INTERVIEW: THE LAZARUS PLOT

This interview with Laura Laurent and Mark Newton from late 90s Midwest emo band The Lazarus Plot was conducted in the summer of 2025 for the band biographies that accompanied the Sequoia seven-inch box set released by The Numero Group last year. The Sequoia box set is up for a Grammy tonight in the category of best packaging, so I thought it might be relevant to post today. Enjoy the interview and see you next week.

Tony Rettman: Please explain when and how the band came together.
Mark Newton: I think we started the band in the early summer of 97. It was you (Laura) and Miguel who invited me to join. Practices were at Miguel’s house with a drummer named Simon whom I’d not yet met. We were Miguel’s “other” band after Spy vs Spy, which Kenny was in at the time.
Laura Laurent:: It was a friend’s idea - Miguel - in the summer of 1997. One day he just said let’s start a band- and we took the name from a Hardy Boys book on the bookshelf in his basement. We really wanted to play music with Mark as he was honestly one of the smartest and most creative people I knew, so we used to go and sit on his front porch until he said yes. Miguel played bass for maybe just that summer, and we had our first show right there in his basement. After that, Kenny replaced him and it became more real. Kenny was the glue of the band for me - I think of him as the heart of the band. It’s interesting to think that it wasn’t originally any of our ideas to do this, but once Kenny was in, it all came together and felt good. I think Mark had been working at a factory at the time and we were all so depressed for different reasons. Mark, Kenny, and I all went to the same high school. Mark was someone I admired a lot in creative writing class and just badgered him into being my friend. Kenny was my lab partner in Chemistry class and kept me from flunking or blowing things up. I think he ran all the experiments we had to do while we talked about Joy Division, probably. Simon was from the east side of Elgin - we lived on different sides of the river. He was already in bands and was clearly cool - we all recognized each other from being at a lot of the same shows. We were all at the Fireside Bowl a lot. I think it all came together quickly and we had so much in common and it was fun. I remember drinking cherry cokes and listening to Black Sabbath more than practicing very much. Simon always made everyone laugh the most.