The Last Dinner Party are making their first foray into Minnesota this week as part of their North American tour in support of their debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, released on February 2 of this year.

Ahead of their sold-out show at First Avenue in Minneapolis, guitarist Emily Roberts and lead vocalist Abigail Morris stopped at The Current for a live conversation with host Jessica Paxton. Listen to the interview using the audio player above, and read a transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Jessica Paxton: Jessica Paxton with you on this Thursday afternoon, and I am so darn excited to be joined live in studio by not one but two members of the incredible, buzzy, breakout British band, The Last Dinner Party. Joining me, Abigail Morris and Emily Roberts. Welcome.

Abigail Morris: Thanks. I like that alliteration. "Buzzy British breakout band!"

Jessica Paxton: I'm, like, all about the alliteration, so any opportunity to indulge, I will most certainly take advantage of that. Well, I have to say it's not only super fun to have you guys here this afternoon ahead of your sold-out performance tonight at First Avenue, but as we were listening to that final track from HAIM, Abigail, who's the lead singer of the band, singing along and we're all like, "Oh my gosh, you sound so good. You could be like the fourth HAIM sister!"

Abigail Morris: Maybe I should start a band…

Jessica Paxton: [Laughs] Well, speaking of which, talk about how The Last Dinner Party came about. You guys have a really interesting story. I understand you met as students in the U.K., obviously a shared love for music, a shared love maybe for wanting to be a rock star. How did the band come about?

Abigail Morris: So I guess it started when Georgia [Davies] and Lizzie [Mayland] and I met at uni. I'd been writing songs and kind of wanting to start a band or something like that. And I met Georgia and Lizzie, and we were all studying at the same uni, and then Lizzie went to a different one, but we met the same one. And then we started putting together the band. And then I asked my friend who was at music school, "Who's the best guitarist you know?" And he said, "Emily Roberts." And then through Em, we met Aurora [Nishevci] because you guys were working on another project.

Jessica Paxton: So speaking of "the best guitarist," Emily Roberts, as I was reading up on the band, I understand that Emily, you were, or are, Brian May, the legendary guitarist, Brian May, in a U.K. Queen tribute band.

Emily Roberts: I was briefly. We were going to — well, this band, this tribute band, got together because we were going to play on cruises. So that's what I would be doing if I wasn't doing this, maybe.

Jessica Paxton: Cruises down the Thames, perhaps? That's amazing. Well, you know, Brian May, obviously legendary guitarist, and way to totally kick it and step in and strut your stuff. I am in incredible awe of that. So you guys come together, I understand, you had a very clear vision, you had a very definitive idea for the kind of sound, the kind of aesthetic you guys wanted to represent. Maybe talk about that a little bit, too, for people who aren't familiar with you.

Abigail Morris: We're on opposite sides of the room!

Jessica Paxton: I'm getting whiplash here looking at you both.

Abigail Morris: Just keep turning in circles! It's, yeah, it's funny, because we approached it with a really clear idea. But the clear idea wasn't a specific genre and look; it was more of an ethos, which was just sort of maximalist and sincere, and — I can't think of the right word — "expressionful." But we made a lot of mood boards and listened to, had a lot of references and ... but from the beginning, I think we knew that we didn't want to put up barriers or boxes, and be like, "We're this one specific genre and this one specific aesthetic," because that would be boring, I think, for us. And we like to just give ourselves free rein to follow what we like. So it's yeah, it's less of a studied approach to one thing, more of an embracing of a lot of different aspects.

Jessica Paxton: OK!  And that makes total sense. I was thinking about how as a band, The Last Dinner Party, you take sort of rock and roll stereotypes, but you sort of kick them to the curb. So it's like there's that inspiration, that maybe musical legacy of other artists, but you're totally putting a different spin on things. I have heard a lot of comparisons to the likes of Kate Bush, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Roxy Music, Queen — Brian May once again — and then Florence and The Machine, who I understand Florence Welch, a big fan of you guys, that must be kind of a pinch me moment.

Emily Roberts: Yeah!

Jessica Paxton: We are talking to Emily Roberts and Abigail Morris of the band The Last Dinner Party who have a sold-out performance tonight at First Avenue; doors are at 6:30, there's an opening set at 7:30 by Miss Grit, a Korean American sci-fi electronic musician who goes also by the name of Margaret Sohn. Is this your first U.S. tour?

Emily Roberts: We did another one before Christmas, but just like five dates, so it was like a very like small run. We did like New York Chicago. Yeah.

Jessica Paxton: So I assume, then, it is your first time in Minnesota?

Emily Roberts: Oh, yeah.

Jessica Paxton: And immediate thoughts?

Abigail Morris: We've not seen much of it.

Emily Roberts: We've just seen the two hours of it.

Abigail Morris: I just know that there's the accent, "Minnesota" [pronounced in a Minnesota accent]. I've heard that. Is that — or was I just really offensive then?

Jessica Paxton: No, no, no, absolutely. Actually, I like how you said "Minnesota. 

Abigail Morris: Is that right? Or did I just totally ruin this whole thing?

Jessica Paxton: No, no, I this is not going to make any sense, but people talk like they think we talk, like in the movie Fargo.

Abigail Morris: Yeah!

Jessica Paxton: But we don't!

Abigail Morris: OK!

Jessica Paxton: We talk like you just did, so it's more of a Canadian, kind of the long vowels.

Abigail Morris: Yeah, I thought that. Yeah.

Jessica Paxton: No, you nailed it.

Abigail Morris: OK, cool. Cool.

Jessica Paxton: It was perfect. It was perfect. So I've heard descriptions of your performances as sort of "a Renaissance painting come to life." What maybe are audiences going to be in store for tonight? Any special surprises, any special... Any tricks up your sleeve?

Emily Roberts: We usually do one or two new things, new songs unheard, maybe throw in a cover. So yeah, you'll definitely get things not just from the album. It'll be, you know, a treat!

Jessica Paxton: And I heard that, so your debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, released in February of this year at number one on the U.K. albums chart, which is very exciting. But I think I read somewhere that between when you guys first formed and when the album was released, you've got a lot of material that you, you know, that's not on the album. There's so much more than the 12 tracks on the album, that are truly incredible from start to finish, I will say. Well, first I just want to ask, so the songwriting process, we've got the lead singer Abigail Morris here, incredible guitarist Emily Roberts. Emily, I understand you also play the mandolin, the flute and sing. So you're like a—

Abigail Morris: Renaissance woman.

Jessica Paxton: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But so what is sort of the songwriting process? There's such a literary element, I feel like, to your music, and it's so unique in terms of the melody and the structure. And again, the lyrics. How does it all come together?

Abigail Morris: Well, it depends. So for most of the songs on this record, bar two, were songs that I'd written kind of just fully as piano demos. So there's kind of the lyrics and the, like, structure was kind of there. And then when everyone came and worked on it together, they blossomed into these, you know, huge, beautiful, wonderful things. Like, you know, "Nothing Matters," I wrote it, and it was kind of a very sad piano ballad, and then we put a guitar solo on it, and now it became, you know, like, they couldn't have been the songs that they are now if, you know, this band didn't happen.

And then "Sinner" happened in a similar way; Lizzie wrote that. And then you guys kind of put a lot of, put five different guitar solos in in one, and that's how that magic happened. And yeah, but now we're kind of trying different ways. Sometimes it's still just like a whole finished song, and we'll just work on it like that.

And then there's a song that we do live sometimes called "Big Dog," which started, we wrote it the day "Nothing Matters" came out, and we all were at Aurora's house, and we were so nervous, but we were kind of like, "Oh, let's channel energy into writing a song!" And then there was, Aurora had a new synth, and we just sat around it making weird noises, and then kind of built the song around it. So yeah, you know, we like to experiment with different ways of writing. So I think it's boring to just follow the same formula every time.

Jessica Paxton: Well, it sounds like you all have like a very sincere passion for the creative process and for the music that you're creating, again, not following the standard trajectory in terms of a rock and roll band, but really trying to put your own signature, unique spin on it. I have to say you speaking of Aurora, I love the track and I hope I'm pronouncing this right, "Gjuha."

Abigail Morris: "Gjuha."

Jessica Paxton: "Gjuha," which I guess translates to "tongue" in Albanian. What an incredible, first of all, an absolutely gorgeous track, but I will admit kind of a surprise inclusion on, you know, you don't hear something like that on your standard quote-unquote, rock and roll album. Maybe talk a little bit about that song and that process.

Abigail Morris: Yeah, that was the other really nice, collaborative one that we, that was one of the last songs I think we wrote for the record, because we were at a studio kind of finishing things, and then it was a very dark and cold autumnal evening, and we'd started writing what was going to be an aria, like an interlude perhaps.

Emily Roberts: Kind of inspired by Jeff Buckley.

Jessica Paxton: Oh my gosh!

Emily Roberts: "Corpus Christi Carol."

Abigail Morris: Yeah. And it was gonna be kind of perhaps instrumental, and then we had a melody, and then Aurora and I had already been talking about, you know, maybe if she wanted to sing something in Albanian, if that was something that she'd like to do. And then we were like, "Oh, why not this song?" And then how she describes the process is she felt daunted to write a song in Albanian because she's from Kosovo, but she grew up in London, and didn't really speak a lot of Albanian when she was growing up, because she went to school in England, and you know, and then she said that when she came when it came to writing in Albanian, she felt kind of confronted by her not being able to speak Albanian and as well as she wanted to. So she wrote the song, is about that, is about struggling with language and the relationship with your mother tongue growing up in England. Yeah, and it's so beautiful. It's quite meta.

Jessica Paxton: Well, it's such a beautiful song. But as you described, it's such a beautiful tribute as well. And just touching upon, you know, that idea of a spoken tongue, mother tongue, and being able to communicate; you know, you think of a family with different generations and different first languages, and I just thought that was such a beautiful addition to what is truly a fantastic album from start to finish. Again, we're joined this afternoon by Abigail Morris and Emily Roberts of the band, The Last Dinner Party, along with other members, Georgia and Aurora. You guys are playing tonight, a sold-out performance at First Avenue — and Lizzie! My goodness, I'm so sorry!

Abigail Morris: Well, Lizzie's lost her voice, so maybe that's why.

Jessica Paxton: Lizzie lost her voice, and obviously I completely forgot. My apologies, Lizzie. So you guys are here though, correct me if I'm wrong, but this North American tour based on ending up at Coachella I understand in a few weeks, which is a huge honor for a relatively quote-unquote new band to be performing. What are you most looking forward to in the desert? Other than being in the desert, of course.

Emily Roberts: Um, Raye?

Abigail Morris: Raye.

Emily Roberts: Possibly meeting Raye.

Abigail Morris: Yeah, we're big fans of Raye.

Emily Roberts: Saw her perform a medley of her songs at the Brits, and she was like outstanding, unbelievable. Like, I kind of wished I'd have known her music better before listening to it. But even not knowing the songs, it was mind blowing. Yeah, it was fantastic.

Abigail Morris: I'd probably like to see Tyler, The Creator. I'm also just in general, just so intrigued by Coachella, especially coming from England. It's such a kind of mythic thing. And every time we mention it to someone, the reaction is always really interesting. It's kind of like, "Oh, oooh! Mmm! Yeah! Ooh!" I'm doing like an impression there. But it's um, yeah, I'm interested to be in the desert and see all the cool outfits and the weird vibes.

Jessica Paxton: I like that, "the cool outfits and the weird vibes."

Emily Roberts: Yeah!

Jessica Paxton: Well, it is such a thrill to have you guys here. Again, The Last Dinner Party's debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy, out now, 12 tracks all recorded live. I mean, that's just a testament to your creative and musical process as well. That's incredible. You have a sold-out performance tonight at First Avenue, it is sold out. Doors at 6:30, an opening set at 7:30 by Miss Grit.

Abigail Morris: Don't miss her!

Jessica Paxton: Don't miss her. I've heard she's absolutely incredible.

Abigail Morris: She is. She is fantastic.

Jessica Paxton: Awesome. Well, I want to thank you guys both so much again. And my apologies to Lizzie. Please give my best as well to Georgia and Aurora. Emily Roberts, Abigail Morris, such a thrill to meet you. Congrats on the release. Have fun tonight, and good luck on the rest of the tour. I understand it's kind of non stop through 2024.

Abigail Morris: Yeah.

Emily Roberts: Yee-hah! 

Jessica Paxton: Well, awesome. Well, we're gonna wrap up with a track from Prelude to Ecstasy. You can find the band online. Again, thanks to Abigail and Emily, this is "The Feminine Urge" on The Current.

Emily Roberts: Thank you. 

Abigail Morris: Thank you.

External Link

The Last Dinner Party – official site