A new mesogenic amino acid Schiff base ligands of the type Potassium (E)-4-((4-(hexadecyloxy)-2-hydroxybenzylidene)amino)butanoate (HL1) and Potassium (E)-6-((4-(hexadecyloxy)-2-hydroxybenzylidene)amino)hexanoate (HL2) and their copper(II) and zinc(II) complexes have been successfully synthesized and characterized by various elemental analyses, UV–visible, FT-IR, 1HNMR , 13CNMR , ESI-MS and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Both the ligands were found to exhibit mesophase with multiple textures as revealed from the polarizing optical microscope (POM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The metal complexes were found to exhibit efficient CT-DNA interaction and antibacterial activity against both Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli). The complexes were assessed for their in-vitro anticancer efficacy against A549 cell line and findings indicate notable cytotoxicity effect which is comparable to that of standard drug, cisplatin. The Density Functional Theory (DFT) study of the compounds was carried out by using LanL2DZ and 6–31 G (d, p) basis set with meta-hybrid Truhlar's functional M06–2X in order to obtain the optimized geometry.