In 1995, Peter Shapiro bought the New York club Wetlands, “which had been the home of the New York jam band the Grateful Dead,” he recalls, but back then, “it wasn't cool to be a Deadhead, and Wetlands wasn't necessarily a cool place to play.”
But a style disliked by one generation often carries over to the next. Jam bands have long been ignored by many artists and the mainstream music industry, but that's starting to change. Intrigued by jam bands' genre-hopping open-mindedness and their fans' unwavering loyalty, in an era when “superfan” has become an industry buzzword, the rest of the music industry is taking an interest in a sector it has long shunned.
“If you're a pop artist and you see a bunch of weird hippies with beards doing whatever the hell they want, it seems like an appealing path to follow,” says Mike Luba, the String Cheese Incident's longtime manager.
At festivals, “you're seeing jam bands appear on lineups that have traditionally leaned more towards indie rock or haven't had much exposure to jam in the past,” explains Dave DiCianni, co-manager of Goose, which includes jam bands like Eggy and Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. “It's cool to see jam seeping into general pop culture,” he adds.
According to Shapiro, the big bang for jam bands was the death of the Dead's Jerry Garcia in 1995. “Everybody saw the Dead. They were the No. 1 touring band of the '90s,” Shapiro continues. “When Garcia died, it divided an audience that loved live music and improvisation. That created the jam band scene. Phish was on the rise.” The band first made Pollstar's ranking of the top-grossing U.S. tours in late 1994, “along with the String Cheese Incident, Disco Biscuits, Medeski, Martin & Wood, and others.”
Luba said groups associated with the scene “have come in and out of mainstream pop culture over the years,” pointing to Rusted Root and Spin Doctors as examples. But many of the artists in this field have been overlooked or ignored altogether by the mainstream music industry, as their ticket sales are high but their releases have never made it onto the charts or garnered millions of streams. Nick Stern, whose management client Karina Reichman is “in the jam business,” claims the jam scene is “the most neglected genre in the music industry.”
For some artists, that gives them an inherent underdog appeal. “I'm interested in things that are out of fashion,” Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koenig told The New York Times Magazine in 2020. He also said that Phish is “more inspiring, more forward-thinking, more exciting and more talented than a lot of the stuff that's higher up on the cool hierarchy.” Vampire Weekend recently shared the stage with another arena-filling new star in the jam scene, Goose.
Jam bands may be benefiting from the wider tastes fostered by the streaming era—listeners' interests are now, as DiCianni puts it, “less fragmented”—and their artists and managers argue that an emphasis on being in the moment with a like-minded community for the ever-changing live experience is an increasingly powerful antidote to a distracting, frenetic, niche, social-media-driven world.
But there's another reason the mainstream music industry is becoming increasingly interested in jam bands: “People outside the jam-band industry come up to me in awe of the fandom of the scene,” says Ben Baruch, Goose's other co-manager.
In interviews over the past six months, many of music's most influential executives have spoken about the importance of cultivating “superfans.” Despite its popularity, music has been under-monetized compared to sectors like gaming. That's in part because the music-streaming model currently offers artists few avenues to foster meaningful connections with their followers. Jam bands have been doing this for decades, perhaps because they didn't have much support from the traditional industry and never relied on record sales or streaming.
Jam-band aficionados are surprisingly dedicated to seeing, buying merchandise, and streaming live performances that change every night. “They treat their favorite bands like a sports team, following what happens every moment of every show,” says Ethan Berlin, co-agent for Goose, Pigeons, Reichman, and others. “They've been obsessed for years.”
And these fans have always had “ears a mile wide,” Reichman said. As the walls between the jam world and the rest of the music industry become increasingly thin, jam enthusiasts have been instrumental in pushing their neighbors to new heights.
Take Billy Strings, for example. Currently signed to Warner's Reprise Records, the multitalented guitarist and songwriter has been nominated for Grammys for Best American Roots Performance and Best Country Duo/Group Performance, and won Best Bluegrass Album in 2021. At the same time, Strings has played with Bill Kreutzmann (founding member of The Dead), The String Cheese Incident, The Goose, and more. He realized, Luba says, “there's a whole other world where traditional bluegrass can actually cross over and be embraced.” Strings' current tour includes multiple arenas.
Berlin is also the agent for Khruangbin, a trio whose dreamy instrumental grooves currently draw between 10,000 and 25,000 tickets per market. Berlin describes them as “I wouldn't call them jammy, but they're not even close to jamming, but they're definitely jam-friendly.” Notably, “they were embraced by that scene early on in their career,” he continues. “The first time they were noticed outside of their hometown of Houston was when they were invited to play Rock'n'Festival. [one of the leading jam gatherings] In 2016.”
For Reichman, whose 2023 debut album features Phish co-founder Trey Anastasio on guitar, this is one of the “great things about Jamspace.” “Neither me, Khruangbin, nor Vulfpek, we're a capital J jam band. No one plays two sets, but we play three-minute songs,” she continues. “But jam band fans” were quick to express their appreciation.
Like-minded artists, what Reichman calls “one-of-a-kind groovy organisms,” might also want to tap into this community, a hidden gem of music-loving enthusiasts who can help them build the kind of strong live business that will guarantee a long career. Another of Baruch's management clients is Disco Biscuits, who he says have “grown more in the past 18 months than they've grown in 20.”
“What musician doesn't want that level of passionate fandom?” Berlin asks.
A version of this story will appear in the June 8, 2024 issue of Billboard.