“It wasn’t a conscious decision to invent our own scale! The idea was to do something inspired by Jeff Buckley… but we added a mandolin”: The Last Dinner Party’s Emily Roberts is the jazz schooled Queen-inspired indie guitar hero you’ve been waiting for
They formed only three years ago, but in that short space of time The Last Dinner Party have become one of the most exciting new rock acts of the modern age.
Their first full‑length, released back in February and titled Prelude To Ecstasy, ended up topping the UK album charts – becoming the first British rock debut to do so since Royal Blood burst onto the scene a decade ago. “It was very unexpected,” admits lead guitarist Emily Roberts. “I never thought that would be a reality… it’s crazy!”
It only takes one listen to the album, however, to appreciate why it was such an important release for this year. Combining elements of Kate Bush, David Bowie and Queen into a sound that feels completely new and unique, they’re the kind of band that seem to exist, as well as thrive, in a genre and class of their own – treading new ground with every song they’ve recorded to date.
They’ve supported The Rolling Stones and been signed up by American management giants Q Prime, who also represent Metallica, Muse and Greta Van Fleet. Following appearances at Glastonbury and the Reading/Leeds festivals, the quintet will be ending this year with a UK tour that culminates with three sold-out nights at London’s Eventim Apollo, performing to 16,000 people in the capital alone.
Speaking to TG, Emily discusses her guitar journey thus far, from a four-year course specialising in jazz to performing as Brian May in an all-female Queen tribute band, and gives us a closer look at the breathtaking tones on what will be remembered as one of the most striking albums of this year…
Do you remember the moment you realised the guitar would be your true calling?
“I started playing really young, around the age of nine. I fell in love with it when I walked in on one of my best friends having a guitar lesson with the local teacher. They were just jamming, playing pop songs and strumming Beatles riffs on acoustics, and it made me think, ‘These are the kind of guitar lessons I’d love to have!’ Previously I’d had ‘proper’ lessons where you have to learn the notation and play upright.
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“I guess I just wanted to have fun and play songs, so I ended up studying with the same teacher. I would say he’s the reason I’m still playing. In high school I transitioned onto electric so I could play in bigger bands or jazz groups. Then I went to a specialist music school in Manchester when I was 16. That was probably the point where I realised music would be my life. I knew I had to start a band.”
I wasn’t from a place where there was a big music community, I was surrounded by farms in the countryside, so I used the internet to find inspiration
So who were your earliest influences starting out?
“The first few songs I learned were Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton and loads of Led Zeppelin stuff – all the classics! My original guitar hero has always been Brian May because I love being able to sing along to the solos. I didn’t even learn them at that point, I was just listening and appreciating because Queen were one of my first musical loves.
“Then I started discovering more players through YouTube. I wasn’t from a place where there was a big music community, I was surrounded by farms in the countryside, so I used the internet to find inspiration. I learned who Orianthi was, then I got into Jess Lewis, who I really looked up to.”
How much did your jazz training affect the player you’d go on to become?
“I specifically chose to study jazz guitar and it was a four-year course. So it was a big part of my life that I really enjoyed. Some of my jazz heroes were people like Emily Remler.
“When I discovered her, it felt like exactly how I wanted to sound like in a jazz context. Pat Martino was another big one, as was Wes Montgomery. I went through a big Pat Metheny phase. I also liked The Impossible Gentlemen and their guitarist, Mike Walker.”
Are there any things you wish you’d learned sooner?
“Definitely stuff like enclosures, because there are so many different ways you can chromatically go around a note. If you land on the important note on an important beat, it all sounds fine. That’s how you can make outside notes that aren’t technically in that scale feel like they belong. I would try to invent different ones that would mix starting above or below the right note, however many semitones away.
I feel like you can build melodic lines almost like Lego blocks. You can learn these tiny bits and put them together to make phrases that sound jazzy
“There are so many different options. I feel like you can build melodic lines almost like Lego blocks. You can learn these tiny bits and put them together to make phrases that sound jazzy. Transcribing was also a big game-changer, because I didn’t do any of that earlier on. I would just find the tabs online instead of using my ear.
“If you sit down and listen, it can make you a better player. Sometimes it’s too fast to hear everything at full speed, so you can use apps to slow it down. That’s how you can appreciate every aspect of how a person is playing – whether they do a tiny slide up to the note, use octaves or legato for one line and then staccato for another.
“Wes Montgomery taught me a lot about those kinds of inflections. Even if you don’t have a lot of jazz vocabulary, the way you attack notes can make them sound like jazz.”
There are some interesting effects on songs like Caesar On A TV Screen…
“Yeah! We used a lot of tremolo, plus a bit of phaser. We didn’t use a ton of effects, there were just a few that we stuck with. I used my Fulltone OCD as the main overdrive. And I think there was some pedal called the Minotaur or Centaur that apparently cost around £5,000.”
You used a real Klon Centaur?
“Yeah, that’s the one. Our producer James Ford just had one lying around in the studio so we ended up using it for everything!”
There’s one song, The Feminine Urge, that has an almost Spaghetti Western flavour, with more of that tremolo effect to create extra movement in your lines.
“There’s definitely a Western feel. I think it came from Abbie [Morris], our singer. She asked if I had the effect they used on those kinds of films, because she’s really into that stuff. It ended up on quite a few tracks, like this one and Mirror.”
We’ve seen a lot of footage of you with a Ernie Ball Music Man St. Vincent Goldie. Was that your main guitar?
“I would say so. I also used my 1963 Gibson ES-330. That was my main guitar all the way through uni and doing jazz gigs. It’s probably the most beautiful guitar I’ve ever played. I’m very lucky to own it. I used it on the bridge pickup for The Feminine Urge and the choruses of Caesar On A TV Screen, along with a VI bass just to double everything up an octave lower. Our producer loved the sound of the Gibson, so we ended up using it a lot.”
What other pedals might we find on your ’board, then?
“I love the Intensive Care Audio pedals. They have a lot of character and sound really beefy and rock ’n’ roll. I don’t actually remember which tremolo we used on the record, sorry! It was something in the studio that’s different to what I use live.
“For our shows, I use a Line 6 Helix with the Intensive Care pedals and my OCD plugged into the effects loop of my Fender Hot Rod. On the album, the amp was something similar like a Fender Deluxe Reverb.”
The solo in Nothing Matters feels like the big guitar hero moment of the record.
“There was another solo I used to play before we went into the studio. Then we were recording the album and I was trying to get it down. It sounded fine but it wasn’t quite giving the song the lift it needed, it sounded too old-school. I asked myself how I could make it more modern and exciting, to fit the song better. So I went away and started jamming out ideas over Christmas.
“I would improvise for ages and stack up different takes on Logic. I ended up picking the bits I liked best and strung them together in a way that made sense. I took a few options to my parents and they felt one stood out, so that’s what I chose.
“It was nice to have a fast run in there, given how it works against the slow bits. I like how it goes up with a bend and then a tap, like a climax within the phrase. It’s a mishmash of styles… it even gets a bit funky towards the end!”
You have many strengths as a player. On Your Side has a completely different approach – what you play is more impressionistic, more Jonny Greenwood than Brian May in how you embrace ambience and atmosphere over melodic contour…
“I never really think about writing solos in a theoretical way, apart from maybe on Portrait Of A Dead Girl. It’s usually like, I’ve got what key or scale under my fingers, and then I use my ear to improvise around it. I prefer to find the right energy or vibe myself, without thinking too much.”
I never really think about writing solos in a theoretical way, apart from maybe on Portrait Of A Dead Girl
Interestingly, your leads in Portrait Of A Dead Girl have a David Gilmour kind of feel. Is he someone you’ve ever listened to?
“Not really! I think it’s a complete coincidence. Quite a few people have said that to me about the solo, which is really nice. I like his playing, but I just haven’t listened to loads of it or tried transcribing any of it. Maybe it comes from that textural perspective.
“The song sets it up with this Pink Floyd-y outro with lots of vocals. It has that sound anyway, so yeah… I just wanted to do something that soared over the top in a euphoric way, keeping to the texture of it all. The jazz came in handy there, because the harmony kinda changes and it’s a tricky one to follow!”
Gjuha is one of the more exotic-sounding tracks, with a flamenco-ish Harmonic Minor meets Phrygian Dominant hybrid scale, using both minor and major thirds and sevenths in the same key.
“It wasn’t a conscious decision to try and invent our own scale! The original idea was to do something inspired by Jeff Buckley’s Corpus Christi Carol, a vocal aria in the middle of an album. Our keyboard player Aurora’s family are from Kosovo, so she wanted to write something in Albanian. I’m not sure how it ended up sounding like world music, but we added mandolin and it sounded even more like that.”
It was tempting to use more distortion in the breakdown but our producer told us to keep it chill, otherwise it could have sounded too metal!
The track Sinner has a mixture of guitar heroics, from your leads duelling with the layered vocals to some more Brian May-esque staccato leads.
“I was going for a St. Vincent kind of vibe originally. There’s a song on her album Actor called Marrow, which has this guitar line where she bends a note for ages and then goes to another note. It’s quite discordant or atonal-sounding. I wanted a powerful guitar line to duet with the vocals.
“I probably wasn’t expecting it to become such a big feature within the song. I was just messing around improvising, again doing that thing on Logic where you go round and round a loop, trying to come up with ideas. I think that motif came on my third go, then we improvised around it using jazzy ideas.”
My Lady Of Mercy has some beautiful clean tones, with some clever usage of effects.
“The inspiration behind that song was Nine Inch Nails for the choruses, but with a choir-like vocal over the top. The song is about contrast because the clean verses feel sprightly, then we went for a heavy fuzz sound for the choruses. It was tempting to use more distortion in the breakdown but our producer told us to keep it chill, otherwise it could have sounded too metal! To be honest, a lot of the tones on this album came out cleaner than I expected.”
Having such different teachers is probably why I ended up sounding so eclectic
Given how multifaceted you are as a player, what do you think would be the best way of describing your approach to composing?
“I think learning the technical stuff and then forgetting it is key to my playing. I like to absorb as many different sounds as I can. That’s what got me here. I like the technical aspect of playing, but there’s more to me than that. I’ve had such a variety of teachers.
“When I was doing more session guitar stuff, I started having lessons with Phil Short who plays for Westlife. He taught me about wider vibrato and that whole Van Halen kind of vibe. Having such different teachers is probably why I ended up sounding so eclectic. Maybe we’ll have a bit more shred on the next album, who knows?”
- Prelude to Ecstasy is out now via Island Records.
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