GUITAR WORLD JUNE 2021t PAGE FORTY-SEVEN
GRETA VAN FLEET
BATTLE READY
CAN ONE OF ROCK’S MOST POLARIZING YOUNG BANDS ONCE AGAIN SILENCE CRITICS WITH THEIR CINEMATIC NEW ALBUM, THE BATTLE AT GARDEN’S GATE?GUITARIST JAKE KISZKA AIMS TO FIND OUT.
BY JOE BOSSO
PHOTO GRAPH BY ALYSSE GAFKJEN
“ART IS SUPPOSED TO ELICIT STRONG REACTIONS, ISN’T IT?”
Jake Kiszka asks rhetorically. The Greta Van Fleet guitarist is considering the extreme, diametrically opposed responses his band has received since they first topped radio playlists in 2017 with their single, “Highway Tune.” On the one side, there are those who have hailed the Michigan quartet as the brightest young band of this millennium and the redhot shot of adrenaline that rock has sorely needed. On the other side, there are the detractors who have tagged the group as nothing more than competent yet shameless Led Zeppelin clones. It’s a “love ’em or hate ’em” proposition with little gray area in between.
After four years of it, Kiszka isn’t letting any such noise get to him; in fact, he takes a philosophical — and surprisingly welcoming — view of the band’s polarizing nature. “I actually think it’s a beautiful thing,” he says. “There’s something sort of perfect about having one or another direct response to what we’re doing. It’s the essential point, really. Music can affect somebody in a very loving, peaceful or inspirational way, or it can go the other way and you have a determined opposite reaction in which people are infuriated by it. I think that’s the objective of all artists.”
In the years since their arrival, the band (which also includes Kiszka’s two brothers — Josh on lead vocals, Sam on bass and keyboards — along with drummer Danny Wagner) has come a long way, issuing two EPs, Black Smoke Rising and From the Fires, as well as their 2018 full-length Anthem of the Peaceful Army, all of them brimming with rollicking riffs, hammer-of-the-godslike rhythms and epic, high-register vocals. They’ve topped Billboard charts, collected a Grammy (for From the Fires) and toured the world several times. But along with their success, the band members have still been unable to shake the nagging perception that they’re simply Seventies FM-radio revivalists adopting a modern sheen.
“It’s somewhat perplexing,” Kiszka says. “I think one has to establish the fact that we are commonly referred to as a ‘classic rock band’ or a ‘throwback band’ to comment on that. I’ve always thought it would be really puzzling to try to identify ourselves in those ways, because I think we’re very much a product of our environment, politically and societally speaking. When I wake up tomorrow, I’m still going to be living in a world that surrounds me and influences me, and I think we’re contemporary in our flesh and blood.”
Which is another way of saying that he’s having none of it. “I think it has to do with age, really,” Kiszka continues. “Critics are hard to press, in particular to the Zeppelin reference, which we’re humbled by. We’re honored by that affiliation, but again there’s a point within factions of society that are drawn to ignorant criticism. It’s just something we’ll never be a part of contributing to. The loud minority will never speak for the quiet majority. That’s something Joe Bonamassa mentioned to me once, and I believe it’s pretty accurate.”