Matt Lazarus

Considered to be one of the rising stars of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene, Matt Lazarus continues to win new fans with his guitar playing and singing, performing regularly with jam band artists Stu Allen & Mars Hotel, Alex Jordan & Friends, Pete Sawyer & The Left Hand Monkey Wrench Gang, Jon Chi & The Pacific Syndicate, Grateful Voodoo, Minglewood Boys, Mo’lasses, and with his own group, Matt Lazarus Band.

He has formed Matt Lazarus & Friends to carry on the legacy of Grateful Dead with an emphasis on celebrating Bob Weir, as Lazarus has become one of the premier “Bobbys” in the strong Bay Area Dead scene. His original music combines rock, jazz, funk, and the blues with his own innovations for a sound and style that is instantly recognizable and current yet rooted in the sounds of yesterday. Believing that music allows the listener and performer to tap into the underlying spirit of creativity and beauty that runs through all things, Lazarus plays with soul.

Matt’s journey as a guitarist began with hearing Jimi Hendrix, Traffic, John McLaughlin, and Carlos Santana. He picked up a guitar at age 14 and never put it down again. With his beloved ’78 Stratocaster, Matt traveled north to Humboldt State, where he received a B.A. in music and formed the rock group Joint Chiefs. They soon became Arcata legends and performed on the local scene for years. The more Lazarus played, the more his influences - Grateful Dead, Jeff Beck, Neil Young, and David Lindley - changed and evolved his guitar style, which took center stage at the Joint Chiefs performances.

He began performing with Tom Gears, Greg Brown, and others, and continued recording and performing with Motorhome, Greenlight, and as an original trio. Lazarus joined the Gluey Brothers in Santa Fe, New Mexico in the fall of 1998. They toured across the country, playing over 100 shows a year for over four years, and their appearance on The Penn and Teller Show brought Matt’s playing to a wider audience.

Returning to California and settling in the East Bay, Matt formed the instrumental jazz fusion group Snake Plissken Quintet (SPQ) with Tom Gears, which soon became the Matt Lazarus Band, adding his vocal originals to the mix of instrumentals and other songs.