The Cave Band revived
Three decades in, local group earns spot in Iowa Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame
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THOR -- More than three decades ago, a handful of teenagers plugged in their amps in a farmhouse basement just outside of town, in a space they'd soon start calling "the cave."
This Labor Day weekend, that basement band -- known ever since as the Cave Band -- will be inducted into the Iowa Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame.
The Cave Band is one of seven acts entering the Hall of Fame's Band Category as part of the Class of 2026, alongside Acoustic Groove, The South Prairie Band, Artist Band, Murphy's Law, Standing Hampton and Lizard Creek. The Iowa Rock 'n Roll Music Association's Induction Spectacular runs Friday through Sunday in Spirit Lake, capped by an induction concert Sept. 6 at the Roof Garden Ballroom, where each inducted act will perform a 20-minute set.
More than 30 years after it started, the band -- drummer Nick Rosendahl, guitarists Dean Mattoon, Chip Evans and Jake Torkelson, bassist and vocalist Jeremy Pearson, and lead singer Shawn Wilson -- still gets together to play.
Rosendahl said he, Torkelson and Mattoon started the band in October 1992 in that farmhouse basement north of Thor. Mattoon was 17; Torkelson had just turned 15.
It didn't take long to find work.
"We wanted something simple," Rosendahl recalled, "so we drove around to bars and just started playing and got hired."
Word spread and fans began calling them "The Caveman Band."
"It sort of just happened," Rosendahl said of the name.
Torkelson still remembers the band's first gig, in Titonka. The crowd cleared a pool table to make room for the equipment.
"I just remember getting there and having to move the pool table, because it was like, 'OK, the band's here,'" he said. "I just remember being terrified. ... Eventually I got through it."
The lineup filled out over the next few years. Evans joined two years after the band formed, initially replacing the group's bass player before switching to lead guitar.
"I've been playing music for about 37 years," he said.
Pearson followed in the summer of 1995.
"I was one of the last ones," he said.
Wilson was recruited around the same time out of a band in Des Moines.
"We found Jeremy and Shawn within a year of each other, and that's when the band really took off," Rosendahl said.
Torkelson, for his part, drifted in and out of the lineup over the years as he chased other musical opportunities before finding his way back.
Mattoon recalled the local scene picking up through the 1990s and into the 2000s.
"At that time we didn't have Facebook," he said. "We took posters around and dropped them off at bars, and people would come out of the woodwork to hear us play."
The band played the Frontier Days parade in Fort Dodge six years running, and for a stretch, played three or four shows a week, Wilson said. The group also opened for national acts, including Molly Hatchet and Head East.
One night still stands out. The band played at the ABATE of Iowa Freedom Rally in Humboldt, taking the stage after midnight in front of an estimated 10,000 to 11,000 people. They ran through a set of covers by the Minnesota band Crow, known for its hits "Evil Woman" and "Cottage Cheese" -- and then Crow's own members climbed on stage to jam with them as the night wore on.
"They came up on stage and started jamming with us," Pearson said. "It was such a great time doing that and seeing the sun come up in the morning."
The band's momentum slowed in 2002, when Evans and the group's drummer took time away to tour the country's biker rally circuit. Over the next decade, members scattered as marriages, kids and jobs pulled them to different corners of the Midwest and beyond -- Rosendahl stayed in Thor, Evans settled in Sheffield, Wilson moved to Waukee, Pearson stayed in Fort Dodge, Mattoon relocated to Rock Island, Illinois, and Torkelson eventually landed in Minneapolis. These days, the Cave Band reunites to perform at least once a year.
None of them ever really stopped playing.
Mattoon spent time as a full-time musician in New Orleans and later toured the country for three years with his wife in a small bus, hitting roughly 17 states a year. Evans runs a DJ and karaoke business, and performs solo acoustic shows. Wilson, who has driven a flatbed truck for nearly a decade, still takes the stage as the Cave Band's singer. Pearson has played in several other bands around Iowa, including one alongside Rosendahl.
"I've kind of slowed down, but I still enjoy playing," he said.
Torkelson tours less than he used to, but still plays frequently, splitting his time between Minneapolis and Iowa for solo acoustic sets.
Ask any of them what the band actually is, 30-plus years on, and the answer isn't about the music.
"They're my brothers," Wilson said. "I love them."
"I love these guys like my brothers," echoed Evans.
"Everyone just loves each other to death," Rosendahl said.
The band still honors longtime guru and sound technician Bob Brockman, also known as "Senator Bob," who has since died. During shows, the crowd is asked to shout "Hi, Bob!" partway through the set, a small ritual that keeps him in the room.
"I can't even explain it. It's such an honor," Rosendahl said of the induction. "You never think about it when you're in the middle of it -- you play gigs and do your thing, and then you get nominated. I'd like to thank everybody for supporting live music in the area, and for supporting us."
For all six members, that gratitude runs in both directions -- toward the fans who kept showing up, and toward each other. It's a small-town Iowa story as much as a band's story -- one that started with posters on bar doors, and ends, more than 30 years later, with a Hall of Fame plaque.
For six guys who never really left the stage, that's enough.