“I wanted to bring the goth scene back to Queen Street West”: DJ Lazarus is keeping Toronto nightlife alive

Long before “goth” was a prepackaged costume at Spirit Halloween, Lloyd Warren was staying up until 5 a.m. to spin moody new wave and experimental industrial music at a York University radio station while even wannabe vampires were fast asleep. Today he’s better known as DJ Lazarus—a name inspired by a man who rose from the dead, which feels on-brand. Warren has resurrected the spirit of Toronto’s goth heyday at Ground Control, his Parkdale club that has quietly become a sanctuary for everything outside the mainstream. Think David Bowie shrines, “Goth AF” trophies and a dance floor where patrons in their 50s and 60s (“elders,” in goth parlance) can coexist with 19-year-olds in perfect platform-boot-stomping harmony. Ahead of World Goth Day on May 22, we sat down with Warren—during the day, miraculously—to talk about the ’90s Queen West scene, raving in blackouts and why goths always have the best emergency preparedness plans.

Toronto was a goth epicentre in the ’90s and early 2000s. Could you bring us back to what that was like? On any given Friday or Saturday night, there were probably over 1,000, maybe 2,000 goth-y people coming into the city from the 905 to visit these clubs. Velvet Underground, Savage Garden, Sanctuary, Death in the Underground, the Boom Boom Room, Catch 22—all these places were doing well, even during the week. Velvet was open on Mondays, and it was busy. Alternative was big during this time too—not just goths but punks, ravers, all the weird subcultures were going out on Queen West. The year I started deejaying, the future-pop, dark-industrial scene was huge and growing. The cybergoth thing was happening. It was a good time.

What made Toronto such an appealing place for goths and other alt subcultures? I’m not sure what made it different, but I remember that things reached a pretty cool peak in 1999, when The Matrix was released—everybody wanted to wear sunglasses and long PVC jackets. Back in the day, CFNY-FM (now 102.1 the Edge) was playing a lot of alternative music—both on their shows and during all-request hours.

What got you into the goth scene in the first place? I’m not sure there was one thing that turned me into a goth, but as a young person listening to the radio, I never liked the pop stuff. I went to all-ages nightclubs in Newmarket, like Club 404, and they would play some of the darkest stuff that was coming out at that time, which I liked. By the time I reached high school, I was wearing eyeliner and loving the Cure.

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When does Lloyd with the eyeliner become DJ Lazarus? Is there a villain origin story? I had a radio show on CHRY at York University, where I was in film studies. It was called Dark Souls Rising. I couldn’t very well be DJ Lloyd, right? That’s the dumbest name ever. I thought, Dark Souls Rising—well, Lazarus rose from the dead, and I went with that.

How did you go from spinning on campus radio to deejaying at the city’s biggest alternative nightclubs? Well, my radio time slot was really shitty, like 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. And I am not a morning person. So every week, I would stay awake right till my time slot and then come home afterward. I did that for a few years, and I finally couldn’t hack it anymore, so I moved into the nightclub scene. My first club DJ gig was at a fetish masquerade. Studio 69 on Sundays was my first regular gig of my own, and then Velvet Underground courted me, so I moved there.

What’s a memorable night from that time? One night I was deejaying my event called Dark Rave at the Big Bop and there was an explosion outside. An electrical pole that was feeding power to the club blew up. There were no windows in there, so it was completely dark. I couldn’t see anything. I’m talking the darkest I’ve ever seen in my life. All of a sudden, people brought out their lighters, and others turned over some garbage cans and started playing them like bongos. Everybody kept dancing, even without any power.

Then there was the giant East Coast blackout of 2003. I was part-owner at Funhaus, just down the street from the Big Bop, at the time. There was no power, so I put candles on the stairs leading up to the bar and around the counter. I had a boom box with batteries in it in the back, so I put that on the bar and put a mixtape in and let it play. We were serving drinks with no proper cash register. Not that I wish for more blackouts, but I loved the sense of community on those nights.

What happened to the goth scene over the years? Where did it go? It happened slowly, but the numbers of people who wanted to dance to alternative stuff began shrinking through attrition. At a certain point, the local radio station stopped playing Skinny Puppy. They stopped playing Nitzer Ebb. Mainstream culture turned away from alternative music. I think that the Columbine High School shooting had a negative impact. It was the nail in the coffin. Nowadays, there’s a large group of younger people who have adopted cool goth-y fashion—they look amazing—but they’re not really into the music.

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You’re now the owner of Ground Control, a club in Parkdale that opened in 2023. How did that come about? My father passed away at the tail end of the pandemic and left a tiny postwar home to me and my brother. We fixed it up and sold it, and I used my share of the money to get this location. Initially, I wanted to bring the goth scene back to Queen and Bathurst, where Velvet used to be, as well as Savage Garden and Nocturne. I leased a place and had an architect draw up the plans, but I couldn’t get a liquor licence—even though every other place around there has a licence for dancing. I was very upset about it. And then, through a business partner, I found Nav, who owned Miss Things restaurant in Parkdale and was looking to move on with his life. The space used to be Wrong Bar, which was a cool nightclub in the indie electro era. I wanted to bring it back to more of a music venue. And I know my father would have been happy that I used his money to do something related to music.

Looking around at the club’s decor, it seems someone is obsessed with David Bowie. What’s up with that? Bowie has been a constant in my life. When he died, in 2016, it hit me harder than any other celebrity death, so I wanted to honour the guy who made some of the greatest music of the 20th century. There are life-size mannequins in Bowie outfits. The washroom mirrors are shaped like his face with the Ziggy Stardust lightning bolt. There’s an entire wall of Bowie magazine covers near the dance floor, and there’s a neon sign with the lyrics “The stars look very different today” behind the bar. But it’s not a David Bowie bar. Whether it’s goth, Britpop, indie, punk, sometimes metal—all the genres that are basically ignored by the mainstream have a home here.

I’ve seen people of all ages at the club, dancing together to the same songs. What do you think makes it such an inclusive and welcoming environment? I’ve never targeted a specific demographic, but I’d say we get people from 19 to 65. That probably just stems from my own age—a lot of the people who come out have been dancing with me at different venues for over 30 years. This place is about the music. It’s not a meat market: nobody’s judging you, and they don’t care how you’re dressed. I think that is attractive to people who are a little bit older.

Sometimes you give away a “Goth AF” trophy. What does it take to win? I do that at Spellbound, a monthly party where I play goth, dark wave, post-punk and a little bit of industrial. Anybody who wants to enter can get up onstage, and we ask the audience to cheer for who they feel best visually represents the goth lifestyle. It’s not a costume contest per se. One time, a lovely drag king dressed in an extreme fetish vampire outfit won. But sometimes people in regular goth outfits, but with more eyeliner or bigger hair, will win. The award is $100 cash and a trophy. I hope they put it on a mantle. And when they’re old and have grandkids, they can say, “You won’t believe it, but grandma was goth as fuck in 2026.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.