Travis Shinn
Greta Van Fleet saved the best for last.
“Madison has a special place in our hearts,” says bassist Sam Kiszka, checking in from Jacksonville, Florida, the second stop on an 18-date, primarily East Coast tour that will wrap up June 4 at Breese Stevens Field.
The band includes the three Kiszka brothers — Sam, 20, vocalist Josh, 23, and guitarist Jake, 23 — plus longtime friend and drummer Danny Wagner, 20. Greta Van Fleet played Freakfest in 2016 and were among the first artists to perform at The Sylvee last fall. On top of that, Aaron Frank, a third-generation member of the family that owns Madison-based Frank Productions, is the band’s manager.
The band, which charged out of the tiny central Michigan city of Frankenmuth with a retro yet fresh sound that borrows heavily from Led Zeppelin, returns to Madison hailed as rock’s saviors. The UK’s Classic Rock magazine declared Greta Van Fleet “the hottest band on the planet” on the cover of its February issue, and Anthem of the Peaceful Army, their 2018 full-length debut album, made it to No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The band, founded in 2012, also won a “Best Rock Album” Grammy for its second EP, 2018’s From the Fires.
“I never thought rock and roll was dead,” Sam says. “Rock and roll is what anybody, in my mind, would ever want to listen to. We would get on the bus going to school and listen to the pop radio station that was on, and we were just so genuinely confused by it. Like, why would anybody want to listen to this?”
You’d expect that attitude from three guys who grew up in a household filled with the sounds of groundbreaking Motown artists like Stevie Wonder, James Brown and Aretha Franklin. There was Elvis, too, and vintage bluesmen Robert Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy, plus lots of Chicago electric blues.
“That was the first layer of everything we knew,” Sam says, adding that the brothers discovered Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, The Beatles and The Moody Blues later on.
“Jake started getting into heavier music and playing guitar like Jimi Hendrix,” Sam recalls. “Dad took away his electric guitar and thought his playing was suffering because he was using too much gain and overdriving the amp. So he had to switch back to acoustic until Dad deemed him a good enough player to get the electric back. That really put a lot of technicality into Jake’s playing. And that went a long way in putting us where we are right now. None of us really overdo anything.”
That point is open to debate. Greta Van Fleet divided a national television audience with its love-it-or-hate-it performance on Saturday Night Live in January, during which a wide-eyed Josh sang like a man possessed while his brothers (both clad in sparkling unzipped jackets) strutted the stage like rock gods of yesteryear. Paste.com pointed out that the band is “riding in on a wave of Baby Boomer nostalgia, not reinventing guitar music.”
That said, guitar-driven rock has been missing from mainstream music for years, and Greta Van Fleet deserves credit for introducing a new generation of listeners to the magic of the power chord.
“There isn’t much of a spot for us to fit in, which gives us a huge advantage,” Sam says. “Plus, we’re brothers, and we’ve always operated in a way that allows us to make music with a certain honesty. I don’t think we have much of a choice; that’s what’s going to come out of us, no matter what. Following our hearts and loving what we do is a really important part of our success.”
The band’s record label, Lava/Republic, appears to be fine with that approach. Sam says Greta Van Fleet has been given “complete creative freedom,” adding that “we’re very thankful for that.”
The band plans to announce a second full-length album later this year, and Sam says the sound is leaning toward a more experimental vibe.
As for the band’s name, it was inspired by Gretna Van Fleet, an older woman from Frankenmuth for whom one of the band members would chop wood.
“We just lost the ‘n’ in ‘Gretna,’” Sam says. “We thought it was a really cool name. As we started to travel a lot and miss home, it kind of took the place of the home element. The name will always represent home to us.”
Once Midwestern boys, always Midwestern boys.
“It does sound like a bit of a cliché, but the more that we see the world, the more we feel connected to the Midwest, and that’s part of our identity,” Sam says. “Growing up, honesty, family and hometown roots were very important to us and still are. I think bringing that wherever we go is a very positive reinforcement to whatever we’re doing.”
