Q&A: The Last Dinner Party Talks First Glastonbury Show, Live Community and New Single “Sinner”
THE SPARK THAT WILL IGNITE THE NEXT BIG MAXIMALIST MOVEMENT — baroque-alternative quintet The Last Dinner Party is taking the music world by storm, one breathtaking corset costume at a time. In an era in which it feels like most bubbling artists are discovered from a 10-second song snippet, it’s refreshing to see a band that relies on the awe of their live performance and yearns to build a strong community for their fans.
Composed of lead vocalist Abigail Morris, guitarists Lizzie Mayland and Emily Roberts, bassist Georgia Davies, and keyboardist Aurora Nishevci, the group came to be during university and picked up some members after meeting at shows around London. Finding like-minded people who wanted to create music as well as an entire aesthetic was key to their early success. With only two songs out, The Last Dinner Party has just played their first Glastonbury set, opened for Florence And The Machine, and are about to play their first headliner shows. Following these experiences, they will set out on tour with Hozier in the UK and Europe this fall.
It's hard not to want a seat at the table after hearing Morris sing the first lines of their debut single, “Nothing Matters.” Her strong theatrical voice is immediately supported by a flurry of indie guitars and sweet bass lines. Not to mention the overtly bold lyricism and storytelling that weaves through the track.
Their latest single, “Sinner,” is a powerful follow-up. The track is paired with an energetic music video, following the band as they perform in a somewhat dismal abandoned dance hall.
We were lucky enough to speak with Morris and Mayland about everything that goes into hosting the best dinner party of the century. Luckily, there’s an open seat for anyone that would like to attend, so read down below to learn more.
LUNA: I wanted to start by diving into your story as a band. When you all met during university, did you expect that you would quickly get to the point you’re at now? I mean, really taking off as a group?
MORRIS: I mean, we didn't expect it to happen so quickly and so intensely. We were ambitious from the start, and we wanted to take it really seriously and try and do our best to put the music out and build an audience. But in no way were we thinking, “Oh yeah, we'll play Glastonbury within a year of starting.”
Lizzie, Georgia, and I met at uni in London and became friends first, and then we met Em and Aurora a little bit later. They were at music uni, Aurora was doing composition, and Em was doing jazz, so that added a lot of scope to the sound.
I don't think it felt for any of us just like a hobby … It was obviously really fun and really exciting, but… Did you feel the same, Lizzie? Like, from the very beginning? It felt like this is what we wanted to do.
MAYLAND: Yeah. We were all still in uni as we started playing together, and this is the first band I've ever been in, so I was just like, “Sick, I get to be in a band!” The more times we rehearsed together and spoke about it, the wider the world got. And suddenly we’re like, “Oh, we're playing in a band together.” It was this whole universe — [a] sonic universe, visual universe. There are so many avenues that we suddenly kind of exploded into.
We were obviously distracted doing lots of other things when we first started and we all got our degrees. We stuck to it. Stay in school!
LUNA: The live element of your group seems to be the thing that has really pulled people in. Was that intentional from the start? What are you hoping to create for fans and others who come to see you live?
MORRIS: I think there's two things for that question. One, which is what we want to achieve for us on stage. And then another one, which is how we want people to feel.
We were having a discussion very early on about that question … “How do we want people to feel at our gigs and when they leave?” And what we kind of landed on was that we want people to leave the show feeling like they've just been at the best dinner party they've ever been to, with the coolest people and the best conversation. You're a bit drunk and you're full of ideas and energy.
And I think that's maybe the crux of it … that we want people to feel energized and inspired and excited. That they've just been in a room with people [who] understand them: us and the other members of the audience. And then I think from a visual, practical level … we've always wanted [the live show] to be interesting, not just five people standing in a line playing music.
MAYLAND: It wants to be theatrical and exciting, and we always take a lot of time planning what we're going to wear and things like that. So, yeah, kind of a double spectacle.
LUNA: That goes in so nicely to my next topic. I wanted to discuss the dramatics of your aesthetic as a band. With a big vein of indie music being a bit more mellow, do you feel like you’re the people leading the charge of creating more big, dramatic shows? Do you think that it will catch on?
MAYLAND: That’s all there was in London, pre-pandemic. It felt like [that] to me, anyway — apart from your standouts, like Black Midi and [those] kind of more theatrical things. But I feel like the pandemic was so stifling. People just want to really revel in live performance now, get dressed up and go out.
I don't know, it was only two years, but it was a massive two years for the world and art and music. So I think we've come at a very good time, [when] people are really ready to open arms, embrace maximalism, and just revel in having a good time and being out there.
LUNA: Touching a little more on the live show, how was playing your first Glastonbury? Are you excited for more touring coming up soon?
MORRIS: Glastonbury was insane. It was, I think, my favorite show we've ever done. We were all crying.
MAYLAND: And it was our first time going, as well. None of us had been because it's so hard to get a ticket. It was like, “Oh, free ticket.” We ran off stage right after our set, like, “Let’s go - get the timetables!”
MORRIS: We're doing kind of first headline dates. Lots of festivals, and then we're doing a tour in October, and then we're going on tour with Hozier.
LUNA: I wanted to talk about your incredible outfits and fashion when you’re performing. Do you all come up with your costumes and go shopping for live show pieces together?
MORRIS: Yeah, I feel like it's funny, we don't actually go shopping that much, which is good. I feel like we've managed that, because I think we just all luckily convened together and we all kind of had similar aesthetics. We had things in our wardrobes that work together. And we've been really lucky to have designers we love lend us clothes as well. So we save a lot of money.
I think in our group chat before every show, we always ask, “What’s the theme going to be?” Then we'll send each other photos of our outfits and kind of do that together and lend each other pieces. That's a really fun bit.
MAYLAND: We love dressing up, and often someone will find they'll go shopping and find something and wear it to the gate and they'll be like, “Where's that from?” And then we'll start or go check out. There's a few independent London sellers … We've come to love doing it that way, as well.
LUNA: You just released your second single, “Sinner,” and we’re all hoping for an album soon, so I’m curious about your writing process. Do you all make the time and space to write everything together?
MAYLAND: It kind of varies. I think it depends what point whoever's writing it got to with the demo — or if it's just piano and voice, which a lot of them from Abi have been. And then sometimes you took it a lot further.
Then we kind of add parts as a band together. “Sinner” was more like… I wrote an initial idea and then worked with Aurora, and then everyone came in and put the bass line and put the backing vocals [on], and it kind of built into this bigger sound. So, yeah, I don't know, we're still kind of figuring it out. In the grand scheme of things, we haven't been together that long.
MORRIS: We don't have a set route. It really varies, and I think that's kind of like a nice way to do it. I think it's fun to constantly approach songs from different angles, rather than having a set formula every time. As an artist, you can get trapped into repeating things and not challenging yourself.
I found that, personally, as a songwriter, I've improved and grown so much by playing with a band, because before I was always writing on my own with a piano. And there's only so far you can get creatively with just doing the same thing every time. And I think it's such a blessing that there's five of us, and we constantly just experiment with different approaches, and that's really exciting.
LUNA: I’m someone who loves seeing bands go from DIY to having more label support for bigger projects. That being said, are there any standout memories from creating your upcoming album?
MORRIS: I feel like we're incredibly lucky. And I think it's amazing because we're all so ambitious with the sound and with what we want to do. And I think we found ourselves in an incredibly lucky position, where we're working with people: with our label, with James Ford, who produced the album.
On one of the songs we have fake tubular bells on, which is just this big, weird, distorted bell sound. And we were like, “Can we have real tubular bells?” And then they actually bore real tubular bells, and they're like these huge … pipes, and I got to play them, which was very cool, but very good.
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