The Temptation Of Superfly

Keeping those numbers moving in the right direction has forced Superfly to rethink key parts of its business. Getting 80 bands onstage is an expensive proposition, after all, especially for $170 a pop (at a time when a single Rolling Stones show runs $134). For next month's Bonnaroo, Superfly snagged electro-rock gods Radiohead to top the bill--an exponential leap in name recognition. At the same time, however, the quartet has begun producing in-house gigs for the likes of Microsoft, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Anheuser-Busch, and music apostates MTV2. Arguably, Superfly has used those gigs to help keep Bonnaroo itself relatively pure: It continues to bring in top-notch talent, hasn't raised the price of beer and water since year one, and keeps the advertising onslaught to a minimum. Then again, its motives may be even simpler. "We are in business to make money," says Mayers, who's an eerie visual echo of Billy, the nut-job brother from Six Feet Under. Later, he snaps, "Why do you think businesses diversify?"

Whether Superfly can become a Hard Rock Cafe for the jam-band clan without trashing its brand depends mostly on the fans. Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, thinks kids today will tolerate just about anything. "We live in a very commercial society," he says. "At the end of the day, people are very forgiving regarding commercial enterprise and promotional opportunities." Maybe. But in case they're not, Superfly is hedging its bets carefully. "It's not like we plaster the Superfly name everywhere," Farman points out, referring to its corporate events. "You would never even know it was us doing it."

Jonathan Sabin is a freelance writer in New York. His last piece for the magazine was "The Test Prince of Bel-Air."