

During our conversation, Taylor shares how much she’s grown and how hard she’s worked on educating herself in the last year.

“I think that art is such a reaction to the world around us,” she begins. “I think that the world we exist in – it's becoming more and more obvious that it's not as we've been shown that it is...

“For me, I feel like it's inherently a reaction to that, and even though it's not directly talking about politics intensely, I feel like so much of my world is trying to understand the world around me because I honestly feel like I don't understand it. It feeds into that because I'm hungry to understand it, and I want to learn about it, and I don't want to be ignorant, and I don't want to not look at stuff that's hard or confusing or bad.

“I want to actually tackle it and confront it. And I think that as someone with a platform, it's cool to be able to do that publicly and show that you can learn, and you don't have to know everything from the start – you just have to open your heart because that's what it is. It's about loving the world around you and wanting to understand it, not about hating it.”

Taylor’s mindset is also reflected in the music. Cartoon Darkness, for all the gloom in the world, feels joyous. Taylor enthusiastically nods. “I think that’s inherently part of how I view the world. I would [have] only been politicised in the last five years by myself,” she says.

“Like, before that, I was like, ‘I don't understand it. It's beyond me.’ I don't want to make people feel bad if they don't know yet. I just want to invite them in and try and uplift them because that's what I needed with the world around me, is to invite me in to learn rather than tell me how stupid I am.”

Our chat takes place a week after Taylor hosted her highly anticipated 45-minute BIGSOUND keynote, which she was “very fucking nervous” about.

Taylor looks back on the experience fondly. “It's really different to performing music for some reason [laughs], like, I've never actually done any public speaking.

“I've never written an essay, and this was a 45-minute speech, you know? I did feel a lot of pressure on that speech for it to be a big mic drop moment. But honestly, once I was out there, I had a lot of fun because I did put a lot of time into the stuff that I wanted to talk about. I talked about my views on the music industry, my views on existence and my upbringing a little bit and did a little poem. It was fun in the end!”

She did face a pretty significant challenge, though: she had to learn to slow down. Taylor chuckles again, “It's really hard! Also, I listen to podcasts on, like, double speed. So, I was like, how the fuck am I going to talk slow enough so everyone can understand?”

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During her BIGSOUND keynote, she said that “being an Australian touring band is fucking hardcore,” raising the conversation around how difficult it is for Aussie acts to resonate with international audiences.

Musing further on those thoughts, she explains, “I never thought about it before until recently, when I've started meeting bands from overseas.

“For bands who live in the UK or Europe or America, it's a different ballpark for them because they're so attached to the Western world, like the northern hemisphere. It is actually really easy for them to fly to Europe and play a festival or a show or do these tours.

“All they have to do is rent a car and some backline they can hire around, whereas, for Australian bands, we are just so isolated from the rest of the world. So, to get overseas is way more expensive.”

Praising the Aussies who continue to get international attention, like King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, Confidence Man, and Baker Boy, Taylor adds: “To get press overseas to be interested when you can't be in the actual room with them is really hard. I've just started to realise that it is really difficult for Australian bands.

“It's not applauded enough that even if a band can get over for one tour, like, that's amazing because there really is so much support for Australian music overseas. Like, every time we play, I see people in the front row wearing a random band from Sydney's shirt, or whatever it is, and they're really excited by it, but it is just that extra step to get over there.”

In July 2025, Amyl And The Sniffers will join the Irish rap group Kneecap as both acts open for rock band Fontaines D.C. at Finsbury Park in London. Considering the similarities between Australian and Irish audiences – Kneecap and Fontaines D.C. have sold out numerous shows in Australia, while Amyl And The Sniffers have sold out shows in Ireland – Taylor says:

“I think about it in two ways. Because the Irish were colonised by the British as well, I feel like they probably have a similar feeling to the way that the First Nations people here feel. So, I guess there's that connection there… I don't know. Personally, I’m a really big fan of Fontaines D.C. and Kneecap. I'm trying to think of the words, but I like the almost childlike simplicity, and the lyrics are also super poetic. And, like, they just got a mad accent as well [laughs].”

With every opportunity presented to the band, Taylor just feels grateful to hear the generous feedback and enjoys that fans are relating to their music.

“Honestly, sometimes you can be your own worst critic,” she admits. “So, any time anybody feels positively, I’m like, ‘Oh, that's really awesome.’ I'm glad that it can reach a whole range of people, and I'm glad that there is support. And I like [hearing people say], ‘I have faith in music again,’ and all that stuff. Like, that's a great reaction.

“It is strange, though, sometimes because it puts this pressure on you. Like, does that mean you can't sway from who you are? But then, I try and think that they like you for who you are at that time and who you are at that time can never be taken away because even if I change, that version of me still exists forever.”

Cartoon Darkness will be released on Friday, 24 October via Virgin Music Group. You can pre-order/pre-save the album here.