On Monday 4th I interviewed Lizzie Mayland, rhythm guitarist and vocalist of The Last Dinner Party, ahead of their hometown show at The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. Darlings of the London indie scene, The Last Dinner Party have garnered an adoring audience following the release of their debut single ‘Nothing Matters’. Their brand-new album Prelude to Ecstasy amalgamates references to history and religion, with tongue-in-cheek lyrics and relationships to modern culture (as seen in the ‘Feminine Urge’ and their TikTok virality), creating an atmosphere both baroque and inescapably current. Lizzie and I discussed their childhood in Yorkshire, their song-writing process, the joy found in smaller venues, the fatigue of misogynistic press attention, and the autonomous voice of the album.
TAYLOR CAMPBELL: “To start off with, do you have a favourite song from the record?”
LIZZIE MAYLAND: “Probably ‘Sinner’, obviously because that’s the one I wrote the lyrics for, and I think it’s kind of about my relationship with Yorkshire and home. That tension between finding your sense of self somewhere else but still longing for childhood freedom and happiness.”
TC: “That was going be one of my other questions – what was the experience growing up in Yorkshire? I feel like there’s kind of like a Bronte-esque sort of atmosphere, the sense of isolation in ‘Sinner’.”
LM: “Interesting, yeah, I grew up on the moors, above Mytholmroyd and Hebden. It was pretty isolated. One bus every hour, if it turns up. It’s still a bit of a small-minded part of the world. Going to high school, the first time I heard the word gay, it was in a derogatory way – as an insult. There’s a lack of education outside of Hebden Bridge, which is a little oasis.”
Later in the night, Mayland sang a beautiful bird-like rendition of ‘Up North’ by Catherine Howe, which gave me such a pang of homesickness. it was such an intimate moment which felt precious and fleeting in the context of the band’s soaring fame.
TC: “So, it’s very personal. What was the writing process like with ‘Sinner’?
LM: “’Sinner’ was, at that point, probably the most collaborative song we’d done. I started with producing a tiny little demo, and then brought it to Aurora. I was really sheepish, but she was like “I love it!”, and she did the production. Then everyone came in and did their part. Emily was playing around with riffs, and at one point, she wrote a riff that she was worried she’d stolen from a St. Vincent song, so she tweaked it some more. It was very inspired by St. Vincent and LCD Soundsystem as well, I was very keen for it to be an instrumental chorus.”
TC: “I love LCD Soundsystem, that’s such an interesting influence. I also wanted to hear a bit about your visual presentation. The band is so cinematic, all of the outfits and album covers. Have aesthetics always been very important?”
LM: “They’ve always been really important. I think during the drunken nights when Georgia and Abi were coming up with the initial ideas for the band, the visual was very much at the heart of the identity of the band. They were imagining people leaving after one of our gigs feeling like they’ve just been at a big debaucherous dinner party with all their favourite people, having inspiring conversations and feeling creatively stimulated. From our very first gig we would coordinate our outfits. So yeah, it’s always been kind of also a way of like putting on a bit of an armour and coming and presenting ourselves as a unit.”
TC: “There’s such a great camaraderie between the band and audience at your live shows, and part of that is through the idea of dressing up for the gigs. Where did you get the idea of imposing dress codes for shows?”
LM: “Well, Chappell Roan did that! That’s what inspired us to do it. We wanted to give people a direction for their creative impulses, to know that they can go absolutely all in without feeling out of place. It’s kind of it’s about creating like a bit of a safe space for especially for women, non-binary people, queer people to come and be the loudest, the most enormous version of themselves, and know that we’re going to be doing it too. It’s all about fun, it’s fun to dress up.”
TC: “It’s great fun. Do you find that it varies, creating that kind of atmosphere in the smaller venues as opposed to higher capacity shows?”
LM: “Good question… on the European tour it was mostly 200-300 cap venues. And that is such a special size of venue because you can see every single person, you can see right to the back, you can see everyone’s pair of eyes. But there’s also enough people that no one feels self-conscious. It feels like this big, massive, passion, which is really exciting. When we’ve done massive festival shows, the crowd becomes a blur past the first five rows. I think your brain doesn’t want to process that there’s so many people looking at you. It’s exciting in a very different way. I do love those sweet little venues, to be honest.”
TC: “I was also wondering about how it feels to see your songs used as the soundtrack to influencer content – “Get Ready With Me” videos, for example. What has it been like to witness ‘Nothing Matters’ virality on TikTok and Instagram?”
LM: “Yeah, interesting. I feel that it’s only happened more recently. The last few weeks. I love that people are connected with the song. When ‘Nothing Matters’ first came out, it was used by people who were dressing up either to come to our gigs or dressing up on theme. Now we’re seeing more people that are dressing not necessarily in such a dinner party style. They’re just getting dressed up and spinning around for music. It’s lovely. I love that people are enjoying it, however that looks for them. But it keeps coming up on my TikTok page, out of nowhere, jump-scare!”
TC: “That’s exactly what I was imagining. And with that spotlight, there’s been some misogynistic criticism – I think that the way that the band’s been responding to those industry plant accusations has been really fantastic. How do you guys fight the fatigue of responding to that?”
LM: “I think fatigue is the word. I’m surprised that it’s still being brought up, I guess it’s because we’re still on a ridiculous rise, and people are still only just finding out about us. Fatigue is definitely the right word. We were asked at the Brits – I saw it on the BBC, the bit that they clipped was of us being asked if we are industry plants, and we just say no. There’s nothing more to say. We’re lucky in the fact that we’ve kind of living in an era where misogyny is not as acceptable as it once was. There’s less getting pinched on the bottom or whatever. But there’s a lot of patronising, which is rampant in the music industry.”
TC: “Yeah. I mean, I think something really amazing about album is the really strong authoritative voice that comes from it … it’s not apologetic. It’s a great narrative to have from a female and non-binary group and takes away from that misogynistic undercurrent.”
LM: “Yeah, that’s nice of you to say. I think it is quite authoritative. Autonomous. Yeah.”
TC: “In the best way. Thanks so much for this! I’ll be at the show tonight, I can’t wait.”
LM: “My pleasure. See you there!”
The show, which was glorious, raised £15,000 for the charity War Child. If you would like to help War Child in their efforts to reach children in warzones, please consider visiting their website: warchild.org.uk
Illustration by Jessica Bolevin