Nearly a year ago, a new venue emerged, providing Reno with an all-ages space for metal, hardcore, indie and more.
The Empire is an intimate music venue located on Ryland Street, and in less than a year, it has hosted 30 shows spanning genres and fanbases. The duo of Chloe “Bug” Saunders and Noah Burton have given music fans from all walks of life another outlet of self-expression thanks to The Empire. During a recent phone interview, they talked about why they opened the venue.
“We felt like Reno needed another all-ages music space, especially for heavy music,” Saunders said. “I had been booking shows for a while, and the place that I was booking shows at closed down, so it was hard to find a space that had open dates, or is chill with booking heavy music. Some of us got together and threw around the idea, and we just opened up our own space.”
Added Burton: “There are not enough all-age venues; 95% of the venues around here are bars, so it’s all 21 and up. Not a lot of kids under 21 are able to go to see any kind of genre, or even bigger acts that come through here.”
The venue has only hosted concerts so far, but the owners are dedicated to expanding their offerings in 2025.
“We opened it with the intent to do an art space-type thing, but we just haven’t had the opportunity yet,” Burton said. “We’ve been open for less than a year now, so we’re trying to get our name out at this point, and try to provide any shows that we can around here.”
The Empire has a forgiving policy regarding misbehavior.
“Obviously, there’s stuff that we have no tolerance for, just like any sort of music venue,” Saunders said. “We went into it with the idea of: If something happens at a show, or if someone gets too rowdy or whatever, and it gets to the point where they need to be removed from the show, they’re not (permanently) 86ed from the venue, so they can come back next time.”
Added Burton: “We haven’t really had any instances where we’ve had to 86 anybody. People make mistakes at shows, so sometimes fights happen, but we don’t want to permanently ban or exclude anybody from the scene here just for something minor.”
The owners are happy that The Empire is giving fans of heavier genres more options.
“Especially when it comes to black metal or death metal, a lot of those shows were only at bars,” Saunders said. “I’m only 20 years old, and aside from a few shows that would happen at other venues, I never got to see metal shows, and that’s my favorite genre of music. We’re opening up our doors to more extreme metal. Vakker comes through a lot, and they bring in a lot of death metal and black metal, so it’s really cool to see kids who are my age and younger coming in and experiencing that firsthand, rather than just online. I’ve been seeing a lot of repeat faces coming in, for sure.”
Added Burton: “I feel like a lot of the black-metal groups around here are all generally older people, so a lot of them have kids, and not a lot of them get to bring their kids to shows. That happens a lot here, which I think is really cool.”
That said, The Empire is not just a metal venue.
“I’d say over half of our shows have been indie shows that have been really successful,” Burton said. “They obviously have other places to go that they could play around here, but they really like playing here, and we like having them play here, too. We try to go for every genre of music that we can in here.”
Burton and Saunders said that despite the positive response thus far, there is a lot of work to be done.
“We want to make the place as nice as we can,” Burton said. “We got the keys back in August (2003) or something like that, but we didn’t have our first show until March, because we were just slowly piecing everything together—putting carpet in, taking down walls, making sure we have a green room, making sure we have equipment, PA, house instruments and all that type of stuff. We also are a nonprofit, so we take (in) little to no money at shows a lot of the time. Sometimes, we’ve had shows where we’ve taken no money, because there wasn’t a lot to distribute. We make sure all the bands are paid before anything else. We want to get more stage lights and projectors and stuff like that, so we can do movie nights. It’s just been a slow process, step by step. We want the place to grow, it’s just been kind of slow.”
The owners hope The Empire can help Reno’s music scene get over some recent struggles.
“The hardcore scene has definitely taken a step back in the past year,” Saunders said. “As far as the history with Reno and the hardcore scene, it’s been around for a very long time, and it is definitely something that I want to get back on the map again, just because there are a lot of people here who like hardcore, and I really like hardcore, so I think it’d be cool to get bigger bands out here. That’s definitely one of my goals.”
Added Burton: “The only time you get really big shows are at bars, and it’s just big touring bands. That’s really the only time we get any kind of big scene here. It’s definitely not as prominent as it used to be, and I think that’s been our main goal, is to try to get it to where it was even 10 years ago.”
Saunders has a proclamation for people who may think The Empire is not a space for them.
“Our venue is meant to be an inclusive space for everybody,” Saunders said. “I would just like to put out there that everyone is welcome, regardless if you’ve never been to a hardcore show, if you’ve never been to a metal show, or if you’ve never been to an indie show. Come out, and check it out. It’s definitely worth a shot.”
The Empire is located at 620 Ryland St. For more information, visit www.instagram.com/620ryland.