The Last Dinner Party are playing with fire and having a blast

The secret to The Last Dinner Party’s success? Shared joy. The five mates – vocalist Abigail Morris, bassist Georgia Davis, keyboard player Aurora Nishevci, guitarists Lizzie Mayland and Emily Roberts – who started a band because they thought it looked like fun, have ensured that pure excitement is the driving force behind everything that has followed. From scrappy gigs in East London pubs and the buzz around 2023’s breakout single ‘Nothing Matters’ to touring the world in support of debut album ‘Prelude To Ecstacy’, a gorgeous record which found belonging and celebration through grief, the band have led with pure delight.

Becoming a sensation over an intense ten months did lead to a few growing pains, though. The Last Dinner Party were accused of being the product of a major label boardroom by trolls on the internet, and the discourse spread. It meant that for the first chapter of their career, the group were forced to defend themselves. “We’ve explained ourselves so many times at this point, our roots are so obvious now,” Georgia explains. “I guess we’re not that suspicious anymore,” adds Abi with a smirk on the cusp of chapter two.

What was less easy to reckon with was just how unavoidable The Last Dinner Party became. The band couldn’t walk down the street without seeing their faces on billboards, and everything from a visit to a local café to a bleary-eyed 5am arrival at a London airport was typically soundtracked by at least one of their songs. “It was pretty bonkers,” says Abi. “We didn’t have time to think about what was going on, and it was all just quite manic.”

The thing that kept them grounded through the success and undeserved backlash? “Each other,” say the band in perfect unison. “Can you make sure to put in how cute and in sync we are?” asks Abi.

“Being in a band with four other people makes such a huge difference in terms of feeling safe, confident and bolstered. You just feel really strong,” she continues. And you can hear that across their new album ‘From The Pyre’. Released 18 months after ‘Prelude’, it’s a darker, cheekier take on The Last Dinner Party’s smirking glam rock that never tries to distance itself from what’s come before. “We don’t see ourselves in different eras; this is just the natural evolution from the first record,” says Abi. “It feels different because we’ve grown older, we’ve had more experiences, and our tastes have changed, but you can tell it’s the same band. We’re not trying to rewrite who The Last Dinner Party are.”

“We’re not trying to rewrite who The Last Dinner Party are”

The Last Dinner Party’s mantra for ‘From The Pyre’ was “more is more” and the whiteboard in the studio was topped with an encouraging message from ‘Prelude’s producer James Ford – “have fun, be bold and make a classic album”.

Easier said than done, but the group weren’t phased about following up their hugely successful debut, even if it was the first time The Last Dinner Party were hitting record on songs that hadn’t been extensively road-tested. “The expectations never felt suffocating, and we never put limitations on ourselves,” says Georgia. At no point did the band try to write a big pop hit or do ‘Nothing Matters’ again. “If you try and replicate what you’ve already done, you’re only going to upset yourself and create something you don’t actually like.”  

“You can’t just bury your head in the sand and forget that everything else exists, though,” adds Emily. “It’s ok to be self-conscious if you can use that to your advantage. I know that I wanted to impress people with this record.”

Some songs (‘Count The Ways’, ‘Sail Away’, ‘The Scythe’) started life before ‘Prelude’ was even released; ‘Second Best’ was written in the weeks after their debut was shared, while other tracks came in stolen moments between tours. The group spent several months in the studio at the beginning of 2025 with Markus Dravs and were inspired by “classic rock bands” such as The Rolling Stones and The Beatles’ concept heavy ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ era, alongside the artists that influenced their debut (David Bowie, Fiona Apple). They ended up with 15 tracks and cut that down to the ten best. “It’s a funny process of just throwing everything at it and then having to edit slightly,” says Georgia.

It never felt like a difficult second album, though. “I was very, very inspired because I’d gone through another breakup and that’s the most fertile place to write music from,” says Abi. Thanks to the safety that came making music with her mates, she wasn’t all that bothered by what people might think of her vulnerable lyrics or flights of fancy. The only line she questioned was the opening declaration of “I’m Jesus Christ” from ‘Inferno’. “It’s only the second record…” she says of calling herself the Messiah, but her bandmates were all for it.

There’s no grand concept to ‘From The Pyre’, with all the songs written in their own vacuum. “Each one is its own contained world. The record feels like an anthology about storytelling at large,” says Abi. “It’s not just songs about a breakup. It’s also about what it means to be a musician and write songs about your own life that also reflect and refract what’s going on around you. I hate calling it meta, but…”

It is, by the band’s own omission, a tough album to explain. “When we were making it, we weren’t questioning how cohesive the record would be. It was always eclectic, but we knew there was just something there,” says Georgia. “What unifies it is the storytelling, the character and pushing the mundane to pathological extremes.”

Originally, the record was going to start with something slow, scary and more tense like ‘Woman Is A Tree’, but once Lizzie suggested opening it with the far more overblown ‘Agnus Dei’, the rest of the band were on board. “It made sense to open an album with that ridiculous sense of occasion. That pomp is indicative of what the rest of the record is,” says Abi. “The whole thing is fearless and fun.”

“I was very, very inspired because I’d gone through another breakup”

‘Agnus Dei’ (Latin for ‘Lamb Of God’) was started when Abi was in a relationship with a fellow musician (her lips are sealed about who) and was reworked after they broke up. “It felt like a powerful way to make sense of the relationship – we’re not going to get married, but you’re going to live forever because I put you in a song,” she explains. It’s a similar story for ‘Sail Away’, which was written pre-Dinner Party and almost completely reworked for the album. “It’s a song that I wrote with someone, and now it’s about that breakup.”

“It’s interesting to think about all the people who are in love songs, that aren’t the ones singing,” she continues. “Where do they go and how do they feel about being immortalised? Is that a gift or is it something more uncomfortable?” She reckons her ex would find ‘Agnus Dei’ funny. “He’s a songwriter too, so it’s fair game.”

‘The Scythe’ also started out about heartbreak but subconsciously shifted to deal with the loss of Abi’s father as a teenager. “When you’re writing something really personal, you’re not thinking about anyone else. You are just thinking about yourself, because that’s the only way you can write something truthful,” she explains. The track has been out for just over a month but is already a fan-favourite. “So many of the comments have been about people’s own experiences with grief, rather than them just saying they like the song or whatever. It’s been beautiful and surprising.”

There were times when creating ‘From The Pyre’ that Abi felt like she was simply “banging on about some bullshit drama” and was worried honest songs about the life of a writer were “very self-obsessed”. The reaction to ‘The Scythe’ has calmed those worries. “It’s nice when you write something personal that ends up being far bigger than your own life. We can all think of songs that have found us and then made us feel seen in a way that’s so profound and shocking. To know we’ve written a song that makes other people feel like that is incredibly humbling.”

‘From The Pyre’ was a lot more collaborative than ‘Prelude’, with the band trusting their chemistry and camaraderie even more. Emily wrote about love, betrayal and self-worth on the snotty ‘Second Best’. “I hope that the song captures the pain, anger and despair I felt, but most importantly the defiance and satisfaction I now have in being able to immortalise this person in a song,” she explains.

Elsewhere, ‘Hold Your Anger’ was written by Aurora. Originally a stripped-back slice of piano-driven anxiety, it grew into something that’s part brooding, Nick Cave melancholy, part rock’n’roll swagger. It’s an evolved take on the generational trauma that drove ‘The Feminine Urge’. “It’s about contending with being in your mid-to-late-20s. Asking what it would be like to be a mother, whether it’s something you want, whether you’d be any good at it, and then looking at your own mother and seeing them as their own person,” explains Georgia. “I think it’s absolutely brilliant.”

The anthology that is ‘From The Pyre’ closes with the rumbling ‘Inferno’, which works through The Last Dinner Party’s experiences of being in a band. “It’s us talking about how amazing but horrific it can be to be in the public eye,” says Georgia. “It’s about the internal chaos,” adds Abi, who always visualises the hectic, frenzied breakdown as two burning spirals going in opposite directions. “The fire is only getting bigger, and you can pick which way you want to go but either way, it’s leading somewhere else,” she says, confident the band are never going to stand still. “It’s optimistic and open-ended – it sums up where we’ve been and where we’re going.”

Despite that cheery ending, the biggest difference between ‘Prelude’ and ‘From The Pyre’ is a sense of looming darkness that cuts into the giddy, free-spirited joy. “It’s a record that’s a product of the time in which it was written,” explains Georgia. “The world feels very dark, and that permeates everything you do. It would be bizarre if your art wasn’t influenced by that.”

While most of ‘From The Pyre’ has unease and discomfort flickering in the background, ‘Rifle’ drags it into the spotlight. “I started writing ‘Rifle’ when I was sitting alone, feeling completely helpless and hopeless at the state of the world,” explains Lizzie. “I was thinking about the wars throughout history that have been waged by men corrupted by power, and the people on the ground who suffer the real cost of war. As time passed and the situation in Gaza got even more horrifying, I wrote the choruses as a place to scream – when it feels like no one in power in this country is listening to the voice of the people they claim to represent, it was really cathartic to make a song this loud and unapologetically angry.”

Across the record, The Last Dinner Party don’t hide from grief, discomfort or fury but confidently set it alongside light, passion and snarling energy. “It wasn’t a conscious thing to have that hopefulness but with this record feeling more self-referential and self-aware, it was quite natural for it to have this wink. There’s this humour that comes from being older and more comfortable with ourselves. We’re able to make light of our own situations,” says Georgia. “It’s good to have that balance, otherwise it would be pretty miserable.”

“The fire is only getting bigger”

This summer, The Last Dinner Party have been taking their joyous live show to festivals around the world, but also making space to talk about the genocide in Gaza and encouraging audiences to donate to War Child via unavoidable QR codes. “Our music does have a fantasy and escapist quality to it, but that doesn’t mean a disconnection from the world,” explains Georgia, with everything The Last Dinner Party do a reflection of the five individual members of the band. “It’s not a character we’re playing, and we really care about maintaining that authenticity. If we were to blind ourselves to what was going on in the world and continue to do our show as though nothing was happening, it would be wrong.”

“It’s sometimes just about making noise. It might seem futile to say, ‘We believe that this is a genocide, so please use your voice’, but collectively, it can make a massive different,” she adds.

A few days before ‘From The Pyre”s launch, The Last Dinner Party took to the Radio 1 Live Lounge for a playfully searing cover of Chappell Roan’s ‘Naked In Manhattan’. She’s another artist who’s spent the summer offering fantasy that doesn’t neglect what’s actually happening in the world. “Some people prefer music that has joy and moments of connection in the face of horrible things,” says Abi. “People really want the physical community that can inspire, and the support and acceptance that comes with it. It’s why people gravitate towards musicians like Chappell, because she creates a real safe space that doesn’t hide away from what’s going on, but doesn’t despair either.”

The Last Dinner Party are looking to do something similar with their upcoming headline run.  “I hope it’ll continue to be a cathartic experience, especially with songs like ‘Second Best’ and ‘Rifle’ allowing us to share the anger together,” says Emily.

“We’re also re-designing the whole show,” says Georgia. “If you’ve been to a Dinner Party gig before, this will be a totally different experience because we’re levelling up. Obviously, there’s a load more new songs we want to play but we also want to step into the theatrics of it all a little more.”

You’ve never been able to accuse The Last Dinner Party of being uncertain or shy, but ‘From The Pyre’ is a fearlessly confident record from a band who have really embraced every corner of their own mythos and still managed to push things forward. Being part of a cohort of other established guitar bands like Wet Leg and Wolf Alice has helped (“It’s nice to see yourself in them,” offers Georgia), but a lot of it is down to the community they’ve found in each other and from their fanbase.

“Just seeing the way our music has resonated with people, be that online or at a show, is a huge deal,” says Abi. All five members of the band have been told how The Last Dinner Party have inspired others to pick up an instrument, toy with self-expression and feel comfortable in their own skin. “When you feel like you’ve made a positive impact on someone’s life, that’s pretty amazing,” she continues. “It makes you feel hopeful and that you’re doing something that’s causing net good in the world, which is a really good vocation.”

Is being in The Last Dinner Party still as fun as when they first got together and dreamed of selling out The George Tavern, though? Once again, they answer in unison. “Yes, and more.”

Taken from the November 2025 issue of Dork. The Last Dinner Party’s album ‘From The Pyre’ is out now.