Though a cathedral is seemingly the most scenic of metal venues, with its pointed arches, stained glass windows, pews, and ribbed vaulting, it doesn’t quite gel with the beer-battered persona of North American metal. Terrains of stone and sediment are more representative of the American metal spirit, and Grundy County, Tennessee holds one of the best venues in that regard. The Caverns features an underground cave that’s been reworked into a concert hall, can hold up to 1,200 people, and is situated “in the middle of nowhere,” as general manager Joe Lurgio puts it. Originating as a bluegrass institute nearly 20 years ago, it’s embraced hard rock and metal over the last few years. It’ll host Between the Buried and Me, Imperial Triumphant, and Fallujah on June 19th, an interesting intersection of progressive metal, black metal, and death metal. It’s to be the heaviest bill that’s entered the caves yet.
Lurgio says, “Our formula is to take great bands and combine them with this space that is awe-inspiring. And it creates this magical concert experience because the band and the fans are both experiencing this surreal environment that they’re in together.”
The result is an entirely different ordeal than a traditional black box or theater event, one that’s attracted the likes of Sunn O))), Clutch, Buckethead, GWAR, Acid Bath, and Blood Incantation. While Sunn O))) were the first heavy band to enter the cave in 2019, Clutch were among the earliest metal acts post-pandemic, and their 2024 performance was something of a link between The Caverns’ past and future. “Our background, ironically, is bluegrass music and roots music, which I’ve come to realize that there’s a lot of crossover and interest in roots music through metal,” says Lurgio.
Though Clutch aren’t a southern rock band, their stoner elements are downstream from roots and bluegrass. Those genres are integral to The Caverns: the enterprise began by hosting monthly bluegrass shows at another cave they rented. They soon secured a broadcasting deal with PBS to air the concerts as “Bluegrass Underground” (now “The Cavern Sessions”). Outside interest increased, but the cave was too small for the larger acts, so The Caverns team went cave hunting around the TAG (Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia) region. “It has one of the highest concentrations of caves in the entire world,” Lurgio informs me.
After acquiring the current cave in Grundy County, the team outfitted it to accommodate larger audiences and bridged out to electronic music. Some bass-heavy performers gave them confidence that they could host metal shows. As Lurgio puts it, “People started saying to us ‘This would be the most epic space to see a metal band.’ Like, the space just screamed metal, man. Just like hard surfaces. I don’t know how to describe it, but if you stand there and without a show going on, you think, ‘What kind of music would be good here?’ It’d be metal.”
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Visual aesthetics aside, one has to consider how metal would sound compared to a booming EDM show or an all-acoustic bluegrass act. After all, a metal performance is one bad mix away from being a noise set, albeit a worse smelling audience. Interestingly, Lurgio holds that metal sounds phenomenal at The Caverns. “The rocks actually create a complete dead zone because the sound doesn’t bounce back like it does off of manipulated or artificial surfaces. It’s pretty incredible because it’s like a blank slate for an audio person.”
Said audio person has been working with The Caverns for 18 years and already got around the hardest challenge–making music louder. Due to bluegrass being the predominant genre for so long, The Caverns’ audio technician cut their teeth by beefing up quieter acts who don’t use amplifiers. Additionally, most metal bands bring their own audio engineers who collaborate with The Caverns’ in-house team.
Another impetus for the relocation to Grundy County was the bigger above-ground space. The Caverns offers camping–both RV and tent–as well as yurt lodging and guided caving tours. The added space and amenities allows The Caverns to better accommodate those with mobility issues. “We will drive everybody up to the pavement who has issues, and if somebody has a real problem, we’ll drive them straight down into the cave,” says Lurgio. “It’s something that we couldn’t do when we were renting our old space. And it was a priority when we moved to this space to make sure that we were friendlier to ADA. It’s a cave, but we want to get as many folks who want to come in to experience it as possible.”
Moving forward, Lurgio hopes to collaborate with more metal bands and use The Caverns as a showcase for their musicality. He’s come to realize what anybody reading Invisible Oranges knows but what many outside of metal still believe. “There’s a lot of musicality to it that I think a lot of people who aren’t turned on to the genre don’t know about. They just think it’s noise. And, you know, noise is good. But I think there’s a lot of musicality that people don’t hear. And you got to really just give it a chance.”
As The Caverns expands, they look to bring in more metal acts who can push the cave to its limits, as Between the Buried and Me, Imperial Triumphant, and Fallujah undoubtedly will later this month.
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Tickets to upcoming shows at The Caverns are available here.
