The Second Course: The Last Dinner Party on fame, feminism, firestorms and album two

It’s a balmy afternoon in early July and The Last Dinner Party — decked out in an array of white chiffons and silks — are peering down the barrel of a camera lens at a north London studio with an intensity and poise that gives the rightful impression that they’re pros at this sort of thing. Guitarist/vocalist Lizzie Mayland crouches in a powerful, wide-legged pose that evokes the spirit of 70s Bowie, while their bandmates — Abigail Morris, Georgia Davies, Aurora Nishevci and Emily Roberts — cut similarly imposing figures as they flank their friend.

But then the imposing mood changes. A quick break is called on set and the sounds of rising US pop star Addison Rae fill the room. Instantly, grins are plastered across the band’s faces as they start geeing themselves up and briefly goof around to the sounds of Rae’s super-hit ‘Diet Pepsi’. They can strike a pose and deliver a killer shot when needed, but you sense they also know when not to take things too seriously.

It’s the kind of mindset that no doubt comes in handy when you’re in The Last Dinner Party, a band tasked with comprehending a list of achievements in just over two years that seem as endless as they are impressive. When they released their debut single ‘Nothing Matters’ in April 2023, Rolling Stone UK said in our first interview with them that they “might just be your new favourite band”. To back up that sentiment, we gave them the Rising Star Award at our inaugural Rolling Stone UK Awards in November that year. The nine million YouTube views of ‘Nothing Matters’ would suggest that the wider world agreed with us. 

Then there’s the fact that their acclaimed 2024 debut album Prelude to Ecstasy achieved the UK’s biggest sales in nine years for a debut album in its first week. Sold-out tours followed, including three nights at the Hammersmith Apollo, and the moment they confirmed their place at the top table of UK music after delivering an electrifying rendition of their debut track at the BRIT Awards this year — just 12 months after winning that competition’s Rising Star Award too.

Now, with their excellent second album From the Pyre set for release in October, the band returns to Rolling Stone UK, this time as bonafide cover stars. “This feels like our Almost Famous moment,” singer Abigail Morris says with a smile when we meet the five-piece in the café of the National Theatre a week before the band’s cover shoot. The London group say that this record — which arrives a mere 18 months after their debut — came partly from a desire to embrace the momentum, but also simply because they never stopped writing. 

“There’s never been a gap of separation where at one point we were like, ‘OK, it’s now time for album two,’” says Morris. “It was always happening; we wanted to write new songs and we knew that’s what we had to do.”

A listen of the second album reveals that the band’s familiar and brilliant brand of 70s-flecked baroque pop and art-rock bombast is as present as ever, but change is evident too. They began working on the record with producer James Ford in late 2024, but the reins were taken up by Markus Dravs — known for his work with Coldplay and Florence & The Machine — when Ford was diagnosed with leukaemia earlier this year. 

Ford — who is now thankfully in remission — told the group in a text message to “have fun, be bold and make a classic record”, and it was these words that loomed large after they were written on a studio whiteboard. 

In heeding that advice, they have created an album they believe to be more “fearless” than their debut and more direct too. That’s shown on the bold lead single ‘This Is The Killer Speaking’ — which feels like their first ever country pop moment and is enriched by one of their biggest choruses to date. Fittingly, recent performances have seen Morris striding the stage in a cowboy hat to give the song a powerful dose of yeehaw. 

There’s also ‘The Scythe’, a slow-burning rock epic and a reflection of the “darker” edge which the band say is all too present on album two. It began life as a break-up song that Morris wrote as a teenager, but it was only a short while later, when asked by her sibling, that she realised it was actually a rumination on the death of her father. “Don’t cry, we’re bound together / Each life runs its course…” sings Morris. As that track shows, it’s a deeply personal record, and while the band will lean into the fantastical and surreal, everything that’s discussed on the album is incredibly real.

“This album is a different way of describing very real events,” Morris explains. “Nothing is made up and there’s nothing that hasn’t happened. Me and Georgia spoke about this a lot when we were in Japan and we’d finished the record. We’d found a new way of mythologising where everything that happened is true, but the whole record is about the nature of being an artist, and what does it mean to take a love story that happened to you, and to take that person and turn them into a character that’s immortalised in a song. When does that person stop being the real person you were in a relationship with and start becoming a character that is separate from that? That, for me, is what a lot of these songs cover.”

When we chat a week later, the singer elaborates further and says she’s had “situation-ships” with other unnamed artists that have weaved their way into these songs. The slinky opener ‘Agnus Dei’ even contains the most cryptic of nods that only her partner will clock.

“I feel like I’ve spoken with so many artists who are in relationships with other artists and they use their albums and artwork to offer a secret code to them. You’re looking out for those moments, and I’ve done it too. In that song I interpolated a melody from the song of someone that I was seeing at the time,” she says. “It’s not like I want them to know or the world to know, it’s just I know and that’s really entertaining to me.”

In the age of internet detectives and stans, is she not worried about someone breaking that down? “Go ahead!” Morris affirms. “It’s a deep cut, they just wouldn’t.” 

Another side to the record comes in ‘Rifle’, a sludgy, stoner-rock-flecked song which speaks of “boots and rifles stained with red”. It feels like the band’s own ‘War Pigs’ moment and it doesn’t take a genius in the days of 2025 to work out that — even if not directly mentioned — there’s a very modern parallel to be drawn. 

“I started that song a while ago when I was thinking about warmongering men and how unfair it is that people are forced into wars and forced to live in war zones against their will because that’s what some man in a suit has decided,” explains Mayland in our first chat at the National Theatre. “So, I started writing it, but more recently with everything that’s going on in Palestine, I was just so angry and helpless, and I just feel like I couldn’t do anything more than release this scream through music.” 

When we meet at the shoot a week later, the issue of Palestine and artists speaking out about the conflict has become the main talking point from Glastonbury over the weekend. The punk duo Bob Vylan have had their visas revoked by the US after frontman Bobby Vylan chanted “Death to the IDF!” before clarifying in an online post that he was not “for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people”. He wrote on Instagram: “We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine.”

Mayland says of that moment: “None of us are activists as a job, and I do feel for me there’s a way to be totally authentic about what I feel and what I want to stand for, without necessarily [showing it] at festivals. But I think there’s so many different ways to talk about it. 

“Whether that’s in a nuanced way, a one-to-one interview like now, a song, or even a chant at a festival. I think all of them are important and valid, so it’s a case of figuring out what feels right. It’s important to talk, especially when you feel strongly for Palestinians being oppressed in Gaza.”

Later that day, Mayland revisits the issue to clarify their words: “I find it really difficult to talk about what’s going on because I really care and it’s so highly emotional. On that point when I was talking about us not being activists, I mean it in the sense that I haven’t practised it in a public setting, so that’s why it feels scary. But it’s very high stakes and also essential. I want to make it absolutely crystal-clear that we stand with the Palestinian people. It’s not a war; it’s a genocide. It’s completely inexcusable and that has always been our stance and it always will be.”  

To illustrate that point further, the band announce days later that they will be showing a QR code to encourage donations for medical aid for Palestinians throughout the rest of their 2025 festival run. 

When the Last Dinner Party first emerged in 2023, there was a sense of boldness and an overall feeling that here was a band who knew exactly what they wanted to be from the very start. When ‘Nothing Matters’ arrived in April 2023, it established Morris as a singer with shades of Kate Bush and the face of a band so singular and fully formed in their vision that it felt impossible for many to comprehend. 

This — paired with the fact that they landed a record deal with Island before releasing a single — led to accusations that the band were industry plants. The fact of the matter is that a YouTube video of a scrappy early gig near Millwall FC’s ground in deepest south London was enough to spark a label bidding war, but the damage — in the form of vitriolic backlash online — was already done. 

It was a tricky time, the band say, but they’re no longer willing to let the truth get distorted on the eve of a new era. It no doubt helps that they’re an incredibly close unit too. There’s an unspoken shorthand throughout our chat where the eyes of each bandmate will collectively land on the person that they feel is most suitable to answer a question. Or, quite simply, the overwhelming sense that they’ve managed to stay really good mates during the kinds of storms that could easily strain a lesser connected band. 

“I think we do have thicker skin when it comes to people talking bullshit online about us. We’re more prepared to be like, ‘OK, but that’s a lie,’” says Georgia Davies. “It was quite shocking to see it for the first time and for people to believe it, but at this point we’ve seen it thrown at people who are quite obviously not a plant and have had a well-documented rise like Chappell [Roan]. I think seeing it happen to female artists across the board is just like, ‘OK, mate! Sure!’

“In the band, we live in such a bubble of being so heard and so valued as artists. Our abilities are trusted among each other and among our crew. With that moment and other moments through a woman’s life you realise that misogyny is still a big thing, and it’s very alarming to be like, ‘Oh, you do think that I’m not as smart, as capable, because I’m a woman, and we’re women in the band.’ It’s quite confronting to see someone who thinks there’s no way that this could exist without a man pulling the strings behind it. It’s just very, very sad.”

Then there’s the small matter of the fuel on the fire that engulfed the band last year when an article from The Times asked: “Is there a future for bands?” and featured a quote attributed to Morris which claimed that “people don’t want to listen to post-punk and hear about the cost-of-living crisis anymore.” 

The piece then went on to pointedly note that Morris had attended “the liberal boarding school Bedales” in Hampshire “where fees can be £43,000 a year” and suggested that “the cost-of-living crisis probably isn’t a huge issue for Morris.” Within hours of the piece’s publication, Morris was pilloried and deemed “tone deaf”, as an entire Daily Mail article dedicated to the furore noted.

The only problem, as an apology from The Times acknowledged, was that Morris never said those words. They instead came as part of a wider point, stripped of all context, made by Davies in a separate interview some six months previously. She noted how the band’s theatrical music could provide escapism from “the brutality of our current political climate”. But by that point, the quote had spread across the whole internet and back again. 

“It was my worst nightmare, and it still stresses me out,” Morris explains. “I get very anxious doing interviews now. I feel fine at the moment, but it hurt me so deeply and made it incredibly hard for me to be confident doing interviews or speaking publicly at all. Even at the BRITs this year I didn’t want to say anything if we won because I didn’t want anyone to perceive me or my voice in a certain way. I’m still getting over it, honestly, because it hurt me, and it was really horrible.”

When we revisit the subject a week later, she reflects: “In retrospect, I really understand why that anger happened, and it wasn’t about me as a person. I think people found it easy to blame me personally for the innate disparity that exists in the music industry and, you know, it’s not my fault. Just because I went to private school, it doesn’t mean I started this problem. The vitriol was symptomatic of a wider problem, and people singled me out because I represented all of that and they needed a figurehead to pin it on. And part of the reason it was so tough is because it represented us as having a view that we don’t have. 

“We’re so against the things that have been said, and I do understand that anger can be like a heat-seeking missile sometimes. I feel like I’ve spoken to people who retweeted negative things about me and none of them were rude to my face, you know, we’re friends and it’s like, yeah, people need somewhere to put their anger and that’s kind of what happened, I think. But don’t do it again, please! It hurt my feelings.”

In response, the band says they’re doing their bit to help redress the balance within the music industry by teaming up with the charity Independent Venue Community — for which they are ambassadors — to allow local kids to visit their soundchecks at venues across the UK on their next tour. “We want kids from local schools to come and learn about what it’s like to be in the music industry, because it’s such an easy thing to do,” explains Davies.

“There needs to be redistribution of funding too, because God knows that Bedales doesn’t need any more,” admits Morris. “We want to level the field and part of that is just being shown and being told that you can do it. I was in the incredibly lucky position of going to a school where I expressed interest in being a musician and it was encouraged. We’re trying to give people that same opportunity of showing them that is possible, and it’s not closed off to you. I understand that funding gets cut and arts is always the first thing to go. It’s an institutional problem, but if we can do small things here and there, then that’s exactly what we will do.” 

All of this scrutiny, however, speaks volumes of just how much The Last Dinner Party are turning heads and getting noticed in all the right places. They supported Olivia Rodrigo at BST Hyde Park in June and say that the US singer was keen to tell them how ‘The Feminine Urge’, a stand-out track from their debut album, will likely take its place in her Spotify Wrapped at the end of the year. There is also the sense that both are moving mountains to make rock music more inclusive, as shown in the thousands of young women in attendance to see both Rodrigo and the band.

“It’s pretty lovely,” notes Nishevci of their young, heavily female crowd. “It’s sweet, it’s wholesome and you feel a sense of community like you’re in something together.”

They also have, as Guitar World noted last year, a “Queen-inspired indie guitar hero” in the form of Emily Roberts, who even invited Brian May to a Hammersmith show last year. Roberts’ solo on ‘Nothing Matters’ was a defining part of the track’s success, and there’s a sense that, to borrow a phrase from another set of guitar gods, she gets to turn it up to 11 on this new record. In the process, she’s inspiring women of all ages to pick up the axe. 

“I get emotional because I see myself in those people,” says Roberts as she wipes away a tear. “There was a lady in her fifties who came up to us after a signing and she said, ‘I picked the guitar because of you!’ The fact that it can inspire any age and any gender is just an amazing thing.” 

The new album ends with ‘Inferno’, a joyous, piano-led finale that reflects the realities of life in the band. There may be sold-out shows across the globe, but as Morris notes, there’s a fair bit of “watching The Real Housewives and crawling up the walls”. In order to counter any sense of malaise, the band say, there’s a conscious effort to do fun things in new cities. “You might be tired but still going out and finding something to do, like going for a drink after a show is really important,” notes Davies. “Just trying to find moments to pack in the most fun is really important for your mental health.”

Morris shares a story about a night out after a show in Japan. “We went to this karaoke bar with our entire crew and there was a live band backing us. We drank a million pitchers of beer, and Georgia and I sang ‘Video Games’ by Lana Del Rey and we were so drunk that we had these thousand-yard stares,” says Morris.

Or, even wilder, a boat trip in Lake Tahoe. “We’d hired speedboats. We’re drinking champagne, screaming naked, Lizzie is doing doughnuts and all the other people in dinghies on Lake Tahoe were wondering ‘Who are these topless freaks pouring champagne on each other?’ Poor Emily was so scared she was white-knuckling.”

A boat ride, then, that feels oddly emblematic of the band’s journey so far. A decent amount of champagne to toast their achievements, a few raised eyebrows in some quarters and, overall, one hell of a white-knuckle ride. When From the Pyre arrives, you sense that the journey, for one of Britain’s most exciting bands, is about to get even wilder.

Photography by Rachell Smith
Fashion Styling by Rubina Vita Marchiori
Styling Assistants: Elena Scanagatta, Bella Purse, Lara Sandres, Alina Polifka, Zoe Ward, Ellerie Hamilton
Hair by Hannah Godley
Makeup by Dakota Blacklaws-Lacy and Ruby Yu