Robert Plant—he of Led Zeppelin, Honeydrippers and Band of Joy fame—recently commented on the somewhat familiar sound of up-and-coming rockers Greta Van Fleet—especially the impressive pipes of their lead singer, Josh Kiszka.
"There's a band in Detroit called Greta Van Fleet. They are Led Zeppelin I," Plant told Loudwire. "Beautiful little singer, I hate him! He borrowed [his voice] from somebody I know very well, but what are you going to do? At least he's got a bit of style, because he’s said he based his whole style on Aerosmith [eye roll]."
Considering their big, riff-heavy sound, the Frankenmuth, Michigan-based foursome have been compared to mighty Led Zep several thousand times over the past few years—not that they mind.
“Are you kidding me? I embrace it!” guitarist Jake Kiszka (Josh's brother) told Guitar World. “That big riff style that [Jimmy] Page pioneered is something that always excited me. I think it’s a little sad that huge rock riffs are lacking in a lot of today’s music. Maybe if people see what we’re doing and how cool it is, we can help make it come back.”
As for Plant's Led Zeppelin I comment, Jake indirectly agrees. As he told Guitar World in March, “We have certain debut records that are like benchmarks to us—Van Halen’s first record, Zeppelin’s first, even the Black Crowes’ Shake Your Money Maker. Those records really seemed to sum up each band so well. Those albums are like the gold standard, and they give us something to shoot for. It’s like, ‘Can we be that good?’ ”
By the way, Greta Van Fleet also have captured the attention of Joe Satriani, who told NJ Arts in February: "I've been listening to this young band, Greta Van Fleet, and I'm really enjoying that exuberance that I'm hearing. When I first heard them, I sent their album to all my friends that were in my high-school band. We're still good friends and we stay in touch and, I swear, that's what we were trying to do when we were 15 years old.
"We were just trying to be like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and The Stones, but these guys are really good at it! [Laughs] They have that same kind of... it just sounds like they love music and they love what they're doing and yeah, I've been listening to that quite a bit."
