Cynics call us nepo babies… but we’re not
The darkly enigmatic Last Dinner Party are doing it for themselves – despite what their critics say
O‘People are sceptical if it seems as if you’ve come out of nowhere’
ne month on from Electric Picnic, the performance that has embedded itself in my memory from this year’s edition of the Stradbally smorgasbord was one by English band The Last Dinner Party. The six women on stage captivated the hundreds of us lucky enough to be squeezed into a sweltering tent on the Saturday afternoon.
The Last Dinner Party’s type of indie rock is by turns melodramatic and baroque. They bring to mind Kate Bush, Florence + the Machine, Sparks and David Bowie. The quality of their musicianship is unquestionably high and in Abigail Morris they have a frontwoman whose voice soars and swoops, while onstage she seems in perpetual motion.
The band’s five core members met at college and via friends of friends. They have released just two singles to this point: Nothing Matters and Sinner but both are mightily impressive.
‘Nothing Matters is one of the only songs that I have written from a place of happiness. I find it a lot easier to write songs about heartbreak,’ Abigail Morris told me in almost breathless fashion just before their Electric Picnic show.
‘Whereas this one was literally just a love song about my boyfriend at the time. I wanted it to be just carnal passion and capture everything I felt about being in that relationship. It’s meant to be joyful and euphoric.’
The statement is in keeping with someone who sounds and looks like a character from a Jane Austen adaptation. In their videos and on stage, they often dress as if moonlighting from such a drama. Since their earliest gigs in London pubs and venues in November 2021 many of their fans have taken to doing likewise. Footage filmed by fans of those raucous shows and shared on YouTube quickly created a buzz. They soon signed to Island, home of U2.
However, even before Nothing Matters was released, rumours circulated that they were a ‘manufactured’ band, ‘an industry plant,’ that they were ‘nepo babies’ with connections to figures of prominence in the industry. All of which is verifiably untrue and conveniently disregards the 100-plus shows they played in ‘toilet venues’ in London and beyond in the year leading up to the single’s release.
‘I think people are understandably sceptical if it seems as if you’ve come out of nowhere,’ guitarist and vocalist Lizzie Mayland says.
‘That’s because they are only seeing us at this point. They weren’t at all those little London shows.’
‘They weren’t there when we were playing to five people,’ Abigail adds.
‘They only see that we’ve popped up in an article about us in a newspaper or whatever out of nowhere,’ says keyboardist/vocalistAuroraNischevi. ‘We just laugh at these things.’
‘To be fair, we’ve found ourselves laughing at these things many times.’ Lizzie says ruefully.
When I ask them if they think that is just another example of sexism in the music industry they concur.
‘I think it happened to a couple of other bands in very similar situations to us – all female or female-fronted. Wet Leg and Picture Parlour… got the same kind of vitriol,’ Abigail says. ‘You see that male acts who have had a similar rise don’t get the same terms thrown at them.’
Some seasoned pros such as
Justin Hawkins of The Darkness skewered the snipers in his podcast, which has 500,000 followers, saying Nothing Matters ‘is such a well-written song’ and ‘way more interesting than 99% of the stuff that is dominating the pop charts’, adding ironically that if they were really industry plants ‘the industry should keep on planting stuff ’.
‘We loved that,’ Aurora says simply. ‘It was really lovely of him,’ Abigail says as they are about to leave for a gig that they later said on their social media was one of the best they ever played.
‘It’s a real shame that because the music is so good, because we work so hard and we’re good at what we do that causes doubt because it’s too good. That makes it sad.’
I’m with Hawkins on this, I couldn’t care less if one of their parents is the head of the biggest record company on the planet and none are. The Last Dinner Party make dramatic, exhilarating music. Many bands go through a whole career without exciting anyone beyond acceptance of their worthiness and right to exist. Come to the feast!
The Last Dinner Party support Hozier in Dublin’s 3Arena on December 19, 20 and 22. They will also headline at The Workman’s Club on December 19