In 1995, Peter Shapiro bought the New York club Wetlands. “That was the home of the Jam Band, the Grateful Dead stage in New York,” he recalls. At the time, though, “it wasn't cool to be a Deadhead. And Wetlands wasn't necessarily the cool game.”
But styles frowned upon by one generation are often adopted by the next. While many artists – and the mainstream music industry – ignored jam bands for years, that's starting to change. Intrigued by the scene's open-mindedness and the unwavering devotion of its fans at a time when “superfan” is the buzzword of the industry, the rest of the music business has begun to take an interest in a space it has long held. arm's length.
“If you're a pop artist and you see a bunch of bearded weirdo hippies who can do whatever they want on their own terms, that's an attractive path to consider,” he says. Mike Lubalong responsible for the String Cheese incident.
At festivals, “you see jam bands showing up in lineups that are traditionally more indie rock or haven't really jammed before,” he explains. Dave DiCianni, who co-manages Goose alongside other bands such as Eggy and Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. “It's nice to see it seeping into mainstream pop culture,” he adds.
The Big Bang for jam bands, according to Shapiro, was the death of Jerry Garcia of the Dead in 1995. “Everybody saw the Dead. they were the number one touring band in the 1990s,” Shapiro continues. “Garcia is dying and this live music audience, the people who love improvisation, is getting distracted. This creates the jam band scene. Phish lifts up” — the band broke up first PollstarThe US top-grossing list of late 1994 — “along with String Cheese Incident, Disco Biscuits, Medeski Martin and Wood” and more.
Over the years, groups associated with the scene “will come in and out of mainstream pop culture,” says Luba, pointing to Rusted Root and the Spin Doctors. But many of the acts in this space have been overlooked, if not dismissed outright, by the mainstream music industry, in part because they didn't generate chart hits or millions of streams, even when they moved a lot of tickets. Nick Sternwhose management client Karina Rickman is the 'jam adjacent', he claims the jam scene is 'the most despised genre in the music industry'.
For some artists, this gives it an inherent outsider appeal: “I'm into things that aren't fashionable,” the Vampire Weekend singer said Ezra Koenig he said The New York Times Magazine in 2020. He also noted that he finds Phish “more inspired, forward-thinking, exciting and talented than a lot of them higher up the cool hierarchy.” Vampire Weekend recently took to the stage with Goose, the arena-filling new stars of the mosque scene.
Jam acts may also benefit from universal tastes cultivated in the streaming age – as DiCianni puts it, listeners' interests are now “less fragmented”. And artists and managers in the jam band scene argue that its emphasis on being present, in the moment, with a community of like-minded people for an ever-changing live experience offers an increasingly powerful antidote to the distracted, frantic, damaged, media social networking- driven world.
But there's another reason why the mainstream music industry is increasingly interested in jam acts. “People outside of the jam band space come to me almost in awe of the fanaticism in this scene,” he says. Ben Baruchthe other Goose co-director.
In interviews over the past six months, many of music's most powerful executives have spoken about the importance of cultivating “superfans.” Despite the popularity of music, it has little revenue compared to areas like gaming. This is partly because the music streaming model offers artists few ways to cultivate meaningful connections with followers. Jam bands have been doing this for decades — perhaps because they haven't had much support from the traditional industry and have never depended on record sales or streaming.
Jam band devotees are impressively diligent about attending shows, purchasing merchandise, and streaming live shows, which change nightly. “They almost treat their favorite bands like a sports team, where they watch what's going on every moment of every show,” he says. Ethan Berlin, who is co-agent for Goose, Pigeons and Rykman, among others. “They've invested so much — for years.”
And those fans have long had “ears a mile wide,” according to Rykman. At a time when the walls between the jam world and the rest of the music industry seem more porous, jam enthusiasts have flexed their muscles to help propel some artists from neighboring worlds to greater heights.
Take Billy Strings: The versatile guitarist and songwriter, now signed to Warner's Reprise Records, has earned Grammy nominations for Best American Roots Performance and Best Duo/Group Performance. won the award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021. At the same time, Strings played with Bill Kreutzmann (founding member of the Dead), String Cheese Incident and Goose, among others. He saw that “there's a whole other world where traditional bluegrass can really come through and be accepted,” Luba says. Strings' current tour includes several arenas.
Berlin is also the agent of Khruangbin, a trio whose dreamy organic grooves now attract 10,000 to 25,000 tickets per market. Berlin describes them as “not quite jam, maybe not even jam, but definitely jam-friendly.” In particular, “they were embraced by this scene early in their careers”, he continues. “One of the first shows they did outside of Houston, where they're from, was when they were invited to play Lockn' Festival. [one of the leading jam gatherings] in 2016.”
For Rykman, whose 2023 debut album featured guitar from Phish co-founder Trey Anastasio, that's one of the “beautiful things about jamming.” “Me, Khruangbin, Vulfpeck, we're not bands with a capital J – none of us play two sets, we still play three-minute songs,” he continues. “But jam band fans were early” to signal appreciation.
Like-minded artists — what Rykman calls “special groovy organizations” — may also want to court this community — music-loving superfans hiding in plain sight who can help them build a formidable live business that ensures a long career. Another of Baruch's client managers is Disco Biscuits. In the last 18 months, he says, “they've been growing more than they've been in the last 20 years.”
“What musician wouldn't want that level of diehard fan?” Berlin asks.
