“I wanted something that, when you hear it, it’s not obvious. I wanted people to go, ‘What is that?’” The Last Dinner Party’s Emily Roberts on why she’s ditching Fenders and Gibsons in favor of this genre-bending guitarist’s signature mode

When The Last Dinner Party’s debut single, Nothing Matters, dropped in 2023, the band was immediately met with dizzying success – momentum that continued with their 2024 debut album, Prelude to Ecstasy. It signaled to everyone that, if there was ever any doubt, guitar bands were well and truly back in the mainstream.

The band’s lead guitarist, Emily Roberts, in particular, dazzled guitar aficionados with carefully crafted parts that wouldn’t be out of place on Queen or Mick Ronson-era Bowie albums – and the jazz-schooled guitarist remains a defining pillar of the band’s sound on their sophomore record, From the Pyre.

Using a combination of Music Man St. Vincent signature guitars, a Gibson ES-330, and a Les Paul, the new album has an unmistakable vintage twang – plus the added sharp bite that’s part and parcel of the St. Vincent model’s sound.

Speaking about her penchant for using the St. Vincent guitars, both in studio and live, Roberts tells Guitar.com, “I’m a bit stuck in my ways at this point. What I like about the St Vincent is that it really cuts through a mix, and it’s quite high-end.

“I think that’s a great quality that it has, and it just doesn’t sound like a Fender or a Gibson. I wanted something that, when you hear it, it’s not obvious what it is. I wanted people to go, ‘What is that?’ and for it to sound new.”

As for what she would hope for if she ever got the chance to design a signature model, Roberts notes that she’d want something that’s “modern-looking” and has “the same ease for playing as a female.

“I’ve always wanted to design or make my own guitar, I just haven’t had any time to do that,” she admits.

“I’d want it to be an amalgamation of different decades in one guitar, even if that’s really difficult to do. It would be cool to have a guitar that combines elements, like if it had different pickups from each other, or a switchable bridge pickup that changes from a P-90 into a humbucker or a Firebird. Having something with a lot of versatility that captures different decades of guitar playing and guitar history would be really cool.”

In last year’s Guitar World interview with Roberts, the lead guitarist spoke about performing as Brian May in an all-female Queen tribute band, and how she used an authentic Klon Centaur on the band’s debut.

Janelle is a staff writer at GuitarWorld.com. After a long stint in classical music, Janelle discovered the joys of playing guitar in dingy venues at the age of 13 and has never looked back. Janelle has written extensively about the intersection of music and technology, and how this is shaping the future of the music industry. She also had the pleasure of interviewing Dream Wife, K.Flay, Yīn Yīn, and Black Honey, among others. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her creating layers of delicious audio lasagna with her art-rock/psych-punk band ĠENN.