Jake Kiszka has looked back on his love affair with The Beloved – the 1961 Gibson Les Paul SG that has been at the core of everything he’s done with Greta Van Fleet.

Kiszka, who also stuck to the electric guitar in question for his recent collaborative project with Chris Turpin, Mirador, is synonymous with the cherry red SG, which itself is a vintage example lifted from the design’s earliest era when it still bore the ‘Les Paul’ name.

But Kiska’s attachment to the SG stretches far beyond the material. It’s more than just A Good Guitar. As he explains in an interview with MusicRadar, there was an intangible, sentimental connection to the SG that he simply could not ignore.

The only problem was, when he first crossed paths with the guitar at the Chicago Music Exchange Vault, he couldn’t afford it. Enter CME CEO Andrew Yonke, who took a hell of a gamble on the promising young guitarist.

As the tale goes, when Greta Van Fleet were first finding their feet, Kiszka was browsing for new gear at Chicago Music Exchange. The band’s manager was a friend of Yonke’s, and so a private testing of the most desirable vintage equipment from the retailer’s famed archive was arranged.

That put Kiska on a collision course with the guitar that would end up defining his style, sound and his career.

“I was looking through all these guitars, and we were trying to pick up some gear if we could – some serious, good gear,” Kiska remembers. “I wasn’t really that familiar with the early ’60s SGs. I didn’t know much about them.

“I stumbled upon this one. I was just immediately mesmerised. The visual element of it, the weight of it, the slimness of the neck. And it was like, ‘I’d really like to play this and maybe see if I could take it with me.’

“And so the owner said, ‘Let’s walk back to my apartment. We’ll plug it in. I’ve got a Plexi JTM, early Marshall.’ So we did, we went back, and I plugged it in.”

It was love at first strum. Kiszka reckons it could have been divine intervention. There was no way he was walking out the store without it. There was one hitch: the $25,000 price tag.

“It was like a lightning bolt just hit me from above,” he adds. “I really did feel like this was sort of a divine intervention for me. It was everything that I was looking for in terms of the sound of something. I’d been searching for that my whole life up to this point.

“There was no question I yearned to take it on the road with me,” he says with a laugh. “The caveat was it was a $25,000 guitar. So of course I wasn’t gonna be able to afford that being a poor kid coming out of Michigan, you know?”

“Thankfully and gratefully I’m humbled that the owner perhaps saw something in me, and, and us as a band, and allowed me to take it on the road,” he says. “He said, ‘Do you know what? Just pay me back for it later, when you can afford it.’ And I did.”

It proved to be a good gamble from the owner. Kiszka and the 1961 model have been inseparable ever since. It’s been on every Greta Van Fleet album, starred on Mirador’s record, and toured the world many times over.

It was also recently reissued as Kiska’s first Gibson signature guitar. Speaking to Guitar World about the guitar’s creation, Kiszka expanded on his affection for the SG, and explained how he manages the baggage that comes with such an iconic instrument.

For Jake Kiszka, the guitarist of the Grammy-winning Greta Van Fleet and his new project Mirador, the Gibson SG has long been his calling card. From the moment his father drove him to a guitar shop, a young Jake became obsessed with this devil-horned Gibson, and since then, he has gone on to make the model a key part of his sound and his identity.

Now, in partnership with Gibson, Kiszka has been bestowed the ultimate honor for guitarists: his very own signature model. It isn’t lost on him.

“I've known some of those guys, Mat Koehler and César [Gueikian], for quite some time,” he says. “It was basically them reaching out and asking if I'd like to do a signature model. Of course, I was interested, and I just became sort of obsessed with it. I’m quite elated by that. It's quite the honor.”

Built around the early ’60s Les Paul SG as a template, the guitar is a modern reimagining of the guitar he calls The Beloved, featuring a mahogany body, SlimTaper mahogany neck, with rosewood fretboard, 22 medium jumbo frets, Gibson Vintage Deluxe tuners with keystone buttons, and a pair of T-Type pickups.

The model also comes with a modified Sideways Vibrola, designed to give the look of the vintage trem arm, without any of the pesky tuning issues. The entire thing comes wrapped in a hardshell guitar case with a custom leather buckle strap that proudly displays Jake’s metallic coin pendant.

We sat down with Kiszka to talk about the mythology of the SG, the non-negotiables that shaped the new signature model, and what he hopes players discover when they first plug one in.

What is it about the SG specifically that keeps pulling you back compared to other guitars?

​"You know, it's a lot of things. The history with that guitar is something I was drawn to when I was really young. My first real guitar was an SG Standard.

​"There's always been an allure to it. A certain sensuality about the SG, as opposed to any other guitar, and specifically, Gibson.

"Outside of the history of it, it's just sort of the sound of it. It's always been an SG that has stood out to me, or captured my attention and inspired me in some way."

​As you say, there’s a certain mythology around the SG in rock music – especially in the style of music you play. How conscious are you of that legacy, and how do you deal with that baggage?

"Yeah, there is a lineage, if you will. But to me, in so many ways, I think doing the SG as a standard signature model with Gibson, it wasn't necessarily going to be in the same configuration as some of these predecessors. There was going to be a sort of delineation in terms of design and approach to it.

​"So, in some ways, yes, absolutely, I’m conscious of it. But at the same time, there was going to be an innovation. This is an early ’60s SG or ‘Les G,’ if you will – the SG Les Paul.

​"When Gibson called and said, ‘Would you like to do a signature model?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I would be up for it, but it really depends on what the approach is going to be.’

​"What inspired me was to take my number one, The Beloved, and work with Gibson to reinvent it in modern terms. Historically inspired nuances of the original, and then the modifications – it’s the evolution of what it could be in terms of design and approach."

Your SG has become an extension of you. Can you remember when you got your first SG and realised this was “your” guitar?

​"Yeah, absolutely. I began playing guitar quite young, but it was acoustic. My father was adamant that if I were to learn guitar, I would familiarize myself with the basics of guitar on an acoustic. Obviously, in some ways, things are more practical on an acoustic guitar.

​"So I'd obviously wanted an electric for a long time, probably not too dissimilarly from other kids wanting to be Jimi Hendrix and turn the volume and the gain all the way to 15 or something, and he wouldn't allow it. But as time went on, I guess I proved myself.

​"He took me to Saginaw, Michigan, where there was a guitar shop, and I was immediately drawn to this SG. I played everything, and he wasn't gonna let on that he was going to buy me a guitar. I think he was just taking me so I could play around with everything.

​"We'd gone back a few times, and I was just continually drawn to this SG. I think it was the weight of it. The physical weight of it and the look of it. I suppose, at that period of time, I wasn't as familiar with guitars, and the details and specifications of them, but I think it was the look and the feel and the sensuality that sort of led me down that path to begin with."

​When you started working with Gibson, what were the absolute non-negotiables – the things that had to be right or it wouldn’t have your name on it?

​"The lacquer is very thin; it’s a thin layer so that it intentionally ages and cracks over time. They're intended to actually distress. That was a really big part of the objective. Also, the slimness of the neck. It was like, how thin could Gibson go without the liability of it snapping and stuff – the neck is as thin as humanly possible. That was the goal, and we got it quite slim. So we worked quite closely with them to refine those details.

​"Then there’s the T-Types, which I think just sounded better in terms of the pickups. Obviously, the original has PAFs, but the idea was what improvements could be made.

"I suppose, lastly, and significantly, is the sideways trem bar. Those early ’60s SGs were notable for, well, just being completely unfunctional [laughs]. ​So it's like, how do we evolve it? In this sense, how do we make something that's sort of like tactical or more practical in a sense, but it still serves a function in terms of design? We'll just block it off. Take the functionality out of it, and it just looks quite good.

"It’s always suspended, as a suspended bridge, which changes some of the sustain, but Gibson completely re-machined that entire part, taking the arm off and taking the functionality of it away. Which is great. I think that was a major Improvement."

Have you been road-testing this signature guitar, and how does it compare to your number one?

​"Somewhat. I mean, with my project Mirador, I was out on the road last year, and I was sort of in the process of designing the guitar, and Gibson was sending me prototypes. I was comparing them in some ways, at least in soundchecks, to my number one, which I know quite well, so it was like a control group, if you will. It was trying to get as close to the original as possible.

"It was quite triumphant because of the way the guitar sounds and feels; it has almost drawn me closer to wanting to play the original in some ways, which is interesting."

When someone plugs in your signature SG for the first time, what do you hope they feel or discover about themselves as a player?

​"A wave of inspiration and influence. The modus operandi of the entire project was to try to create something that inspires people and moves them.

​"Ultimately, I would like people to find their own voice in it and be able to play it. Find the inspiration that the young kid version of myself found in my first SG."

​Speaking of inspiring younger players, can we expect a more affordable Epiphone version in the future?

​"As time goes on, I'd love to do an Epiphone version of it. To be able to create something that's at a price point that’s realistic. I think down in the timeline, it would definitely make sense.

"Initially, the idea was actually to create this as an Epiphone, but I think Gibson was really keen on creating something that was from the USA factory, which shows in the quality of this guitar and its presence sonically."

• The Gibson USA Jake Kiszka SG Standard is available now for $2,499. Head over to Gibson.com for more information.

Greta Van Fleet are making a big screen cameo in the highly anticipated Bruce Springsteen biopic, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.

Spoiler alert – there's a scene in which Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen joins a ‘local’ band at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Turns out, that band is actually made up of an all-star lineup, curated by the film's producer, Dave Cobb.

Jake Kiszka and Sam Kiszka from Greta Van Fleet are the fictional band's guitarist and bassist, while keyboardist Bobby Emmett from Jack White's band and Nashville drummer Askel Coe round up the line-up. The band delivers its own rendition of Little Richard’s Lucille and John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom – performed alongside ‘Bruce’ – which are also included in the movie soundtrack.

“It’s interesting. It began through Dave Cobb; he produced the last Greta album (2023’s Starcatcher) and was helping me produce this current Mirador record,” Jake Kiszka explains in an interview with Billboard when asked about how the opportunity came about.

“We were sitting around on the dock out by the water at his house in Savannah (Georgia) and he said, ‘I’ve just been working on this Deliver Me From Nowhere film about Nebraska and Springsteen,’ and he said the director, Scott Cooper, was looking for a young band who could be the house band for the Stone Pony during this era of Springsteen.

“And Scott said, ‘I’m really looking for a young, sort of hop rock ’n’ roll band like Greta Van Fleet.’ And Dave’s like, ‘Well, I know someone… Why don’t we just ask those guys?’ He asked me, and then he needed a bass player and guitar player, so Sam and I sort of stepped up to the plate. That’s how it began.”

Kiszka asserts that the cameo was “completely unexpected, but there’s been so many opportunities like this that come across through the grapevine”.

He continues, “A lot of this stuff it’s like, ‘OK, that’s cool, but we’re touring’ or doing a record, whatever we’re busy with at the time. This came through, and it was like, you definitely can’t say no to this because Bruce Springsteen is such a big influence on us.”

He went on to explain the recording process with White as Springsteen, which included going to the Power Station in New York, where the Boss actually recorded.

“Jeremy came in as well,” Kiszka relates. “It was really rough and tumble; we maybe got two or three passes on each song. The idea was we were gonna record (more) at the Stony Pony while we were filming, so we were under the impression of, ‘OK, let’s give this a go, give it our best,’ and ultimately have another go at it when we’re on the set and filming.”

However, the plans changed slightly when the Power Station recordings were approved (and lauded) by Springsteen himself – a dream for the Kiszka brothers.

“What happened is Bruce heard what we had recorded (in the studio) and he was so enamored with it and loved it so much that Scott Cooper decided we were gonna use those recordings from the Power Station in studio, which is quite cool,” Kiszka says.

And like every other music biopic in recent years, White had to put in the hours to learn guitar à la Springsteen – with a co-star revealing in a recent interview that he was lugging his guitar to other sets and secretly practicing.

“It was the last day of recording, and the engineers have packed down all the mics and the drums, and Dave said, ‘Fuck it. We need another fast one. You’ve got half an hour. Go down, write it and come back…’”

Vocalist and guitarist Chris Turpin is describing the breakneck tempo of writing and recording Mirador’s debut album in the humid depths of the night in Savannah, Georgia, under the exacting eye of veteran producer Dave Cobb, a nine-time Grammy Award winner.

The intensity of the story is at odds with the bucolic setting in which it is told. It’s a Sunday afternoon and Chris and Mirador bandmate Jake Kiszka (better known as guitarist with globe-conquering rock band Greta Van Fleet) are sitting in the beer garden of one of the oldest pubs in England, wafting wasps away from their drinks and trying to explain how they captured lightning in a bottle at first attempt with Mirador’s eponymous debut album.

Dark, brooding and twitching with unpredictable energy, the record is the kind we all grew up on – even if we were born too late to be there as it happened. It’s a record whose spiritual home is a live BBC TV soundstage, somewhere in the early ’70s – or perhaps a churned festival field somewhere in Somerset in ’69.

Or maybe a setting older still, somewhere in the dim folkways of pre-war America and pre-industrial Britain.

It has guitar solos that launch out of the speakers like crooked javelins, vocal performances that seem ripped out of the singer’s heart like pages from a profane bible – and its sound is steeped as much in the folk music of a lost England as it is in blues.

Listening to it, you wonder, ‘Why did we stop making records this way?’ Once upon a time, guitarists like Hendrix played from the hip with such complete abandon yet still said something profound with every bar. But ever since then, some might argue, we have traded the intoxicatingly volatile spirit of that kind of rock for increasing precision and replicable virtuosity.

Mirador want to go the other way and, in the best sense, they have succeeded. Yet there are also contemporary textures and sounds, making it a striking beast on the landscape of modern rock music – an album deeply rooted in tradition and made like bands used to do, without a click-track in sight, yet very much of its own time, too.

For Jake Kiszka, the journey is not without risks. Greta Van Fleet are already one of the world’s most acclaimed rock acts and not without reason as their epic, soaring reimagining of the classic rock idiom has gained them a huge and obsessively devoted following around the world.

And Jake’s role as guitarist in Greta has placed him on a pedestal that few ever get to stand on. So when Mirador embarked on their recent debut US tour opening for Greta Van Fleet, Kiszka knew he – and the otherwise all-British Mirador line-up rounded out by Nick Pini on bass and Mikey Sorbello on drums – would be under the microscope.

“I think the scrutiny that we knew we’d be under lent itself to the atmosphere of the record. It was like everybody had their back or backs up against the wall. So we really had to come out swinging,” Jake reflects.

Lest that sound melodramatic, Jake and Chris recall their surprise when they realised that, between their first ever live performance and the second, fans had pieced together the lyrics of Mirador’s songs, despite none being made public as recordings at that stage, well enough to sing them back to the band as they played.

Kiszka and Turpin met when Chris’s roots-rock duo with Stephanie Ward, Ida Mae, were supporting Greta Van Fleet six years ago. A common interest in the folk music of America and Britain brought Kiszka and Turpin together and tour-bus jams gradually coalesced into a conviction that the pair should write and record something together that stood apart from their other work.

The other resolution was that the outcome would fan life back into the embers of rock as it used to be written and performed – spontaneously, almost recklessly, with a match-fit band and an electrifying live feel to the resulting recordings.

So with Kiszka and Turpin back in the UK to promote the debut Mirador album, Guitarist joined Jake and Chris to talk about the increasingly forgotten influence of folk on rock, the crucial importance of playing at high volume, what a great SG can do that no other Gibson electric can, and why working with only minutes to get a take can provide the jolt of pure musical electricity that is missing from all too many recordings today…

You both have successful bands with their own distinctive sounds – so how and why did Mirador spring into life?

Chris Turpin: “Mirador was entirely unplanned. We got friendly and were just hanging out and trading licks. Jake played on an Ida Mae album, and we got to be pals that way and sort of had curry and drank beer and did what friends do.

“And then Jake said, ‘Hey, do you want to do something?’ And I kind of went, probably too arrogantly, ‘Well, if we do something, we do something’ – it has to be good, you know? And then that’s when the writing process began.”

Jake Kiszka: “Chris and I got together, we’re like, ‘Let’s just write a couple songs for fun, you know, in that stage of things.’ And I had this old Victorian house in East Nashville [where] we got together and started writing a few tracks.

“The first day it was like, two or three songs. And I was like, ‘Well, this is quite fast – a matter of a couple hours. So let’s try for some more tomorrow.’ And that process went on, but by the end of the week, we basically had 12 tracks – we had a whole record in a matter of a week. At that point, it was like, ‘There’s something taking shape that is, in some ways, out of our hands.’”

Mirador’s sound has plenty of American folk-blues influences, but you can also hear the influence of seminal British folk guitarists such as Bert Jansch and Martin Carthy in your music, even though it’s very hard-rocking in places. That’s quite an unusual blend in this day and age…

Jake: “So many of my influences growing up were European artists and traditions. I really looked to the UK, specifically, for a lot of that stuff, and Chris looked to America for a lot of those influences.

“So I learned a lot of early English folk music, and some of the bands that I really loved had some elements of that, like Fairport Convention and some of that lineage. So when I was playing with Chris early on, it was a surprise – and something that I really enjoyed – that Chris could do all that stuff.

“I think that was a huge part of getting British players [to form the band] who could come from that influence. Because, you know, you don’t really get that in America. Even with the amount of technology and resources we have to learn and listen to new music. It’s like there’s this sort of built-in thing about British players so they can kind of do that. And I think that was a huge part of what was interesting in making something different [with Mirador].”

Chris: “Yes, growing up in the UK, you take it for granted – what you have around you – and you look to America as so many Brits have, and it’s vastly more exotic and cool and interesting. And that’s why, while my dad was taking me to go and see Bert Jansch and Fairport and all these folkies coming through, growing up with John Martyn and Nick Drake sort of glosses over you.

“But you’re like, ‘What’s that? Is that Bukka White? That’s cool!’ I think because you can’t get it, you can’t find it, you can’t read it, and it just becomes much more intoxicating. As well, I think at the age that I heard that music, I discovered the likes of Free, Fleetwood Mac at the same time as The White Stripes and early Black Keys. So it was all sort of homogenising to the same thing.

“And then I was seeing a lot of acoustic players – Martin Simpson was the first person I saw play slide, for example. I saw Bert Jansch, and I was learning from Stefan Grossman DVDs how to play country blues.

“I was learning the thumb-picking styles and no-one was teaching me that. I was just absorbing it and pulling it off old CDs… Celtic guitar-playing meets country-blues playing, meets ragtime, meets Piedmont blues meets whatever it might be. As soon as you pull anything onto a flat-top acoustic guitar… when you put it into that context, they’re really not that distant from each other.”

“But it was like you say: some British folk elements have been disregarded and I have various theories for why they have been. For example, one morning at 2am, I said, ‘Jake, you’ve got to listen to Martin Carthy. Listen to this.’ I think you thought for a second I was probably insane…

“Anyway, we ended up writing Roving Blade, which is one of my favourite tracks on the album, after listening and diving into those songs. We went to Bradford-on-Avon and saw Martin Carthy just after Jake came over to the UK. We only saw half the show because you’d just stepped off a plane. But we got a picture with him.”

Jake: “I think what was so fascinating to Chris and I was, how can we take this stuff that we were influenced by, that we really love, and inject it into what we’re writing in a fresh, new way? And that was a big part of the challenge. So I think one of the successes of this record – for me, personally – is that we were able to take some of those ancient folk sensibilities and translate them in a very modern way.”

Chris: “I went to see Martin Carthy at the Green Note [in Camden] and he played to about 12 people in the afternoon. He was talking about folk traditionalists and [lampooning them as] very sort of jacketed, intense individuals, telling musicians about ‘the way it should be done,’ and ‘What version is that?’ and ‘You’re playing it wrong. Don’t sing it like that! It’s too inflected’. And Martin Carthy basically said, at the ripe old age he is: ‘Fuck that – pick it up and take it and do whatever you want with it. Just change it. It’s the whole point. It’s a living, cultural moving target.’”

There are some incredible guitar sounds on the album – and in terms of tones, it’s layered up with all kinds of classic guitar sounds. Did the gear you both used stand apart from what you normally use in Greta Van Fleet and Ida Mae respectively?

Jake: “I would say yes, I tried to get further away from the world that I have been living in for some of the previous Greta records. And that’s just guitar selection, amplifier selection, and obviously through what we were doing in our songwriting. I think probably what I end up using on a record is typically what’s closest at that moment.

“But when we were forming Mirador, it was a question of whether I was going to bring in my guitars or my amps, and I decided to try something different and build a new vernacular of different licks and things like that – look at myself as a separate [kind of player] within Mirador.

“So, yeah, I did bring my 1961 Les Paul – the ‘Beloved’ – with me to the studio. And I use that quite a bit. That’s kind of my fallback approach, to use that. But I think there were a handful of guitars that I brought that maybe showed up.

“But Dave Cobb is a guitar player as well and he has quite a significant collection of really beautiful and historic guitars that do very particular things. He had a Telecaster there that I used quite a bit; I think it was a white ’56 Tele. And there was an early ’70s Burgundy Sparkle 12-string 335. And that was actually given to me by Daniel Wagner, Greta’s drummer, as a birthday gift. And so any time I did 12-string stuff that’s what I was using.”

Chris: “Dave also had a Danelectro that once belonged to Daniel Lanois. It had a lipstick pickup in the neck and a Tele pickup in the bridge. That was quite important and it got used for overdubs on Ashes To Earth.”

Jake: “The Danelectros have a very particular sound with those lipstick-tube pickups – great dubbing instruments. With a lot of this stuff, what the material was calling for was humbucking pickups. And then Chris and I would end up layering it up with [further parts recorded with] single-coil lipstick pickups.”

Chris: “On the acoustic side, Dave had an astonishing Martin 000-28 that you used for a lot of the acoustic stuff. We’d just done the end of the first opening tour with Greta, so we had our Martin ‘Mirador’ guitars with us. And so for Must I Go Bound I used my Martin ‘Mirador’ and Jake used a Martin nylon-string.”

Jake: “Yeah, I used that for the solo in Must I Go Bound, so that was interesting. There was also a black 50s J-200 of mine, a really early one, that got used. That was really fun, finally getting to use that for some stuff – because there was a lot of layering of acoustic over electric on the record. There was also a late-60s Flying V that showed up halfway through. You remember that?”

Chris: “Yeah, it’s the really cool one [of the type] that Andy Powell used on Argus by Wishbone Ash. So, for me, on the guitar side, I used my ‘Mirador’ Martin for the acoustic stuff, although I use Jake’s Duolian resonator for the track Ten Thousand More to Ride. And then it was my ’66 Strat for most things – for example, Roving Blade was that ’66 Strat. And then the ’70 Les Paul Custom was used for [the album’s debut single] Feels Like Gold and most of everything else.

“Then the only other thing I used, Dave has a ’57 Sparkle Gretsch Duo Jet, which he got from the Gretsch family, that has that shimmery Gretsch thing. Actually, I tell a lie – I used the black Trini Lopez for overdubs.”

Jake: “That was actually a new Gibson Custom Trini Lopez, but it turned out to be an incredibly good one.”

Sometimes guitarists can go into the studio determined that a certain instrument they love is going to define the sound of a record, but often something completely different emerges as a better option once the music starts flowing – even gear that just happens to be lying about in the studio. Did that happen on this record to any extent?

Chris: “We had that with amps. Jake had just been touring a Selmer Zodiac, but it was a rare Zodiac, like a 30- or 35-watt one with two 12s. And you weren’t quite happy with the sustain on it, but it sounds fucking cool. And I had this ’62 brown Fender Pro, which has a big, rich 15-inch speaker. We were loving the mix of those live, but you put them under the microscope of the studio and we both reverted to different things.”

Jake: “They definitely made for great live performance amplifiers, but they didn’t translate in the same way to the studio. So that was interesting. We really ended up using a lot of combo amps.”

Chris: “Dave had a Marshall Lead and Bass 20 that had been modded by Dumble and Dave had paid him [Alexander Dumble] with a Nutribullet! I used that through a 112 or a 115 Supro cab, a newer one. And I used a [Fender ’62 Princeton Chris Stapleton Edition] for a couple of tunes…”

Jake: “I used the shit out of the Princeton…”

Chris: “You have a silver-panel Princeton that Dave gave you, which is a badass amplifier with a 12-inch speaker. That was the bulk of the tone for Jake. And we used a black-panel Vibrolux Reverb for some of the dubs, too.”

Jake: “It ended up being that Chris was doing the classic Marshall-stack thing to a certain degree, and I would kind of come in with a combo somewhere around that. We used a newer silver-panel Fender Champ, too.”

Chris: “With Heels Of The Hunt, it was the last day of recording, and the engineers had packed down all the mics and the drums, and Dave said, ‘Fuck it. We need another fast one. You’ve got half an hour. Go down, write it and come back.’ So that’s what we did.

“The engineers suddenly panicked and ran around like shit, putting the drum kits back up, rewiring. And Dave, as we were sort of writing and arranging things, he has a black-panel Champ and a silver-panel Champ. They’re normally mic’d up and they sound great – Heels Of The Hunt is just those two Champs cooking…”

Who is it that whoops in triumph at the end of the track?

Jake: “Mikey [laughs]”

Chris: “That song was literally written and finished 10 minutes before we cut it…”

Jake: “It was a stream of consciousness, from thought and completion to record immediately. And if you listen to the end of that track, you can hear Mikey breathing [hard]! That was only, like, two takes or something. That’s all Mikey ever got – or anybody got.”

Jake, you’re one of the highest-profile SG players in rock for decades. What should a good Gibson SG be, in your view?

Jake: “A good SG? Well, the early ’60s ones – which were [branded] Les Pauls at first – with the thinner neck are highly microphonic. If you tap anywhere on the body and it’s making that sound, it’s just very thin lacquer. Mine’s basically been sanded off [by playwear] entirely. So the thing about an SG that differentiates it from other Gibson guitars is that it’s really microphonic, and you can feel every nuance of the guitar.

“And so, for me, that’s highly important because I like to play guitar as if it’s a full-body thing. I really like to play with my body – and even pulling the neck slightly back and moving things and tapping on it. It’s responding in more than just one way. It’s not just the strings and the connection between that and the pickup.

“Obviously, the early humbucking pickups, the Patent Applied For pickups, those are significant to that sound. And I find that early Les Paul/SGs have some of the greatest [examples of that style of] pickups. The thing about those guitars is that they all sound so different from one another – it’s radical and I have yet to find one that sounds like my ‘Number One’, outside of the one Chris has ‘stolen’, right?”

Chris: “The guitar I call ‘the one that got away.’”

Jake: “Yeah, but it didn’t exactly get away…”

Chris: “It was from Vintage ‘n’ Rare Guitars and I may have swiped that guitar from underneath Jake – after he swiped a very nice Park amp from underneath me! [laughs]”

Jake: “Only fair. I’ve swiped a lot of things.”

Chris: “You know, even in Jake’s sphere, you’re lucky if you’re even able to play a lot of those ’61 SGs because Jake hasn’t had backups [for his ‘Number One’]. We were going to guitar shows and every time you’d see one and pick it up to try it – especially those ’61 SGs – you know, acoustically, whether it’s going to do the thing or it’s not going to the thing very quickly. They’re not all the same at all.

“So this particular one that I stole from underneath Jake has some of the thing that Jake’s guitar has, but there’s a nuance to it that is separate. Because Jake’s guitar is very lively. It’s got a real bark and it’s really agile, and there’s a huge amount of dynamics in those pickups, even for fingerpicking.”

Jake: “An SG, I think, is a really dynamic, dynamic guitar…”

Chris: “…which you wouldn’t necessarily think of a humbucker-[equipped] Gibson guitar. But that’s not the case when you get a real one.”

Jake: “That’s the thing – and I value it highly – that you can play soft, but you don’t even have to change the volume or tone knobs. I’ve seen so many people with actual Les Pauls – the Golden Age rock ’n’ roll guitar heroes – who are really controlling the guitar [with volume and tone knobs] a lot, yeah?

“But with the SG for me, I can play really gently and have my amps turned up as loud as they’re going to be for the heavier stuff. Sort of a delicate approach that really makes it more acoustic-like, even with amps turned up all the way. But as soon as you dig into it, it responds like you’d want it to. Being able to take that kind of approach, just based on dynamic range… you don’t see that in a lot of other guitars, period.”

Chris: “When I first played with Jake, he was playing a Marshall-based amplifier and that SG, and I thought, ‘Well, what’s going on on the floor?’ And generally, at those early shows, it was like two Electro-Harmonix Holy Grails and an MXR Micro [Amp ] booster, the white pedal – maybe one or two of those. Then you had another pedal that you didn’t use [laughs]. That was the rig. And that was for playing shows to five-and-a-half thousand people three nights in a row, sold out.

“Having toured for the best part of 10 years up to that point, I’d never seen a guitar player really do that. The thing is, those iconoclastic players that Jake’s talking about… Jake was doing it, and he doesn’t appreciate how spectacularly special that is. That’s partly due to the amplifier, partly due to the player, partly to the guitar.”

Jake: “I think it was just really out of necessity at the time…”

Chris: “But still, Jake, your rig is essentially the same [laughs]. Every time you get something else out to play with, it’s like, ‘No, just amp and guitar.’”

Jake: “It’s interesting. When I had the opportunity to take an amp down and drive it more with a pedal, just for volume and things like that, or to get different preamp and drive sounds, I always prefer to take the pedal out and push the amp up more for some reason. For me, that always just sounds better. I don’t think that I would be a traditionalist or purist by some people’s standards, but I probably end up in that territory just based on the way I’ve approached guitar playing.”

Jake, what does Mirador allow you to express, musically, that you can’t easily do within Greta Van Fleet?

Jake: “You know, there are certain evolutions that Greta has taken. Some of our first or earlier records were maybe on the more primitive side, and maybe reflected more of a blues influence and some early traditional, folk elements that I really felt were worth exploring more. Perhaps we’re [now] at an evolutionary state with our music that wouldn’t necessarily allow that exploration.

“We’ve gone in other directions already, and I have so many different ideas that just wouldn’t get past the filtration system of Sam [Kiszka, bass/keyboard], Josh [Kiszka, lead vocals], some other people in the band, you know… mainly Josh [laughs]. Again, that chemistry with those guys – and obviously being brothers with them – writing with them is different. So when I met Chris that was like finding another brother.

“We were coming from the same world because we grew up on blues music and folk music and cultural music and just scenes from all over the place. And, all of a sudden, it was gonna be possible to explore those territories again in this band, whereas we might have evolved past some of those possibilities in Greta.”

Roving Blade, arguably one of the album’s defining songs, has an incredible solo that really leaps out at the listener. Tell us about tracking that.

Jake: “Yeah, that was loud, wasn’t it? I think there were certain expectations that with two guitar players coming together to do a record, the guitars were going to be loud! Which they definitely were on that solo in particular.

“The way we mixed it was not too dissimilar from the way that you’d mix a classic record. So we’d have the faders and we’d basically be [riding] the volume levels, playing it through, and that’s how it was mixed, very traditionally. When the solo for Roving Blade came up, the fader maybe got knocked a little too high by someone…”

Chris: “I think we can quote Dave as saying, ‘I know it’s fucking stupid, but it’s cool.’ [Laughs]”

Jake: “Absolutely, it’s like – that’s really loud, but it works. Why not? It sounds good. It feels great. Leave it.”

Chris: “That was pretty much the second song we did. And I’m in full British-folky mode on position 4 on the Strat and it’s a Richard Thompson-esque situation. Then there’s the big Roving Blade solo moment, which is Jake.

“You tried to beat that solo, but that [solo that made it onto the record] was live in the take. So the vocals that you’re hearing everything, that’s essentially all live. Other than my slide guitar piece, which had to be cut separately – that solo is live. It’s just the real deal.”

The Mirador record was very much made by tapping into the energy of musicians feeding off each other in a semi-live recording. Looking back at classic rock tracks made in a similar way in the ’60s, you can hear moments when the wheels leave the ground and the whole band starts flying – like just after the ‘Mr Mojo Rising’ section in LA Woman by The Doors. Were there any breakthrough moments like that when you were recording Mirador?

Chris: “Well, arrogantly I would say everything! [Laughs] But I think there was such an intensity with Dave – with how he recorded and how he was pushing us to track at the pace that we did. You could only move on a sort of visceral adrenaline. That was the only way you could cope.”

Jake: “I think the way we approached this record, in terms of tracking it, was such a fever-pitch thing. It was such a frantic approach that, in essence, there was not enough time to psychologically digest what was going on. We were acting purely on instinct. The scrutiny that we knew we’d be under lent itself to the atmosphere of the record. It was like everybody had their backs up against the wall, you know. So we really had to come out swinging.”

Chris: “The other moment I think of like that is with Raider – that’s the first song we tracked in all of those sessions, and it’s an ugly riff, you know? It’s heavy duty and the band is not perfectly together, and it’s heaving and it’s ugly.

“I just think that, for me, was another moment of just falling off the end of this arena tour for the first time – high intensity, where we were thrown in front of Greta’s audience.

“Our first show was in front of 12,000 people and there’s a lot to prove. Then here we were in this studio, late at night in Savannah, after probably too many tequilas. It was like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna lean into this. Here we go.’ And you can feel that energy. You can’t do that to a clicker.”

That spontaneity and playing by instinct can really be heard on Ten Thousand Left To Ride.

Jake: “That was, honestly, one of my favourite guitar solo tones on the record. I was in the control room and that’s typically where I’ll take solos if I get the chance, if they’re not already baked into the track. It was really inspiring. And again, it just comes in loud as shit at the end. That was honestly another good example [of loud guitar parts working]: Dave, Chris and I were looking at each other because it really was too loud [laughs].

“I was laughing and having a childlike moment, really. I couldn’t stop from grinning, because it was so badass. I really loved how it sounded. I was really excited. And it was like, ‘This is the moment.’ Where you hear a guitar and it just makes your life, man.”

• Mirador is out now via Universal.
• This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.

This business of naming a band can be a tricky thing – and a little silly sometimes. Greta Van Fleet guitarist Jake Kiszka and Ida Mae guitarist Chris Turpin racked their brains trying to come up with the perfect moniker for the new group they had just formed.

Ideas were batted back and forth… but nothing clicked. Finally, in a dramatic bolt of inspiration, Kiszka seized on a word: Marauder. He excitedly texted Turpin, who enthusiastically agreed that the name felt right. But there was just one problem: Kiszka had misspelled the word as “Mirador.”

“I was like, ‘mirador’? No, no, I wrote ‘marauder,’” Kiszka says with a laugh. “Then we looked it up, and it said that a mirador is basically a vista or a viewpoint suspended on a high place, typically overlooking a body of water. That seemed to fit, and it felt symbolic being that Chris is British and he was always looking to the West for influences, whereas I looked East and got my influences from Europe. So that’s how we became Mirador.”

Kiszka and Turpin met back in 2018 when Ida Mae opened for Greta Van Fleet during a run of dates at the Fox Theatre in Detroit, about an hour and a half south of Greta Van Fleet’s old Frankenmuth, Michigan, stomping ground.

“I was very attracted to how they had this blues element that they mixed with worldly music and this sort of ancient folk approach,” Kiszka says.

“I remember watching their soundcheck before I had met them. They were these interesting, drab-looking British folks with blond hair. Chris had long hair and a goatee, and he played resonator guitar and slide. I thought it was really cool, and I connected with what he was doing.”

As it turned out, the admiration was mutual. The two guitarists became fast friends, and their relationship blossomed a year later when Ida Mae served as Greta’s opening act for arena shows in the States. Wine-fueled backstage jams became the norm, and before long Kiszka and Turpin were writing songs together and sharing vocals.

“It was really great,” Kiszka says, “and fortunately the guys in Greta were totally cool about it. Because we’re a band of brothers [the group also includes singer Josh Kiszka and bassist Sam Kiszka, along with drummer Danny Wagner], there was always that kind of thing when we were kids, where I’d go off with a new friend from school. But in the end, the brothers would always get back together.”

Once Kiszka and Turpin decided to formalize their partnership and take things a step further by forming an actual band, they rounded out the lineup by bringing in London hotshots Mikey Sorbello (drums) and Nick Pini (bass, keyboards).

Greta Van Fleet’s 2023 Starcatcher world tour was already on the books; the year-old excursion might cause Mirador to lose some steam, but Kiszka had an ace up his sleeve: his new band would simply open shows for Greta throughout the U.S. run. All of which meant there was a hell of a lot of Jake Kiszka on stage each night.

“I don’t think there was any pacing myself during those shows,” he says. “It was absolute trial by fire, and by the end there was sort of this controlled chaos to it. It was a little crazy, doing this 40- or 45-minute set with Mirador. Then I’d get off the stage, go get ready and go back out to do a two-hour headlining set with Greta Van Fleet.”

At the conclusion of the U.S. tour, Kiszka felt as if he’d pushed himself to the limit. “It was overwhelming,” he says. “I was experiencing emotional nuances to this dance that I had to try to overcome. I think what made it all possible for me was the band chemistry between everybody in Mirador, and that chemistry was immediate.

“If I didn’t have the support from those guys, it would’ve been very challenging for me to get through it. There was a brotherhood in Mirador that was forged in the fire of those shows.” He pauses, then adds, “And, of course, it’s there with my brothers in Greta. I think all of my bandmates helped keep me alive.”

A good many side bands sound like exactly that; their records are tossed-off affairs not to be taken seriously, and to varying degrees, they’re simply excuses for musicians to let off steam from their day gigs. But on Mirador’s self-titled album, the group comes off like the real deal, and they serve up a full-bodied set bursting with nerviness and brio, along with a host of exquisitely crafted songs that arrive fresh and vital.

It’s always a pleasure to listen to marvelously gifted people doing what they do well, and here we have Kiszka and Turpin going toe-to-toe and blowing each other’s minds. Turpin’s voice is that of a bourbon-flavored chest-beater, while Kiszka’s forceful tenor reveals piquant nuances. Together they’re dynamite.

As guitarists, they come loaded for bear. Riffs pile atop riffs, and tangled, snarling solos land punch after punch. On gutsy, cosmic blues rockers like Roving Blade and Raider, the two rip it up with wah-drenched leads and smarty-pants licks.

Things get chill and pastoral on Dream Seller and Ten Thousand More to Ride, but Ashes to Earth (a last-minute addition to the album) takes off in a heady gallop and just won’t quit, with Kiszka’s spitfire soloing accelerating the pace.

Kiszka sounds like he’s having the time of his life with Mirador, and he’s psyched to hit the road with the new gang. But he stresses that, no matter how well Mirador is received, it won’t spell the end of Greta.

“We’re working on a record right now, as it were,” he says. “So I’ve sort of gone into this very involved landscape of working between two different groups.” Asked if the other members of Greta are entertaining their own side projects, he smiles and says, “Yes. You’ll see it’s all sort of up in the air… but you’ll see.”

When Greta Van Fleet were starting out, you fine-tuned your songs in clubs. For a long while, you were under the radar while you got your act together. Was it a little strange to road test Mirador’s songs in front of 20,000 people a night?

“I think so. I honestly didn’t really know quite what to expect. I didn’t know how many people were going to show up. We went out with this new material, but in a way there was nothing foundational for them to react to. But by show two, people were already singing the lyrics to this unreleased music.”

Because the night before the audience recorded you on their phones, and the videos went around.

“Yeah. I thought maybe we’d have about 2,000 people show up early, maybe a bit, but almost every single night of that tour, the arena was packed full. Our first performance was for something like 10,000 people. It was really remarkable, the response to it. I was shocked.”

Greta is now a big-time arena band. Has success changed the way you guys operate, business-wise or creatively?

“I would say in some aspects, in that the business landscape surrounding the musical industry has evolved. There’s a lot more people involved with us now than there once were. It’s getting to that point where you don't necessarily know everybody by name, whereas before we were going into a club or a theater and we saw people’s faces and connected with them in a more intimate setting. I suppose now you can do that to a certain degree with the people down in the pit.

“For the most part, though, it’s the four of us looking out at this sort of cosmic space every night. There’s this sort of black void, and the people just go off into the distance. I guess some of the nuance of that connection or that intimacy gets lost because of the sheer scale of these venues. It’s arenas every single night.

“I think another aspect of Mirador that I was anticipating was that we’d have this intimacy with people again, and we could connect with them more directly through the music.”

In the early days of Greta, you guys were so young, and there was no real roadmap at first; you were all just making it up as you went along. I imagine it’s different with Mirador because you’re something of a veteran musician. You know what works and what doesn’t.

“That was another interesting aspect to Mirador. There were a lot of things I wish I had done with Greta that if I could go back in time and do differently, I would.”

Such as?

“Such as the way things were recorded. I love the way that there’s an evolution to what Greta has done, and there’s a stark difference between every record we've created, which I think is quite cool and unique.

“With Mirador, I think it’s going to be different because there are musicians who weren't playing in a garage growing up together. They’re sort of seasoned veterans of their own kind, established musicians and artists, if you will, from different parts of the world.

“Mikey and Nick are very serious session players and have played throughout the underground London circuit scene. I know Nick has done a lot with Adele. But even so, they’re kind of under the radar. And, of course, there’s Chris and his approach to guitar playing.

“Getting all of these people together, it wasn’t going to be like, ‘Let’s figure out who we are and what we stand for.’ It was more like, ‘We’re a bunch of men who know.’ We got together and it was just like bash! The thing just happened in a spontaneous moment, and Mirador became what it was.”

Launching any new band is tough, but you have a leg up because of Greta’s fanbase. The simple fact is, there’s a segment of people who are going to be interested in what you’re doing.

“Yeah.”

At the same time, some Greta loyalists might be disgruntled. Fans can be a little territorial.

“Of course. Not that I’ve noticed that particularly, but I’m sure there’s a faction of people who understandably do share that philosophy – ‘I want to see this thing I’m familiar with. I know it speaks to me, it touches me.’ I think you’re right. I think you nailed it with that. There is probably a fraction of people who have a protectionism over the Greta thing in some ways.”

What kind of musical common ground do you and Chris share?

“This has been pretty interesting to me, I think, because our initial relationship grew from our identical influences. At the same time, there are commonalities between Greta and Mirador – we both share blues as a foundation. With Chris and me, maybe being more guitar and vocal-oriented individuals, we were drawn to it. As kids, we were raised on it.

“Chris’ fascination varies from mine as he’s from England, and he was getting all the imported stuff from all the old record labels, the Chicago and Delta blues. I kind of grew up in Detroit where there was a lot of that Motown, but I also had this immediate influence from all the blues records I had.

“The two of us grew up playing guitar, and we learned blues music by the original guitar heroes. That was a huge connection between us. We talked about Junior Kimbrough, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Lightnin’ Hopkins… Elmore James and Albert King, Freddie King and all the Kings… Buddy Guy. All this blues stuff was mecca for us.

“Chris gets really into the blues, and he’s sort of a historian. I found that fascinating. We traded lots of guitar licks. I mean, I was finding a lost brother who had all the guitar licks that I didn’t. So there was a huge pivot of diffusing into each other’s playing in some way.”

This must have been new for you, because in Greta you’re the one making all the guitar noise. But now you have somebody to work off of; you didn’t have to create that sound yourself. Was there a bit more freedom there?

“Yeah, I would say so. I mean, that’s an interesting question because you can sort of hear the guitar playing and be like, ‘Oh, that does sound like something Jake would do.’ But there’s also these elements of, ‘Oh, that’s something Chris would do.’ It seemingly comes together as a uniform thing.

“But as much as I was able to remove myself from just solely focusing on the guitar playing, I was now starting to focus on the vocal aspect of the record. There would be times when I’d go, ‘This guitar part is kind of done and I'm happy with that. I’m going to leave this be and Chris can smooth it over.’

“That was a completely different approach for me, and one that I was very unfamiliar with, approaching vocals and guitars. In some ways I found the solution on the record was to do less with the guitar. I would be like, ‘What do I do here?’ Actually, in most cases, the answer was to do nothing.”

I imagine you already encountered that on stage, where you were trying to focus on singing.

“Totally.”

You were like, “I can't do this complicated lick here while I'm trying to put a song across.”

“Yeah, totally – which is frustrating. But yes.”

Is there a difference between how you write with Chris versus how you write songs with the guys in Greta?

“I think so, because typically with Greta, there’s four guys and they’re all main contributors. Something comes in on different instruments all the time, and sometimes it’s just vocal. Sometimes it’s on piano, sometimes it’s guitar. Sometimes it’s just a song idea based on an orchestral piece of music or some world music. There’s so many different angles.

“With Mirador, it’s fascinating because it’s just me and Chris as two partners locking in together. It’s a fusion of how much can we do with two vocals that haven’t been done before, and specifically in the realm of rock ’n’ roll as this genre specifically.

“But as it applies to everything else, it’s like, ‘How can we approach two vocals in a way that hasn’t been done, and how can we approach two guitars at the same time in a way that hasn’t been done?’ We thought it was interesting territory to be in.”

“Part of the writing chemistry became, ‘Where do we put these harmonies? How are they going to be?’ And then creating actual guitar riffs where two guitars come together to effectively achieve one thing that could be played on a single guitar by one person if that’s what we wanted.”

You’re working again with Dave Cobb, who produced Greta Van Fleet’s 2023 album, Starcatcher. Did you at first think, “New band, so we need a new producer”?

“There were a few names in the hat, [producer/engineer] Ethan Johns being one of them because Chris is quite close with him. There were a few other ideas. I’ve done a lot of production work with Greta that’s coming up, and Chris has done a lot of production work as well, so we were thinking that maybe we could self-produce the record.

“But pretty soon the material became a main influence in deciding how we were going to go about producing it, and Dave was immediate to me. He was the right choice for the record we were trying to make, with us co-producing.

“I had a really specific idea of what I wanted it to sound like, and Chris allowed me to take the reins. He wanted me to get across what I was hearing and feeling. So I called Dave and asked him if he’d be interested in co-producing this new project, and he was into it.”

Let me ask you about a few songs. Roving Blade has an absolute whopper of an end solo. What was going on there?

“From a guitar perspective, I think I was using my beloved ‘number one’ – the ’61 Les Paul. That solo was interesting in that I had a basic pedalboard while we were tracking; I had a ’60s Hendrix Vox wah, and I was going through an old Princeton amp. But I played the solo as something of a placeholder. I was improvising and working my way through it with the idea that I would perfect it later. Then we got to overdub world and Dave said, ‘That solo, just leave it. It’s perfect.’”

That happens time and time again.

“It does. It was like I was ‘one-take Jake,’ as they call me. It was a good solo, but I was a little skeptical. I thought I could beat it, but Dave and Chris were very adamant that it remained that way, which is fine. I’ll admit, there is this kind of imperfection in the solo, but I think it’s full of attitude and it just leaps.”

That’s what counts.

“Right. I think there might have also been a stereo slap pedal on that as well, but we definitely pushed the volume.”

Blood and Custard has an epic riff. Those kinds of riffs don’t come along every day, do they?

“No, they don’t. I think that song is a perfect example of what type of things don't necessarily translate in the world of Greta. That was a riff I had for a long, long time. It’s just been sitting on the shelf.

“I would say I was influenced by the Eric Clapton and Duane Allman song Mean Old World, that kind of acoustic interpretation of a traditional blues song. So I had this thing hanging on the wall, and I wanted something with slide guitar on the record.

“Obviously, Chris is a great and very unique slide player, and I’m also known to play some slide, which I love doing. I put that riff to Chris and he loved it. He suggested Blood and Custard, which was an old nickname for the original Vox [AC] amplifiers – they had this cream-and-red binding. That’s a good [example of] guitar nerdism.”

Greta didn’t want that riff?

“No.”

What’s wrong with those guys?

“[Laughs] Yeah, exactly! That’s what I’m saying. I think Josh is very critical of guitar things, and it wasn’t something that he was particularly interested in. I don’t think it ever made it to the final stages.”

Wow. All right then. Ashes to Earth is one of the most exciting tracks on the record. It grabs you right away and gets the job done.

“Oh, thank you. That song originally started out completely different. If you can imagine it, it was a ballad at first. Dave listened to it and said, ‘We need something that’s more aggressive. I think we can enhance the danger level on this one.’ He went home and then Chris and I put together what you hear now.

“Dave came back the next day and loved it. Again, I think this is one of those things where that delineation between Greta and Mirador becomes more present. It’s a pretty heavy song. I think it’s slightly more aggressive than anything Greta has done.”

Are there guitar or sonic elements you employed in Mirador again that you just haven’t been able to get across in Greta?

“I think I’ve been quite clever in how I incorporate most of the guitar-type stuff that I want into Greta. Again, the only person who really meets me with disinterest or pushback is Josh, really. That’s understandable, because the vocals and the guitars are very succinct in their frequencies, but they’re also melody instruments.

“Josh is singing lots of melodies, and I’m a very melodic guitar player, so those two things do have a tendency to clash. I’ve wanted to play more 12-string guitar, and I was able to do a lot of that on the Mirador record. The slide playing was also a huge aspect, because again, slide and some of the vocal things weren’t working together in Greta, but here they did.

“I should point out that the sheer volume of the guitars on this record is another difference. Dave Cobb was like, ‘Look, this is a guitar record by two guitar players. People are expecting to hear guitar, so we're going to turn them way up.’ [Laughs] I couldn’t agree more.”

Did you have a go-to set of guitars for the record?

“Yeah, it ended up being that way. I think the guitars I play on records seem to be the ones that are close by and accessible. Obviously, I use my ’61 Les Paul a lot – I’ve always been steadfast about that one. There were two acoustics that I used – one was Dave’s old pre‑war Martin, the 00-18.

“That was a huge one. I was pretty glued to that guitar, and I write almost exclusively on it. There was a Gibson 12-string electric – it was an ES-335 with this brown sparkle. It’s pretty unique. That guitar was a gift from Daniel, the drummer in Greta. I used that one on the record; it’s on Fortune’s Fate.

“Dave has this early ’50s Telecaster. It was his first guitar, and he just loves it – it’s the guitar. I have to agree with him. It was one the best-sounding Telecasters I’ve ever played. I used it on a track called Heels of the Hunt. Dave was like, ‘We’re done with the record, but let’s do one last track. You and Chris go out on the dock, write a song, come back and we’ll record it in 24 hours.’”

Sure. No pressure.

“[Laughs] No pressure, yeah. We were in Savannah, Georgia, out on the water. So Chris and I were like, ‘OK, this is a test.' I think the objective was to get the ideal dream guitar tone, and for me it was an old Selmer combo amplifier and Dave’s Telecaster. It was just the most incredible guitar tone I've been able to get.”

What other guitar amps did you use?

“I used a few combo amps and a lot of Fenders. There was that Princeton amp I mentioned, along with some Fender Pro Reverbs and a few new Fender Champ combos.”

Okay, so realistically, how much extracurricular time are you going to be able to devote to Mirador before you have to go back to Greta World?

“It’s going to be interesting. There will be a balancing walk between giving as much as I can to one thing before I can go back into the other thing. I’m in a position where I’m sort of walking away from Greta and into Mirador, and I’ve basically been given a year to do as much as I can before I go back and transition to the other world, with potentially a new Greta record at some point soon. I think my world will be like that for a while.”

I’m just thinking about what you told me about the Blood and Custard riff. Let's say you came up with another awesome riff tonight. Will you be thinking, “Shit, which band do I give it to?”

“[Laughs] That’s it! That's the dance, that's the balancing act. Even now, there's things I’ve put together that come about, and I try to discern whether it belongs to Greta or Mirador.

“Normally, I can pre-dictate that. There have been times when I’ve brought a riff to Greta, and the guys go, ‘That’s not a Greta song, man. That’s a Mirador song.’

“Obviously, there’s enough for interpretation, and I’ve explained to the guys – ‘Look, we can manipulate this, we can arrange it, and we can nuance it so that it fits Greta.’ And they’re like, ‘No, it belongs to Mirador.’ Some songs are like that.

“I think I have a pretty good gauge on which is which, because the two groups are sort of separate enough and they both have their own sound. But I think if it comes down to it, I have to go to the Greta guys and say, ‘You have rights to this first.’”

But then you don’t want to go to Chris and have him say, “Oh, is this the stuff that Greta turned down?”

“Yeah, exactly! [Laughs] Right. And it kind of goes both ways. With Blood and Custard, It was like, ‘Wait… that was one of ours!’”

I see your problem. Sounds like you need to start a third band.

“Exactly. Don’t give me any ideas!”

• Mirador is available to preorder now and will be released via Universal on September 19.
• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

When two electric guitar heroes from two different groups come together to form an entirely new project, a mutual appreciation of the same music to inform a new creative direction is just one piece of the puzzle.

Another concerns instrumental choices – namely, what guitars will they take into the studio with them, and how will they find the right tools to allow for a seamless integration of styles?

That’s exactly what Chris Turpin and Jake Kiszka had to contend with when the Ida Mae and Greta Van Fleet guitarists started their new band, Mirador.

For Kiszka, the task was simple. It was only ever going to be his Number One Gibson SG for him. After using it throughout his career with Greta Van Fleet, the SG sound is now synonymous with Kiszka’s style, and so a switch was off the cards.

It was a different story for Turpin, though, who made a conscious effort to find a guitar that could complement Kiszka’s SG and bring something fresh to the table.

Following the hunt, Turpin ended up taking home a heavily modded, mongrel Les Paul Custom from 1970 that, although at first glance looked to be a lost cause, ended up defining the album’s sound.

Speaking from the Guitar World studio in a new video interview that charts the making of Mirador’s new record, Turpin says, “One of the biggest pieces was trying to find the right instruments [that work together], especially around Jake's guitar, because it's such a specific, beautiful thing.”

“So one of the guitars that's been working for me is a 1970 Les Paul Custom that's been completely stripped,” he continues. “I think it came from the Welsh hills. I'm not sure who owned it before me.

“But immediately I picked this guitar up, and when we were in pre-production, I just had a feeling. I didn't even play it properly. It had lived a life and had one dodgy jack lead at this auction, and I squeaked out like two chords on it and I thought, ‘This is the guitar for this project.’

“And it just seems to sing and marry perfectly well with Jake’s Number One.”

Turpin discusses the Les Paul Custom in greater depth in the new issue of Guitar World, during which he revealed the Mirador team gave the plucky LP a nickname owing to its unique style.

“Jake’s SG is such a specific sound, so finding something that would work with that was no mean feat,” he recalls. “It took a lot of trading, trying different things, getting it wrong. I ended up with a 1970 Les Paul Custom; we call it the underdog because it just screams, and it’s so big and fat.

“That worked perfectly with the SG; it just sat right underneath it. The riff for Feels Like Gold, it’s just those two guitars, straight down the middle, playing the same thing at the same time – and it just sounds huge. I never imagined myself wielding a Les Paul again.”

To read the full interview with Jake Kiszka and Chris Turpin – during which Kiszka reflects on what he'd change about his Greta Van Fleet days – pick up the latest issue of Guitar World at Magazines Direct.

Greta Van Fleet may have completed their ascension to big-time arena band level, but the group’s resident electric guitar titan, Jake Kiszka, has been continuing to push his creative boundaries by forming a new band on the side.

In fact, his new team-up with Ida Mae six-stringer Chris Turpin on Mirador was facilitated through Greta Van Fleet’s dizzying success: the Starcatcher world tour served as a way for the fledgling band to hone their craft by supporting Greta throughout the U.S. run.

Call it business savviness, call it unadulterated passion, call it peak showmanship, but Kiszka’s years of experience in the industry have now paid off vis-à-vis his approach to Mirador. But, looking back, there are some things he’d change about his time the GVF so far.

“There were a lot of things I wish I had done with Greta that if I could go back in time and do differently, I would,” he admits in a new Guitar World interview.

“Such as the way things were recorded,” he elaborates matter-of-factly. “I love the way that there’s an evolution to what Greta has done, and there’s a stark difference between every record we've created, which I think is quite cool and unique.”

With Mirador, Kiszka is dead-set on doing things differently. As he notes, the band members aren't a bunch of kids who grew up playing together in a garage, but “seasoned veterans of their own kind, established musicians and artists, if you will, from different parts of the world”.

“Mikey [Sorbello (drums)] and Nick [Pini (bass, keyboards)] are very serious session players and have played throughout the underground London circuit scene,” he explains. “I know Nick has done a lot with Adele. But even so, they’re kind of under the radar. And, of course, there’s Chris and his approach to guitar playing.”

He continues, “Getting all of these people together, it wasn’t going to be like, ‘Let’s figure out who we are and what we stand for.’ It was more like, ‘We’re a bunch of men who know.’ We got together and it was just like bash! The thing just happened in a spontaneous moment, and Mirador became what it was.”

And for those missing their live dose of Greta Van Fleet, Mirador have live dates scheduled all across the States in September and October.

For more from Kiszka, plus new interviews with Mark Knopfler and Tim Pierce, pick up your own copy of issue 594 of Guitar World at Magazines Direct.

Jake Kiszka of Greta Van Fleet and Ida Mae guitarist Chris Turpin have teamed up for a new band, Mirador.

The duo broke cover on their new project with an announcement on Greta van Fleet’s social media. 

“We are happy to announce that Mirador Band, a new collective consisting of our very own Jake Kiszka and Chris Turpin, will commence the show on the imminent spring Starcatcher World Tour dates,” reads the statement.

“We’re honored to watch the advent of this musical journey and hope you, too, enjoy the chorus of Mirador.”

The band have been teasing new material online and have now performed two shows, both in support of GVF – at St Louis, MO and Lincoln, NE. As a result, clips of two songs, reportedly dubbed Roving Blade and Must I Go Bound, have since surfaced. 

Any analysis has to be taken with a pinch of salt, given the constraints of live recordings, but it’s fair to say that the songs lean towards the folk rock end of the spectrum.

The biggest surprise is Must I Go Bound, which feels like it has more in common with the likes of Gregory Alan Isakov than the stadium-stomping rock of GVF. However, it still sounds suitably epic bouncing off the arena walls in the live clips. Points are also due to Kiszka for working in a lightning-quick (yet rather tasteful) acoustic solo.

Classic rock fans should fear not, though. The first track Roving Blade, plus other clips shared on Instagram and YouTube, showcase plenty of Gibson-laced electric guitar material, too.

Indeed, Fortune’s Fate has a touch of All Along The Watchtower, while Feels Like Gold touches on Kiszka’s Jimmy Page influences with a bit of Kashmir’s stomp and glitter.

As the guitarist and co-singer of Ida Mae, Turpin would seem the natural vocalist, but both the footage and social media posts show Kiszka will also be contributing lead vocals to the project – and he sounds the part, too.

Indeed, these early clips feel remarkably full formed, but then this is not the first time the two players have collaborated. 

Ida Mae toured in support of Greta Van Fleet in 2019 – performing a cover of folk standard I Shall be Released with them – and Kiszka later guested on the band’s 2021 album, lending his lead guitar talent on the track Long Gone and Heartworn.

There’s no word on official release or album plans yet, but there is a Mirador site, so head that way for more information.

Greta Van Fleet are an American band featuring three brothers: Josh Kiszka on vocals, guitar-playing sibling Jake, plus Sam on bass, alongside drummer Danny Wagner. 

After forming in 2012 and honing their songs and their craft, they signed with Lava Records in 2017. Their debut EP, Black Smoke Rising, topped the US rock charts upon its release that same year.

Their second EP, From The Fires, earned them a Grammy award and they have since released several full-length albums to critical acclaim and considerable commercial success, particularly in the USA.

Greta Van Fleet are heavily influenced by classic groups such as The Doors, Led Zeppelin, and The Who, and often draw favorable comparisons to Led Zep, including from Robert Plant himself. They also show influences of other legacy artists such as Rush, and their songs are often a blend of classic rock, prog rock, and blues. 

The Kiszka brothers also took influence in their formative years by folk artists; this is also evident in their songs and another reason they are often compared to Led Zeppelin. Additionally they have opened in the USA for Bob Seger and recorded some eclectic cover versions, including a great take on Adele’s Rolling In The Deep.

Greta Van Fleet have built a very solid following and their albums sell a significant number of units when released, which is no mean feat in these days of streaming.

Our track this month is not too difficult to play, but there are some syncopated (off beat) rhythms throughout the rhythm guitar track and the solo, and a lot of space in both the rhythm and lead parts. With this in mind, paying attention to timing is vital, as is accurate string bending and strong vibrato. 

We’re in A Minor (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), but the sound of the track draws from A Dorian mode (A-B-C-D-E-F#-G). You can think of this as being A Minor, but the 6th note is an F# rather than F natural. That’s also why the D chord is a D Major (D-F#-A) rather than a D Minor (D-F-A). 

The overall sound is still Minor but it’s a brighter Minor rather than a sad sounding Minor. The solo is almost entirely based around the A Minor Pentatonic (A-C-D-E-G) but there’s also a b5 (Eb) in the opening part, which creates the A Minor Blues scale (A-C-D-Eb-E-G).

The guitar serves the song as part of the arrangement, so think about how you interact with the bass, drums, and keys. 

Get the tone

Amp Settings: Gain 6, Bass 6, Middle 7, Treble 6, Reverb 3

It's classic rock territory, so not too much preamp gain, but a nice amount of power amp level will be good. Aim for a plexi style Marshall amp sound with humbuckers if possible. 

Most importantly, a big sound that isn’t too overdriven is what you want. There’s vintage spring reverb on the rhythm guitar and tape delay on the solo. Add both to taste.

Greta Van Fleet: Rhythm

On a lot of occasions, the parts start on the final 16th note of the bar, so thinking 4-e-&-a for the last beat and starting on ‘a’ is a good idea. In general, also counting or moving your picking hand in a 16th-note 1-e-&-a, 2-e-&-a repeated down-up motion will also help your overall rhythm, particularly as there is a lot of space in the track. Listening to the drums is very important too. 

Greta Van Fleet: Solo

This Jake Kiszka-inspired solo is full of blues rock licks, string bends and slinky use of 16th note phrasing. Watch the intonation of string bends; the more in tune they are, the more professional you’ll sound. 

Many of the bends here are fast, tone-based (two frets worth) ones which are then sustained – if the bend is off, the destination note’s sustain will be suspect. As for the Blackmore-esque re-picked bent notes in bar 22; get the intonation right and maintain it so the re-picking adds fire to your sound.

Greta Van Fleet guitarist Jake Kiszka has revealed that he only used combo amps in the making of the band’s recent album, Starcatcher – favoring them over the larger head and cabinet setups of some of their past records.

Kiszka is interviewed in the new issue of Guitarist and tells the magazine that the limitation was an intentional decision, rather than the result of circumstance. 

“In terms of amps, there was a blonde Fender Bassman and a Princeton ‘silverface’, both of them vintage,” Kiszka tells Guitarist. 

“[Plus] a Magnatone Twilighter and a Vox AC30, which I typically have in the studio for most records. But this record was particularly interesting because I limited myself to only using combo amps.”

Kiszka reveals he was loaned some 40 vintage guitars from Chicago Music Exchange – among them, the 4th Gibson ES-335 ever produced – for the Starcatcher sessions, so he clearly had options if he wanted them.

“I think one reason was [embracing] the limitation,” expands Kiszka. “The other was, a lot of the early great records we all love – those sounds came from just a combo. I’ve used 4x12 cabinets and heavy Marshall heads, but it almost felt unnecessary – it just moves so much air, even the lower-wattage stuff.”

The guitarist says that, working alongside their producer Dave Cobb, he also learned a lot about how to record combos, too. 

“It was an objective of mine to make one song radically different from the next,” says Kiszka. 

“Like, you might get to a song’s bridge and it becomes really spatial and outrageous. So it was quite dimensional: I was mic’ing with one up close, one two-foot back, one five-foot back, and then a room mic. And then kinda blending it in… If there’s reverb on the guitar, it’s [usually] the studio room itself at RCA.” 

Despite the access to that incredible vintage guitar haul, Kiszka says he still found a lot of time for his beloved ’61 Gibson Les Paul, notable for its SG-style body format. 

As he told Guitar World last year: “With an SG, I can let out my visceral, animalistic side as a player. That’s difficult for me to attain with anything else.”

To read Kiszka’s full interview, alongside an unmissable cover feature with Pete Townshend and a guided tour through Mark Knopfler’s upcoming guitar auction, head to Magazines Direct and pick up issue 507 of Guitarist.

Kiszka was born to rock. And since strutting onto the scene back in 2017 with his band, Greta Van Fleet, he’s done just that. Of course, it hasn’t always been easy, considering the band is perpetually labeled as Led Zeppelin clones. 

But no matter; throughout three stellar records, the Frankenmuth, Michigan rockers have kicked all preconceived notions square in the teeth, leaving gain-drenched trails of destruction in their wake.

As for Kiszka, he’s soft-spoken and unassuming. Upon dialing in with him, it was immediately apparent he’s not the sort of six-stringer worried about accolades and hyper-commercialism. No, Kiszka is the spiritual type who wields his trusty Gibson SG as a sacred talisman through which he channels otherworldly notes, gargantuan chords and chugging riffs.

And what of those Zeppelin comparisons? After years spent explaining himself, Kiska now happily straddles the line between wearing his influences like a badge of courage and being entirely unbothered. Of course, there are worse comparisons to be made, and if Greta Van Fleet’s latest, Starcatcher, is any indication, the band – and its swaggering guitarist – are intent on letting the music do the talking.

“We’ve gotten to a place in this band where we’re able to communicate our ideas freely and openly,” Kiszka says. “We don’t only feel the basic emotions of happiness and sadness; there are other things – like jealousy, spite, love, hate, anger and kindness. I think there’s a duality in blending those emotions, and we’ve done everything in our power to have that present in our music.”

Before all the hubbub surrounding the “New Wave of Classic Rock” began to cascade down upon the masses, Greta Van Fleet were just another band of hopefuls. But it didn’t take long for their dreams to become a reality, as Greta Van Fleet’s two 2017 EPs, Black Smoke Rising and From the Fires, raged forth like a shutter shock sent from the heavens. From that point forward, there was no denying that a new, yet somehow old, era of rock music was upon us.

Now, six years later, Greta Van Fleet continue to ride an unforeseen wave of fanfare and acclaim that’s yet to break upon the shore entirely. In 2018 and 2021, two more records came forth – and conquered – in the form of Anthem of the Peaceful Army and The Battle at Garden’s Gate. Still, comparisons to bands of old dogged Greta Van Fleet, but never enough to impact their fortunes or deter an undying cult fanbase.

And so, here we are in 2023 on the precipice of Greta Van Fleet’s latest and greatest, Starcatcher. It would be all too easy to assume that the sounds herein are merely shadows of the past; and sure, in some ways, they are. But isn’t that the case with all rock music to some degree? Regardless, Kiszka and company have heard the calls and have risen to the challenge of crafting perhaps their most intriguing record yet.

When asked about the balancing act between stylistic evolution and the status quo, Kiszka ponders a bit before saying, “We have a lot of influences, and those influences have the potential to take us in different directions musically. We allowed ourselves to be free and chase some of that, which was really important for us. I feel this record is powerful in ways that our others aren’t. And I feel that the dynamic within the band offers everybody within it something, which allows us to offer our audience something.”

Some 10 years after their formation, and six years after the dueling EPs that shook the world, Greta Van Fleet have seen their music appear across countless movie, television and videogame soundtracks. For a group still so young, there’s no denying they’ve become a perpetual back of the zeitgeist in the form of a rock ’n’ roll backdrop. But if you were to ask Kiszka, his band hasn’t reached its apex. Not even close.

“We’re always chasing something,” Kiszka says. “If you’re not chasing something, what’s the point of being creative? So we don’t settle or compromise. We follow our hearts and go in with the mindset that the sky’s the limit. And when we’re writing a song, it always comes from the heart, no matter the motif or whatever is going on. 

“We never think, ‘Okay, we want to write this or that.’ And we’ve never looked at it like, ‘We’re gonna write a hit for this thing or this reason.’ We’ve never cared about making music for radio or competing with other bands. It’s strictly about following the hand that guides.”

In support of Starcatcher, Kiszka dialed in with Guitar World to discuss Greta Van Fleet’s continued evolution, the addition of some tasty new pedals into his mix, incorporating the blues, his love for Gibson SGs and the unique dynamic of sharing space in a band with family.

How have Greta Van Fleet evolved for Starcatcher?

“A lot of this record has been about going back to our roots. At least, that’s certainly been the case for me. Foundationally, many of our influences go back to the blues and things like that. I needed to get back to the basics of players like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters and Albert King. 

“So I think Starcatcher is very foundational in ways that maybe our previous records weren’t. I think we’ve gone in directions I’d call 'cinematic,' and I think the mindset this time was, 'Let’s dial it back, get out of the city, go back into the country and put some of those types of songs together.' The result is what I’d say is a pretty heavy record.”

I can’t help but notice Starcatcher’s primal nature. Was it your intention to go in a more rhythmic direction?

“Yeah, you’re right. If you listen, there are tons of primitive aspects that are undeniably human, powerful and visceral. I think we went in wanting to elicit those types of sounds. And, again, that’s us harkening back to our blues influences. It’s a genuine evolution of all the sounds that brought us here. 

“Kind of like those that came before us, this is us staking our claim to our contribution to our generation. It’s a love letter to the echoes of the power of rock music, which I think the world always needs more of. [Laughs]”

How did those influences directly impact your approach?

“I think my sound is pretty well established, so it was important for me to venture into territories I’ve never explored. I began experimenting with alternative tunings, using a B-bender, playing in open C and all sorts of new pedals. 

“I hadn’t taken that journey before; conceptually, these were things I’d never done. So I allowed myself to dive into that world, which led to a very open-ended approach. I think that was important because the guitar sounds were pretty ambient on our last record [The Battle at Garden’s Gate]. This time, I wanted to try and have the guitars be more full-frontal and in your face.”

Tell me about some of those pedals and the amps you paired them with.

“For amps, I’ve been using this Marshall Astoria, which is a Chicago Music Exchange exclusive. And with the pedals, I guess I’m kind of a purist, so I didn’t get too much into the boutique stuff. I went with an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail reverb, which did a lot of heavy lifting. 

“I’ve gotten into using a wet/dry system at this point, and I’ve also been using a lot of stereo effects, like slap delays and phasers. I was able to convert my wah-wah pedal with the help of my guitar tech to where if I’ve got my toe or heel on it, it pans back and forth, giving me a huge, wide dynamic range.”

Did your SGs (and SG-shaped ’61 Les Paul) play a big part on this record?

“I’ve always loved Gibson SGs because many of the guys I grew up listening to played them. Seeing those British Invasion guys up there playing an SG made me want to be that guy. I knew that it was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the guy to get up there and evoke emotion, and Gibson guitars have always been a great vehicle for me to do that. 

“They’re dynamic guitars; you can do so much with them depending on the pickups, amps, et cetera. So, my Gibson definitely played a big part in this record, as it helped me bring out the thunder and lightning. With an SG, I can let out my visceral, animalistic side as a player. Honestly, that’s difficult for me to attain with anything else.”

I’m sure the SG was essential for your leads, but did you deploy any new guitars while tracking your rhythm parts?

“My SG is my number one. I love that guitar, and we’ve done a lot together. So that’s usually my main paintbrush while I’m in the studio. But I’m open to other guitars and use them as I need to.

“I’ll be honest: I’m sure there are tons of different guitars on this record in small doses. But I’d have to go back into the engineer’s logbook to try and tease them all out. I know that I used an ES-335, and I also broke out this old budget Telecaster. And there were some spots where I used a baritone guitar, so there’s an assortment.

“I guess I don’t always pay attention to those sorts of details; I’m more about creating textures while painting, so to speak. But I love how you can layer guitars and make profoundly complex and outrageous sounds. Of course, that’s always tough to recreate live. [Laughs]”

Do you chase sounds or let the riffs and licks come to you?

“That’s an interesting question. I think maybe a lot of players do chase sounds, but I don’t really go about it that way. I’ve always had a classic sound but never pursued that. I think subconsciously, a lot of that has been driven deep within my DNA as a guitar player. That said, there are certain sounds that I’m trying to achieve, but I’m not necessarily trying to emulate something that has been done before.”

You mentioned the blues earlier. How is that most present on this record?

“You can hear the blues in my playing on this record more than any of our others. Having said that, Elmore James has always been huge for me. His slide playing is one of the things that has always influenced me. 

“But beyond his slide playing, I think it’s most present in my attitude and mood. The truth is I’ve never heard anyone play guitar like Elmore James, and I don’t think anyone ever will again. He was the only one to do it that way, so I’m trying to sound like him. But I did work to try and capture the attitude he had.”

Did the success of Greta Van Fleet’s early EPs take you by surprise? Have you felt boxed in by that success since?

“It kind of did because I don’t think that was ever prevalent in our minds. We were just trying to offer something our generation hadn’t yet covered. From our perspective, this music was something we felt the world needed more of. Music had stepped away from it for so long in terms of new bands, and for us, it was authentic and organic to steer things back that way. 

“It’s what we came from, and it’s real for us. We never imagined it would take off; we were trying to write the best songs and play with as much intensity as possible. But you’re right; we were right there at the beginning to kick things off for our generation. But I don’t think we’ve ever felt boxed in; we’ve always been intent on creating music that moves us and the fans.” 

What challenges came about from being thrust into the spotlight so quickly?

“We could feel it early on that something was going on. We’d play these shows, and there was just so much electricity in the air around us. I remember being on stage early on and feeling the hair stand up on the back of my neck. 

“Before we knew it, more and more bands were getting involved, which is great. But as far as challenges, this is exactly what we wanted. We had objectives in mind, and for us, the sky has always been the limit.” 

Brothers sharing space in a rock ’n’ roll band has ended in disaster for many before you, but Greta Van Fleet has thrived. Why?

“We do seem to be doing alright. [Laughs] But, man, you’re right; the list of family bands that have shredded themselves to the point of self-implosion is pretty extensive. But I guess the secret is we’re good to each other. We try not to get aggressive, and we give each other space if we need it. And honestly, a lot of that stuff that could have hurt us; we got most of it out early on. 

“Sure, we’d get together to play or rehearse, and sometimes things would happen where someone throws a chair across a room or a door gets broken down, but we learned how to navigate all that. 

“In any band – especially one you share with family – there’s always gonna be some bloodshed. And we get into those arguments, have creative differences and all of that, but we’ve always let the passion we share guide us rather than whatever momentary thing stands in our way.

How will Starcatcher allow Greta Van Fleet to further their connection with their audience?

“We love all the records we’ve put out, but Starcatcher, in particular, sounds absolutely gigantic. I can’t wait to get out and perform these songs live. As we’ve been rehearsing them, we’re seeing more and more just how dynamic and full of dimension they are. 

“I think that will allow us to be more informative as performers because these songs are very direct; that will enable us to form an interesting connection with the audience. I think it will allow us to tell more stories through the music. Our goal is always to inspire emotion, and these songs are truly more powerful than anything we’ve ever written.”

You’ve had a lot of success with songs like Highway Tune, but you don’t strike me as someone who cares too much about that sort of thing.

“You’re right about that. We appreciate our success, but none of the commercial stuff ever enters my mind. It’s funny because a lot of groups will write specifically for radio, or they’ll have a particular commercial objective, and they chase that intent, you know? But we’ve always come from a deeply instinctual place. 

“When I’m putting a song together, there’s always something beyond what I can see or touch that’s guiding my hands to do whatever I’m doing. I see myself as a courier, and whatever comes from it, that’s cool by me.” 

• Starcatcher is out now via Lava Music.

Last month, we asked you to cast a ballot for your favorite guitar solo of the 21st century.

The responses that came in were numerous, and stylistically all over the map, but ultimately, a clear winner emerged – and it was released more recently than you might think.

To answer your first question, no – even with the benefit of recency bias, it wasn't Rise, the fire-breathing comeback single from Nuno Bettencourt and Extreme that set the guitar universe ablaze when it came out three months ago.

However, the solo that did end up taking the crown is indeed from the 2020s. The best solo of the 21st century, according to your ballots, is the extended electric guitar spin-out that closes Greta Van Fleet's nine-minute epic, The Weight of Dreams. 

The solo beat out some impressive competition, including the lead breaks from The Darkness's bombastic, operatic crowd-pleaser, I Believe In A Thing Called Love, Tedeschi Trucks Band's unforgettably evocative Midnight In Harlem, Polyphia and Steve Vai's generation-bridging Ego Death, and era-defining classics like Velvet Revolver's Slither and Slipknot's Psychosocial. 

Something that might make Greta Van Fleet, and their guitarist, Jake Kiszka, particularly proud of their win is that the White Stripes – whose blend of raw blues passion and Led Zeppelin-channeling power and bombast left a significant impact on the band as youngsters – could get no higher than 18th in the poll, on the strength of their own lengthy epic, Ball And Biscuit.

Though comparisons to Led Zeppelin have continued to dog Greta Van Fleet over the years, Kiszka has publicly pointed to The White Stripes as another significant influence on the quartet's strain of modern classic rock.

“The White Stripes were past pavers, in a sense,” the guitarist told Guitar World in a 2021 interview. “They were very influential from a blues standpoint. We listened to them in middle school.”

To read Total Guitar's full round-up of the best solos of the 21st century – and see the top 50 from the public vote – pick up the new issue of the mag at Magazines Direct.

In Greta Van Fleet, one of the world's biggest classic rock revival bands, the bond between brothers Jake and Sam Kiszka is palpable. But their relationship hasn't been without its hiccups over the years.

As they recall in a new interview with The SDR Show, when they were young kids – Jake nine and Sam six – Jake accidentally lopped off the tip of Sam's thumb while they played in the backyard.

The details, Sam admits, are hazy, although he remembers the pair “making stuff in the yard” – as kids do – and Jake playing with a jack-knife – perhaps as young children shouldn't do. “I was trying to teach you a life lesson,” Jake laughs.

While the incident may have been gory, time heals all wounds, and as Sam now explains, the dent where the remainder of his thumb used to be now makes for a perfect surface for playing bass guitar. This is because his thumb now has a flat tip, meaning it's more comfortable to rest on the instrument while playing fingerstyle. So there you go.

Last year, hot on the heels of their second studio album, The Battle at Garden's Gate, Jake Kiszka sat down with Guitar World to discuss the comparisons – sometimes negative – that are often drawn between Greta Van Fleet and their classic rock predecessors – Led Zeppelin, for example.

“I think it has to do with age, really,” the guitarist said. “Critics are hard to press, in particular to the Zeppelin reference, which we’re humbled by. We’re honored by that affiliation, but 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.”

But ultimately, any negative attention has done little to knock GVF off course. “It feels as if we're dealing with things that other artists would normally encounter a decade into their careers,” Kiszka continued. “To be honest, we don’t feel a lot of pressure because we’re four guys who are creating what we want.”

Alongside Architects, Pantera, Mammoth WVH, Volbeat and Five Finger Death Punch, Greta Van Fleet have been announced as a support act on Metallica's upcoming M72 world tour, which is set to commence in 2023.

Greta Van Fleet have postponed the remainder of the first leg of their Dreams in Gold North America tour after guitarist Jake Kiszka was hospitalized with pneumonia last week.

The announcement comes after the band revealed Jake and Josh Kiszka had both fallen ill earlier last week, leading to the postponement of shows in Flint and Ypsilanti, Michigan on March 16 and 17, respectively. While Josh has since largely recovered, Jake's diagnosis was “more complex”, the band said on Thursday (March 17).

 “We are disheartened to announce that the shows from March 22 through April 2 must be rescheduled for the health and safety of our brother, Jake,” the band write in a new tweet.

The band add that while Jake Kiszka has now been discharged from hospital after being there for four days, he is still “struggling with pneumonia and its symptoms”.

“The healing process is long and slower than anticipated,” they continue. “Jake wanted to push through, however doctors have advised doing so could potentially lead to further complications and a longer recovery.”

“We are actively working on rescheduling and will share information about the news dates as quickly as possible,” they add. “We are determined to play these shows.”

While the group are intent on rescheduling the postponed Dreams in Gold dates, their appearance in Madison, WI – originally scheduled for March 22 – has been canceled entirely, due to planned venue renovations later this year. GVF promise refunds will be available at point of purchase for this show.

“To the fans, friends and family that planned to travel great lengths to be with us – your unwavering support has not gone unnoticed,” the band's statement continues. “We appreciate your dedication, understanding, grace and sympathy.”

As things stand, Greta Van Fleet are scheduled to continue their Dreams in Gold tour in Santiago, Chile on April 27. They'll also hit Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, before heading to Europe for a string of dates from June 4. Following a break after Rock Werchter Festival on July 10, the band will undertake another US trek from August 10.

Greta Van Fleet have extended their Dreams in Gold 2022 tour, adding a sprawling North America leg to occur in the fall. It will follow a string of dates in the US and South America in March through July.

The classic rock revivalists will join Metallica for two stops in New York and Pittsburgh on August 11 and 14, respectively, before hitting nine cities in Canada and 30 in the US. The trek will wrap up at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California on November 12.

Special guests set to appear include The Pretty Reckless, Hannah Wicklund, Houndmouth, Robert Finley, Durand Jones & The Indications, Crown Lands and Fruit Bats.

Fan presale and local venue presale will take place on March 2 and 3, respectively, followed by general public on-sale from March 4 at 12PM local time. Head to the band's website for more info.

Greta Van Fleet's Dreams in Gold Tour is in support of their 2021 album, The Battle at Garden's Gate. Two albums and two EPs down, Josh Kiszka and co remain a divisive band in modern rock music, with some saying their music gives the genre a much-needed shot in the arm, and others noting their likeness to classic-rock heavyweights like Led Zeppelin.

“I actually think it's a beautiful thing,” guitarist Jake Kiszka told Guitar World last year. “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.”

See below for a full list of dates on Greta Van Fleet's fall US tour.

• August 11: Highmark Stadium – Buffalo, NY*
• August 14: PNC Park – Pittsburgh, PA*
• August 16: Centre Videotron – Quebec City, QC†
• August 18: Centre Bell – Montreal, QC†
• August 19: Scotiabank Arena – Toronto, ON†
• August 22: Canada Life Centre – Winnipeg, MB†
• August 23: Brandt Centre – Regina, SK†
• August 26: Scotiabank Saddledome – Calgary, AB†
• August 27: Rogers Place – Edmonton, AB†
• August 29: Prospera Place – Kelowna, BC†
• August 30: Rogers Arena – Vancouver, BC†
• September 02: Spokane Arena – Spokane, WA ‡
• September 03: ExtraMile Arena – Boise, ID ‡
• September 20: Allen County War Memorial Coliseum – Fort Wayne, IN §
• September 21: Wells Fargo Arena – Des Moines, IA§
• September 23: Fargodome – Fargo, ND§
• September 24: Denny Sanford PREMIER Center – Sioux Falls, SD§
• September 27: Huntington Center – Toldeo, OH§
• September 28: Thompson-Boling Arena – Knoxville, TN§
• September 30: John Paul Jones Arena – Charlottesville, VA§
• October 01: PPL Center – Allentown, PA§
• October 04: SNHU Arena – Manchester, NH§
• October 05: MVP Arena – Albany, NY§
• October 07: Mohegan Sun Arena – Uncasville, CT§
• October 08: Cross Insurance Center – Bangor, ME§
• October 18: PNC Arena – Raleigh, NC**
• October 19: Bon Secours Wellness Arena – Greenville, SC**
• October 21: Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena – Jacksonville, FL**
• October 22: Hertz Arena – Estero, FL**
• October 25: Hard Rock Live – Hollywood, FL**
• October 26: Amalie Arena – Tampa, FL**
• October 28: Spectrum Center – Charlotte, NC**
• October 29: Legacy Arena at The BJCC – Birmingham, AL**
• November 01: Smoothie King Center – New Orleans, LA**
• November 02: Simmons Bank Arena – Little Rock, AR**
• November 04: Paycom Center – Oklahoma City, OK**
• November 05: AT&T Center – San Antonio, TX**
• November 08: Don Haskins Center – El Paso, TX**
• November 09: Tucson Arena – Tucson, AZ**
• November 11: Honda Center – Anaheim, CA††
• November 12: Golden 1 Center – Sacramento, CA††

* With Metallica
† With The Pretty Reckless and Hannah Wicklund
‡ Support to be determined
§ With Houndmouth and Robert Finley
** With Durand Jones & The Indications and Crown Lands
†† With Fruit Bats and Crown Lands

Metallica have announced two U.S. stadium shows, which – the band said – will be their only American stadium shows of the summer.

Set to take place at Highmark Stadium in Buffalo, New York on August 11 and PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on August 14, the shows will be opened by Greta Van Fleet and Ice Nine Kills. 

In addition to a spring South American tour and European festival run in June and July, the thrash titans also have two American festival performances scheduled for May – a May 27 appearance at the BottleRock Napa Valley festival and a May 29 performance at the Boston Calling festival – in addition to a show tomorrow (February 25) night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Though mostly kept off the road by COVID-19, Metallica still had a tremendous 2021, celebrating the 30th anniversary of their landmark Black Album with a massive reissue of the record-setting LP and The Metallica Blacklist, a mammoth, 53-artist tribute to the album.

2021 also marked their 40th anniversary as a band overall, a milestone they celebrated by essentially taking over San Francisco for a weekend in December.

The quartet performed two massive shows at the city's Chase Center on December 17 and 19 that were filled with rare tracks and deep cuts, and livestreamed for free via Amazon Prime and Amazon Music.

That weekend – December 16 - December 19, 2021 – the band also hosted a block party, a concert by garage punk rockers White Reaper – opened by Lars Ulrich's sons' band, Taipei Houston – a show by Kamasi Washington, and several events pertaining to Blackened Whiskey, all in San Francisco. 

For tickets to the band's 2022 shows and more info, point your browser over to Metallica's website.

Here we have it, the top 20 guitar albums of 2021, as chosen by you, and you didn’t disappoint. You could glue all of these album covers to a whiteboard and it could well be a mood board taken from the editorial prow of the good ship Guitar World.

There are some evergreen choices here, with guitar players who always find themselves in the guitar-playing community’s good graces. But even among them, no two are strictly alike, with blues-rock titans sharing space with grunge trailblazers and pioneers of shred.

But there are some new players, too, those making their presence felt for the first time. Not all here are necessarily technical virtuosos, and many who ration that instinct to cut loose. After all, what makes a great guitar album is no different to what makes a great album. 

As the player and songwriter behind your number one choice argued when he spoke with Guitar World earlier in the year, the song has got to come first – no matter how satisfying it is to feel those strings under your fingers, your ear must always have the casting vote.

• The 10 best guitar riffs of 2021
• The 10 best guitar solos of 2021

20. Samantha Fish – Faster

Samantha Fish has been threatening to make an album like Faster for years. Well, not threatening, more like drip-feeding the idea into her sound like a work of subliminal advertising that would have marked her for a successful career on Madison Avenue.

Now that she has taken the plunge and hired the estimable Martin Kierszenbaum (aka Cherry Cherry Boom Boom) as producer, she can turn loose all those pop elements and demonstrate just how resilient an art form blues-rock can be, and how conservative and staid we have been with its housekeeping over the years.

You can hear the influence of Prince, of Lana Del Rey, and of course Lady Gaga, whose name is inextricably linked with Kierszenbaum. But recording Faster at The Village, where Fleetwood Mac tracked Tusk, feels like an act of surreptitious pop engineering, and it takes her guitar playing into new and exciting spaces. 

It’s still a guitar record. Kierszenbaum got Fish to dial in a tone, and that was the tone – a Gibson SG into Fender Super Reverb and Deluxe Reverb amps – with less emphasis on the pedalboard. And it’s further proof that she’s one of the best blues-rock players around. But it shows that, given the chance, she could and should cross over. Why not go pop?

19. Jerry Cantrell – Brighten

A master of deploying acoustic guitars alongside electrics to heighten the depth of a mix, Jerry Cantrell this year debuted his first solo album since 2002’s Degradation Trip. It traffics in a gauzy ‘70s feel, the mood effortlessly modulating between downbeat and optimistic, with a three-dimensional production job and compositions anchored by those yowling drones that have become the hallmark of Alice in Chains over the years. 

Again, this is another audiophile record, with Cantrell taking the connoisseur approach, plugging his Les Pauls and trusty G&L Rampage into a variety of amp heads – most certainly his signature Friedman heads somewhere – and playing a bunch of Gibson Songwriters alongside Martin and Guild acoustics.

18. The Black Keys – Delta Kream

Delta Kream is a lovingly created work of musical revivalism that finds the Black Keys paying dues to their Hill County blues heroes R. L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough on an album of blues standards. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are joined by the likes of Burnside’s longtime sideman Kenny Brown and others sitting in on album that’s celebratory, poignant, and a reference point for vintage electric guitar tone.

And there is some sorcery in those sounds. Most of us are not from North Mississippi, and yet the area will come alive in our imaginations when we press play. That’s the power of blues storytelling, sure, but also of guitar tone, and its power to sell us the illusion and color in the gaps. Not to get all sentimental or anything, but that is pretty magical.

17. Julian Lage – Squint

Jazz guitar phenom Julian Lage’s Blue Note debut would be way higher on the list if jazz enjoyed the same exposure as pretty much any other style. But as things stand, maybe jazz is just too dangerous for mainstream audiences to get behind. That’s right, Lage might well be a mild-mannered mensch but his playing style, note choices and compositional sensibility are 100 percent danger. He is a musically book-smart Evel Knievel. 

Of course, it’s Lage’s name on the cover, but the improvisational brio brought to bear on this stylistically adventurous deep dive into the history of jazz, and how it is contextualized by the blues and rock ’n’ roll artforms that orbit it, is facilitated by the stellar contributions of bass player Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King. The chemistry within that trio is something we all aspire to.

16. Tremonti – Marching in Time

Listening to Mark Tremonti’s latest solo album is a little like following Dwayne 'The Rock’ Johnson on Instagram. You will find yourself all set to embrace a shapeless Sunday, and after some French toast and maple syrup – two rounds, you deserve this – you might have some pentatonic noodling planned from the comfort of your easy chair, maybe a cold one to slake your thirst. “Siri, just where did I leave my Blues Junior?” 

But such indolence is brutally punctured by the urge to ‘put in the work and get some gains’. For the fitspo set, that means the gym, grunting and Lycra. For guitar players, that means three to four hours of regimented, structured practice; the gains we’re chasing are the ability to attain a level of insouciant virtuosity, the kind that allows Tremonti to transition from the poignant to the spectacular and back again. Fast and furious, if you will.

15. Billy Strings – Renewal

Billy Strings is a ridiculous player. Again, the virtuosity feels unrehearsed and instinctive – with as communal and celebratory a genre as bluegrass, it has to be. The songwriting is wise beyond his years. Well, we say that, but wisdom and foolishness lies in every demographic, and all it takes for a great songwriter of any age is to be able to scan the horizon and intuit the universal truths that shape and color our all-too-brief time on this planet.

There are many highlights on Renewal. Secrets is as action-packed as the third act of Avengers: Infinity War but is written and composed in such a way as to invoke the Wachowskis’ bullet time, as though the world slows and all that musical information can make a beeline straight for your heart. 

High-tempo music from a superhero songwriter can still make you cry. And if it doesn’t, then Love and Regret will. No matter where we are from, who we are or on which slice our bread is buttered, that speaks to us all.

14. Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram – 662

Christone ‘Kingfish’ Ingram is playing fast and loose with his at-home privacy here, giving away the first three digits of his telephone number – well, the area code. But that is thematically judicious, as the music here and stories told are all rooted in his Mississippi locale. 

There were a few things about Kingfish’s playing that identified him as a next-gen bluesman of some repute, but his tone and his vibrato have got to be right up there. Just listen to the spanky scratch of the title track’s rhythm figure, and then that piping hot Strat juice that arrives by way of the lead. 

His phrasing is righteous, too, which is only appropriate; for if you are going to hold a note and bend it for the audience to lose their minds to, then it had better be the right note.

13. Spiritbox – Eternal Blue

The Canadian trio’s much-anticipated debut is an exercise in dynamics, tension, atmosphere, and, on occasion, just surrendering all of this to the cleansing nuclear fire of Mike Stringer’s xenomorph guitar. 

The explosive shifts in tone are perhaps something learned from the post nu-metal cognoscenti – “My, Mr. Stringer, that verse/chorus shift really does have Stephen Carpenter’s eyes” – but Stringer’s abrasive down-tuned style, made possible by extended-range guitars from the likes of Abasi Concepts and Aristides, is a beast all his own. 

Does it feel shallow to admit we’re suckers for a pick slide that sounds like there is a tear in the space/time continuum? For all the big ideas here, it’s often the primal triggers that hot-wire the audience’s critical faculties.

12. Gojira – Fortitude

Gojira’s blockbuster metal has always been underpinned by an arthouse sensibility, and that’s what makes albums such as Fortitude sound so profound and yet fundamentally satisfying in the rock ’n’ roll sense of the word. 

Joe Duplantier and Christian Andreu’s guitars work in lock-step over the virtuoso time-keeping of Joe’s kid brother and drummer Mario, creating grooves that command a physical reaction from those exposed to them. And yet Duplantier is writing about things that make us consider our position in this world, expanding his arrangements accordingly, subsuming elements of prog, post-metal and electronic music. 

From anyone else we might call this ambitious but, for Gojira, this is second nature, instinctual, and they made sure to capture it in every take in the studio by going all-in chasing an inspiring sound and then recording it while the energy was fresh.

11. Paul Gilbert – Werewolves of Portland

How much fun can one grown man have on his own? Werewolves of Portland is like an exercise in solo musicianship that from the outset might seem like a Herculean task akin to swimming the Atlantic, but in Gilbert’s antic and outsized imagination it’s just what you do when the occasion arises. 

Yes, Gilbert plays everything here, and it’s a record that reminds us that instrumental rock can be primarily fun. Gilbert’s humor is all over this. Turning idle thoughts of, ‘Should we move away from Portland? Things are a little hectic’ into a bonkers paean to the fifth least populated state in the US, Hello! North Dakota, and creating a battle-shred spectacular advancing the idea that a piece of great pie will bring comity and unity to the world, Argument About Pie.

There are no vocals, but in a sense there are. Gilbert wrote lyrics and expressed them with slide guitar, a process that seems like the most organic way to incorporate one of our more traditional techniques into most spectacular arrangements, making the guitar instrumental not only fun but a singalong experience.

10. Smith/Kotzen – Smith/Kotzen

Smith/Kotzen? That sounds like it could be the name of a delicatessen in downtown Kansas City, but in our timeline it is a project of prodigiously talented guitar players and neighbors Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen, who turned some downtime into studio time for a hard-rock two-hander.

Remarkable, isn’t it, even more so that former tennis star Pat Cash made the introductions. Here, the Iron Maiden guitarist Smith and former Poison guitarist Kotzen dovetail politely, like two old friends shooting some pool. 

With most of his gear in storage, Smith even used Kotzen’s rig, but when he steps up to the table, there’s no denying it’s him. Like on Running, which echoes Maiden classic Moonchild with a Pat Thrall-inspired solo. As for Kotzen, he pulls out all the tricks, goes a bit nuts with the rotary speaker effects, and meets Smith in the middle when the project circles back to blues-driven hard rock.

9. Billy F. Gibbons – Hardware

Billy F. Gibbons only gets cooler the hotter he gets, and out there in the California High Desert, not far from Joshua Tree National Park, where Hardware was tracked, things were mighty hot. 

Hardware sees Gibbons joined by guitarist Austin Hanks and drummer Matt Sorum and rocking out. There’s a little more engine grease to these arrangements than on his bluesier releases, with tracks like She’s On Fire making use of Sorum’s power, and West Coast Junkie making full use of whatever gear was already there when Gibbons arrived at the studio. 

Just what do you do when you find a vintage Fender Jazzmaster, a ’61 Fender Piggyback amp and Fender Reverb tank idling in the studio? Well, of course you write a track that’s electrified by the antic energy of surf rock. Hardware is testament to what you can get down after spending three months under the sun with only cacti and rattlers for company.

8. Mastodon – Hushed And Grim

Hushed And Grim sees Mastodon process the loss of their friend and manager Nick John with one of their most audacious albums of an audacious discography. Guitarists Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher are masters of mining the borderland between melody and dissonance, the savage and the philosophical, and here they shift feel on a dime. 

One moment might find them in a holding pattern around a vocal harmony, the next they are referencing the riff firestorms of earlier releases Remission and Leviathan, which harnessed the apocalyptic influence of Neurosis and the weight of the Melvins to spectacular effect.

Quite where they go from here is hard to say. This is a double album that leaves nothing on the floor. Tracks such as Pain with an Anchor weave tangled roots of guitar textures, in which you could get lost for days. Skeleton of Splendor has a fairytale airiness to it. 

More Than I Could Chew, meanwhile, is like the band’s career in just under seven minutes: the inordinate spectacle of the riff, Brann Dailor’s lead drumming exploding like popcorn in the microwave, then a reach for the sky prog middle-eight and outro solo.

7. Mammoth WVH – Mammoth WVH

For a guitar community still processing the loss of one of its most brilliant elders, Mammoth WVH’s debut is right there with you, with Wolfgang Van Halen paying tribute to his father’s work on tracks such as Mr. Ed, and indeed his life, on Distance. 

We might all know what Distance is explicitly about, but it’s a song that speaks to anyone who has lost a loved one. Although we might recognize some of Eddie Van Halen’s hard-rock grammar here, the language and dialect is all Wolfgang’s, on a hard-rock sound that is very much his own, perhaps augmented and shaped by the influence of Soundgarden and Tool, which makes 21st-century hard rock a very different – and more knowing – beast than its ‘80s counterparts. But then, these are very different times.

6. Greta Van Fleet – The Battle at Garden’s Gate

Greta Van Fleet were born too late but are not alone in their predicament, and they have duly created a sound offering succour and enlightenment to those who continue mourn the aesthetic largesse of classic rock’s big beasts. 

Most of which, if not all, are artistically extinct, but their lifeblood courses through the veins of Jake Kiszka and company, and GVF have the imagination and ability to reinterpret this sound for the digital age. If there’s a sense of melancholy under the triumph of their bold arrangements, perhaps it’s from the recognition that popular culture is convulsing in the information age. 

Kiszka talks about The Battle at Garden’s Gate being cinematic, and it is; this is Peter Jackson’s Deep Purple, Spielberg’s Zeppelin, with Kiszka cast as a Fitzcarraldo figure hauling the GVF steamship over the hill. But cinema as we know it is being killed, too. Maybe all that’s left is grand gestures of defiance such as this.

5. Dream Theater – A View From the Top of the World

Few bands have been more aptly named than Dream Theater. The creative horizons imagined by John Petrucci appear beyond the limits of the conscious mind. He might dress in black, dig metal, and have a rig that could be seen and heard from space, but there’s something of an 18th-century composer’s sensibility to how Petrucci arranges his songs. 

Take the title track. To call it epic feels a little redundant; it’s 20 minutes long, but even after six we get the feeling we’ve left Earth behind, as though the atmosphere itself has changed. Petrucci’s playing is, of course, redoubtable, inspired and peerless, and it makes for a great study piece for guitar players with designs on expanding their repertoire and musical vocabulary.

But that’s not what Petrucci has in mind for Dream Theater, at least we don’t think so. It’s all about the gift of surprise. Progressive music is not easy. It can be a stultifying torture if the ideas don’t match the ambition. 

But with Dream Theater, the ideas just keep coming at you, with Petrucci generous in lacing his songwriting with the gift of surprise, because he knows that long-form musical entertainment is not meant to be a chore. And if that means getting his friends at Ernie Ball Music Man to design him an eight-string Majesty so he can rethink the instrument anew and write a hulk jam such as Awaken the Master, then so be it. Now, that’s entertainment.

4. Joe Bonamassa – Time Clocks

The world’s highest-grossing bluesman doesn’t get enough credit for his off-menu musical choices. Sure, he’s a blues-rock player to his bones, but he’s a blues-rock player who is often at his best when taking the genre off the beaten path. Time Clocks is a prime example.

This, he once told us, was to be the ‘NY subway album’, which he made sound like it was to be almost improvisational, recorded with a minimum of fuss and using the 24/7 rhythms of the Big Apple to inform the jams. 

But once he unloaded some choice picks from Nerdville – a 1959 Les Paul Standard here, a ’68 Thinline Tele with an all original Parsons/White B-Bender there – the songs decided otherwise, with Bonamassa bringing all his Chris Squire, prog influences to bear to the fore.

Yes, he can shift to bar room melancholy if and when the song requires it, but the compositions on Time Clocks are often too elegiac to shake themselves into a 12/8 shuffle. That was not the rhythm of New York City in the winter months of February 2021.

3. Iron Maiden – Senjutsu

Iron Maiden have always been one of the more ambitious bands to arise out of the NWOBHM cohort but back in 1981, few could have looked into the tea leaves, seen Eddie’s face staring back at them, and forecast an album like Senjutsu.

Senjutsu is built on the maxim ‘more is more’. Perhaps it is written this way by happenstance, by virtue of Iron Maiden’s unorthodox approach of showing up at a studio with a bunch of songs written before writing in situ until an album presents itself.

If their antic debut and the midnight thrills of Killers offered the gratification of a cheeseburger and cold lager, Senjutsu offers a 12-course tasting menu with wine pairings, and it leans fully into the three-guitar dynamic for maximum effect. 

In Janick Gers, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith, Maiden have myriad options and exploit them throughout, weaving guitar harmonies in and out, doubling parts and lending the gamed-out expanse of Senjutsu’s more progressive tracks a sense of theater.

2. Gus G – Quantum Leap

Gus G is the Willy Wonka of mainstream metal shred guitar. Every now and then, somebody has his ear exclusively, and taps into his electrifying style for their own gratification. In the recent past, Ozzy Osbourne was Charlie with his golden ticket, maintaining his unerring reputation for always securing the services of a top-tier guitar player before doing anything.

But on Quantum Leap, Gus G is getting high on his own supply of everlasting gobstoppers and working an almighty sugar rush on his signature Jackson Star. Quantum Leap does not shy away from the noble business of fretboard fire-raising, but throughout Mr G keeps that melody front and center.

There’s a Japanese video game sensibility to how he builds the solos on this. Big Friedman-esque gestures will resolve themselves in tricksy diminished scale runs, before riding off into the sunset atop a burnished steel power metal riff. 

And if the riff doesn’t get you, then a flagon of fizzy lifting drink will. Carbonated, highly sugared, delicious. And, okay, serious point, we could also look at Quantum Leap and call it a work of shred postmodernism, with the G man referencing the leading lights of the Satch generation and putting his own imprint on it. 

1. John Mayer – Sob Rock

The idea for Sob Rock could have come from a therapist. Here we are in the frantic present, and if you have been keeping up with affairs, you might notice things are a little topsy-turvy. Perhaps recognizing the scale of our present-day funk, John Mayer – arch entertainer and master guitar player – takes evasive action through the medium of soft rock, executing a Toto 180 and planting us back under the protective shoulder pads of a late ‘80s aesthetic.

And what do you know, even those too young to be familiar with the candied scent of Harmony hairspray were all in, too. This time capsule of Mayer’s construction has everything we need; there’s some beautifully manicured guitar tones here, with that carefully worked quality that suited the era’s production styles. 

As Mayer explained to Guitar World, much of it was inspired by his fantasy of having a song of his turn up on Eric Clapton’s Journeyman. “I loved him so much that I’m not afraid to go, ‘I just want to feel what that’s like…’ Like, the experience of plugging a Strat with noiseless pickups into a Soldano with a chorus pedal. And to hear that back on your own song is funny, poignant, touching, exciting, titillating.”

That in essence, is Sob Rock. It is an album of fantasy. It has guitar solos all over it, each delivered in conversational style – a little like how Mayer speaks, right? – with meticulous chops. But they are grounded in reality. They know the song is the boss. And Mayer knows it’s not 1988, which is why it was important to sound like it is.

• The 10 best guitar riffs of 2021
• The 10 best guitar solos of 2021

It’s that time of year when we give it up and offer the lead guitarists a well-deserved round of applause. Well done, everyone, you’ve earned it. As we guitar players know, a great guitar solo contains multitudes. 

Oftentimes it’s all about the woodshedding, but then mavens of tantric sustain might beg to differ. Technique can be critical, but usually it’s the tone, or even the lack of a rigid schoolbook performance, that makes a solo worthy of multiple listens.

For many players, especially those whose names are not on the ticket, diplomacy is key when convincing bandmates to surrender 32 bars or more to your musical genius. But perhaps we should stop looking at lead guitar as being separate to the songwriting process. Here, we have a wide range of styles, and yet all conform to that one rule of serving the song. 

It has been quite the year for lead guitar. John Petrucci has put his name to two albums and yet the top 10 eludes him. Julian Lage’s Blue Note debut, Squint, saw him attack electric jazz guitar with a freewheeling zeal, and then we had Eric Gales’ show-stealing solo with Joe Bonamassa, when he dug deep into his musical vocabulary to set alight to I Want My Crown. 

Then there was Steve Vai’s act of one-armed legato genius, Knappsack. That none of these made the cut speaks to the impact of the following, and that the pop-cultural compass of the Guitar World reader is pointed towards the sounds of the '70s and '80s reimagined for today.

• The 10 best guitar riffs of 2021
• The 20 best guitar albums of 2021

10. Slash ft. Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators – The River Is Rising

Is it even an end of year best guitar solos list if it doesn’t include the top-hatted rock animal who signs his Christmas cards ‘Slash’? Here, his long-time co-Conspirator Myles Kennedy gives him the big build-up, before the band take a deep breath and heave into a double-time feel for a solo that has shades of Slash’s fast-picking Paradise City approach, foregrounding a helter-skelter melody that resolves in a muscle-car AC/DC/Aerosmith lick.

There are faster guitar solos. There are more melodic guitar solos, too. But there’s something about Slash’s feel that is so aggressive you wonder how you could ever replicate it, least not on a Les Paul stringed with a set of 11s. Maybe we’ll try the Rocky method, downing raw eggs at sun-up, and perhaps spiking our superfoods smoothie with a healthy tot of sour mash whiskey.

9.  Joe Bonamassa – Mind’s Eye 

Time Clocks took all of us for a spin. The way Mr. Bonamassa was talking, this was to be a stripped-down New York album, a work of throw-and-go electric blues. And yet it turned out to be a long-form epic with the influence of prog heroes such as Chris Squire coming to the fore and broadening the canvas. 

Mind’s Eye takes the blues ballad through the looking glass – a dark night of the soul on the dark side of the moon – and it’s capped with a lead passage that eschews any temptation for pentatonic boogie for melodic minor key virtuosity, played on guitars that could tell you first hand what John F. Kennedy was wearing at his inauguration.

With the feel on this one, it’s as though Bonamassa had been watching the weather channel for inspiration, building and building the intensity of the storm then allowing us a moment to get our heads together in the aftermath.

8. Flock of Dimes – Price of Blue 

And so for something skronky, spanky and crunchy. Jenn Wasner’s Flock of Dimes is always essential listening for budding tonesmiths who want to take the electric guitar out of its conventional jazz/blues/rock/metal law of gravity, and her latest album, Head of Roses, is exquisite in terms of tone and composition.

The Price of Blue solo, though, tracked on an '80s Fender Stratocaster owned by producer Nick Sanborn's father, is a remarkable piece of work. It’s the tone, yes, but it’s also the phrasing and Wasner’s use of the vibrato. It sounds like it has gently torn something in the mix, as though something mechanical has gone and it’s set loose the song’s ID. It also serves as a successful reference for how to hold the atonal and the melodic in perfect equilibrium.

7. Myles Kennedy – The Ides of March 

As a soothsayer to the Roman Emperor, Caesar famously said, "Beware The Ides of March." Not necessarily because your courtiers and palace rivals might stick the knife into you, but because nailing the phrasing on this standout guitar moment from Myles Kennedy’s latest solo album might drive you madder than Schumann.

Guitar players will recognize the real heroes behind this piece – the guitar techs who set up the guitar, and the engineers who made the guitar tuner so accurate. Like walking on the moon, a solo that relies on such on-point intonation is a team sport, and spectacular when it comes off. 

Kennedy’s profile as a guitarist is often overshadowed by his pals Slash and Alter Bridge bandmate Mark Tremonti, but the title track from his latest solo album is a showcase for his formidable talents, chief among them that sense of feel, intonational propriety, and phrasing.

6. Cardinal Black – Tell Me How It Feels 

Chris Buck gives this neo-soul rocker a welcome power-up with some sweet cream fingerstyle lead guitar that seems to have culled its note choices and phrasing from the back catalog of Motown Records. 

Okay, so most human voices might not get up this high – and God help Tom Hollister if his voice ever reaches this pitch – but Buck’s solo here really sounds like an ancillary vocal line played on guitar.

You might have arrived here as a Cardinal Black fan, but the chances are you will already be familiar with the amiable six-string phenom from his YouTube presence, and he has been typically kind enough to break this solo down for us on his YouTube channel. 

Check out that video if you want him tell you more, but one last word from us – that Yamaha Revstar, Mythos Golden Fleece fuzz pedal, ThorpyFX Gunshot into a Victory V140 Super Duchess is a recipe for artery-clogging tone, leavened with a soupçon of lemon juice treble. It’s positively epicurean; Bon Appétit should run a column on Buck’s tone.

5. Tremonti – Marching in Time 

Mark Tremonti’s guitar solos are a little like the post-millennial acting career of Tom Cruise. You know there will be running. You know there will be thrills, spills and a sense of shock and awe. But even though you know all this is coming, there’s a gratifying adrenaline rush for seeing – or in Tremonti’s case, hearing – this all come together.

Marching in Time is vintage Tremonti, widescreen and dynamic, and its solo could only come from a black belt in legato jiu-jitsu. Using a wah pedal as a filter, he showcases some ridiculously dexterous chops, with intervallic gaps that suggest you might need hands like E.T. to fret them comfortably. But if we are to anoint Tremonti as Top Gun of crowd-pleasing virtuosity, it is probably on the super-human fluidity of his position changes.

4. Dinosaur Jr. – I Met the Stones 

A punk-rock, four-to-the-floor jam that sounds like the Stooges if they were stoned out their gourd and enjoying a six-month sabbatical in Tahiti, I Met the Stones is a highlight from an album of highlights. There’s something cosmic about J. Mascis’ timing; Sweep It Into Space arrived just when we needed it. A soulful, half-awake, half-blissed out, imaginative and human alternative rock album that injected some '90s optimism into our fraught and disquieting present.

While most of the album was tracked on a Fender Telecaster – with Mascis and Fender collaborating on a very smart signature model – Mascis reached for his Eastwood baritone for this solo. The lead guitar on this song is, again, like another vocal presence, snaking around the verse, always present, and it's a wondrous sound: thick, vibrant, and human.

3. Mammoth WVH – Mr. Ed 

We've learned many things about Wolfgang Van Halen in the past year, but perhaps chief among them is that he is his father’s son and his own man. The dignity, strength and, indeed, good humor that he displayed in the months after losing his father, having to process his loss in the public’s eye, is a testament to his character.

And, as a musician, we all learned that WVH is not EVH and there are different influences shaping his sound. But on Mr. Ed, the Van Halen name indicates more than just the familial link, with a guitar solo that references Eddie Van Halen’s trick bag and makes a feel-good song a little more feel-good, but also bittersweet, too. 

Even if you took all the names off this and it just arrived in your inbox in an unnamed FLAC file, the Van Halen ideology that says the guitar solo must boost serotonin and serve as a pick-me-up is all over this. 

2. John Mayer – Last Train Home 

Would the real Last Train Home solo please stand up? Such is John Mayer’s penetration of the Web 2.0, it seems like everybody who has ever picked up an electric guitar has put their stamp on this yacht-rockin’ Valentine’s Day standard. But by democratic assent, your favorite Last Train Home solo – and indeed your silver (sky) medalist for 2021 – is Mayer’s own ballad version.

Again, the tone is primo. We’d call it cutting edge, but we know Mayer was repping '80s Clapton here and enjoying reruns of Manimal and Cagney & Lacey between takes. The retro appeal for anyone who lived through that era is intoxicating. You might even let out a little squeal much like the slide that introduces Mayer’s solo here.

What can we say? This sort of material is right at the heart of the Mayer wheelhouse, and it’s sumptuous. Can lead guitar be coiffed? This sounds like Don Johnson’s hair looked onset circa ’85. Not a note out of place.

1. Greta Van Fleet – Age of Machine 

Your number one solo of the year, and by a wide margin, Age of Machine represents the scale of GVF’s ambition on The Battle at Garden’s Gate.

Once upon a time, there was a sense that the influence from the big beasts of '70s rock was over-weening, but Jake Kiszka’s sleight of hand contends such notions with daring and bold cinematic compositions like this. Age of Machine does to classic rock what Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy did to Tolkien; it updates the text, it recontextualizes it, and it challenges those who might argue that today’s audiences lack the attention span for world-building.

Perhaps conscious of this, Kiszka’s leads make regular appearances, pulling focus at the four-minute mark, just over halfway through the jam, to set the table for the track’s denouement.

When Kiszka was in conversation with Guitar World about The Battle at Garden’s Gate, he spoke of the importance of dynamics with regards to tone, but it holds similarly true for the songwriting. Altogether, it makes for an audiophile’s record. Or, as Kiszka describes it, "An orgasmic, cinematic piece of rock ‘n’ roll."

• The 10 best guitar riffs of 2021
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Love 'em or hate 'em, Greta Van Fleet have tapped into music fans' nostalgia for heavy-riffing classic rock to amass a considerable following since the release of their debut LP, 2017's From the Fires.

And among the group's ever-growing legion of fans is Gojira main man Joe Duplantier, apparently.

In a new interview with Revolver, Duplantier reveals that the Michigan quartet's latest full-length, The Battle at Garden's Gate, “blew [his] mind” when he heard it for the first time.

“I heard about them as being a rip-off of Led Zeppelin,” he says. “I think these kids are very talented – I hate calling them kids, by the way, because it shows how old I am.

“Seeing a bunch of 20-year-olds grabbing vintage instruments and fucking laying it down like they do, like in the good old days. You can say they sound like Led Zep or this or that; it doesn't matter to me. I have more faith in humanity when I hear that. I'm like, ‘Yes, some things are not lost.’ That album is absolutely amazing.”

Greta Van Fleet have faced comparisons with Led Zeppelin throughout their career. Though in a 2021 interview with Guitar World, guitarist Jake Kiszka said he and his bandmates weren't phased by such comments.

“Art is supposed to elicit strong reactions, isn’t it?” he said. “I actually think it’s a beautiful thing. There’s something sort of perfect about having one or another direct response to what we’re doing.”

Later on in the interview, he said: “We're honored by that affiliation, but there's a point within factions of society that are drawn to ignorant criticism.”

Elsewhere in the Revolver interview, Duplantier touches on the prospect of a new Gojira album, despite the French outfit's latest offering, Fortitude, arriving only earlier this year.

“Of course, it's a bit early to talk about a new album, but we can't help it,” he says. “Mario [Duplantier, drums] and me, especially after doing a few tours, we're like, ‘Okay, what's the new Gojira going to be like?’”

When asked if they have any new riffs or ideas written so far, Duplantier continues: “Mario's on fire. He's throwing drum patterns at me day and night, and I'm like, ‘Wait, wait, wait, let me digest what we've just been through.’

“I almost, sort of out of respect for Fortitude, don't want to think about a new album now because we're about to go on tour in Europe and it's going to be one of the biggest tours we've ever done in terms of capacity. So I'm really, really focused on that.

“There's one thing I gotta say, though. As much as I appreciate melodies and exploring new vibes and new tonalities with Gojira, I'm still a death-metal head in my heart, and Mario, too. And after doing this album that's more toward a rock approach – although there're metal elements in it – I wouldn't be surprised if it gets a bit harder on the next album.”

The Michigan-raised bass guitar player Sam Kiszka and his brothers Josh, a singer, and Jake, a guitarist, are joined by drummer Danny Wagner in Greta Van Fleet, a band that has successfully redefned rock for Generation Z. 

Their debut album, Anthem Of The Peaceful Army, came out in 2018 when the band were finishing high school, and was met with immediate success, scooping GVF a Grammy and exposure for them at the very highest levels of the industry. 

A certain number of older critics have complained that GVF wear their Led Zeppelin influences a little too shamelessly, thanks to the almost comically accurate Robert Plant impression delivered by Josh Kiszka, but there’s no denying a) the group’s expert musicianship or b) the expectation that has built up around album number two, The Battle At Garden’s Gate. 

Let’s ask Sam how he brings the low notes to this thoroughly energetic band of brothers.

How are the songs written in your band, Sam?

“The way that we work is that we find these seeds – a melody, a drum beat, anything – and we take those seeds and we find a good spot for them to grow. And sometimes we forget about them for a long time, so when we come back we’re able to stretch it and pull it and paint it and, you know, fuck it up and put it back together and rebuild it. 

“And our producer Greg Kirstin is a real talented guy. He’s got a real interesting style of taking the producer’s chair. The way that he will interact with the band is very special, because he knows what goes on musically, between the four band members. He waits for the moment that he’s needed, and then he swoops in with a solution.“

Has your bass style evolved since your first album?

“I’m definitely stepping now towards a lot more of a melodic style – being able to write my own kind of bass parts that aren’t just playing the same thing as the guitar – – but there’s something very strong about a unison riff.“ 

The new album steps into slightly different musical territory than the first one. Was that deliberate?

“Well, I would say it was deliberate, but it wasn’t in the mindset of, ‘Oh, let’s completely change our sound.’ It was the record that we really wanted to make. When we first met Greg in Los Angeles, we sat down with him and he said, ‘What’s your concept for this album?’ And what we said was that we wanted to make a cinematic album – something that’s very widescreen and larger than life, because movie scores are really a big inspiration for us. The album is like a score to a movie that doesn’t exist yet.“ 

Which movie scores have inspired you?

“2001: A Space Odyssey, and a lot of Westerns. Ennio Morricone – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. And, to be honest, a lot of John Williams stuff. I’m a big fan of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones soundtracks. Hans Zimmer, too, everything that he’s done is really genius stuff. It’s huge, and it’s mysterious, and it’s fascinating.“ 

Did you study bass as a kid?

“No – the reason I got into playing bass is because I was pressured into it by my mother. Josh and Jake were singing and playing guitar together with different drummers from the jazz band at our high school, and I was recruited to go play with them. Jake showed me something very rudimentary, and we would just riff on that. I think the first song we played together was Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll.“

Which bass players inspired you?

“Jack Bruce was a huge inspiration for me, because he didn’t necessarily sound like a bass player. He was really eye-opening as to what the bass could be, because the common conception of bass is that it’s boring. I really took to guys who made bass really interesting, and Jack taught me how to create a feel. From there, I realized that the possibilities are endless, and I really fell in love with the instrument. 

“I really delved into John Paul Jones, who is obviously one of the best rock and roll bass players of all time, along with John Entwistle. After that, I got into a lot of Motown music, and listened to a lot of Stevie Wonder and James Jamerson. I was just trying to find the best players. We stand on the shoulders of the giants that came before us.“

Are you impressed by any more recent bass players?

“Yeah, I heard all this stuff about Thundercat, so I listened to some of his solo records. He’s incredible.“

How old were you when you got started?

“I think I was 13 years old, and I’m 21 now. Literally the only thing I’ve really been doing since then has been playing bass. We were playing together for, I think, about four years or so, and then we got swept up into this giant industry. And we put together our team and we hit the road, right out of high school. We toured right there at the end of our senior year, when we were about to graduate. We had to miss the last month of school to go on tour.“ 

You won a Grammy award pretty much straight away.

“Yes, I think I was 19. I think that it’s good that it happened to us then, because we have strong roots in the ground. You know, we’re not going crazy over here. I think that the main thing is how satisfied are we with our own work. You know, you can give us a Grammy and that doesn’t mean all that much to us. 

“What really matters is that we’re challenging ourselves and that we’re the best at what we do. That’s where that satisfaction comes from, to know that we’ve earned whatever level of success we have because of our love for the music and our love for the connection that the people have to the music.“

Tell us about your bass gear.

“Well, I prefer things that are quirky and have a character that I’ve never heard before. I really gravitate toward two bass sounds, often for different songs. On one side of the spectrum is crunch, and on the other side of the spectrum there’s fuzz – like a really smooth kind of drive. I use a Fender Bassman 500, and I throw that through an 8x10 Ampeg. It has a very nice overdrive. 

“My other amp is a Sunn 2000 – those things are amazing. I put it through a Sunn 2x15 cabinet. It has just the most beautiful crunch. You turn it to about two, and it’s already blowing out, so I’ve never really pushed it. It was kind of an awakening for me as a bass player to be able to have this identity, this identifiable sound. As a bass player, most of the time I’m really trying to find that sweet spot where the crunch doesn’t stick out.“

Any effects pedals?

“No, but I sent bass through a Leslie speaker a lot in the studio, and there’s a lot of synth bass too. These are things that will have to be implemented live, so it’s going to be very challenging to recreate what we did in the studio in an honest way.“ 

Are you going to tour with your Sunn and Fender heads? A lot of bands go out with a very light rig. 

“Absolutely. We like to keep it true. It’s fucking rock and roll. Play it loud, right?“

It also helps when you have a roadie who can carry that stuff for you. 

“Yeah, I’m very thankful for our team. It’s not like playing in front of 70 people in a nasty rundown bar in Michigan, when we were taking our parents’ van and loading it all in there. Now we have the opportunity to play for 10 to 12,000 people, and we can go into it with a very focused mind. After all, we’re looking for the most high-quality, emotional performance that we can deliver.“ 

And what are the bass guitars?

“I have one tried-and-true bass. She’s been with me ever since we hit the road on our first tour. It has a late-'80s Surf Green P-Bass body, and a Jazz neck that I bolted on four years ago. I’m not sure if it’s technically correct or if I did it right, but that’s how it lives now, and that’s been my baby and my companion throughout.“

Do you take a backup bass out with you?

“Yeah. Fender made me a really nice P-Bass in the Custom Shop: they put a Jazz neck on there for me. So that’s my backup. They gave me a standard American Jazz, too.“

So, three passive basses?

“Yeah. The less stuff the better, for me. I prefer to be as minimal as possible because I find that the tweaks are more effective. I really love the Fender sound – that P-Bass, Jazz bass sound – and I don’t think I would ever want anything else. I’ve tried Gibson SGs, but the Fender really sits in that spot in the mix. 

“That’s why the P-Bass has been tried and true and proven to be the best bass, perhaps of all time. Leo Fender was one of the greatest revolutionaries of our time. He pretty much shaped the groundwork for what would become rock and roll.“ 

Have the Led Zeppelin comparisons become a pain in the neck, or can you laugh them off  and ignore them?

“Well, it got to the point where the phrase was, ironically, being used as an insult. It never really upset me. It didn’t really upset any of us. The annoying thing was that we heard it all the time, and it just became obnoxious. I mean, saying that we sound like Led Zeppelin is not a put-down by any means.

“It was a strange backlash from the music community, the rock and roll community. I think the real true people who understand the future, and who understand the young generation, were all on board with that.“ 

But not the boomers like me. 

“Yeah, exactly. It just got to a ridiculous point. That’s just what people do. I mean, I’m guilty of it, too. I say this sounds like that.“

I think it was primarily your singer’s voice that caused the Zep comparisons.

“Yeah. There’s another strange thing that people always say, that we kind of sound like Rush. I don’t hear it myself.“

But as a bass player, what a compliment that is.

“Yes... I’ll take it!“

• The Battle At Garden’s Gate is out now via Lava Music

“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 red-hot 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 and 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-gods-like 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.”

He’s quick to point out that his guitar influences go far deeper than the hallowed axemen of British rock, rattling off names like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf.

“The list goes on,” he says. “Blues is at the heart of my dominant influences, and the same goes for the rest of the band. What we do and how we do it is very truthful to us.” From the start, Greta Van Fleet came front-loaded with elevated expectations – crazy hype, even (“Can they save rock ‘n’ roll?” asked many a news headline).

Thus far, the band has cleared each hurdle put in front of them, and now they face the challenge of following up their full-length debut and the inevitable question: Can they do it again? 

“It feels as if we’re dealing with things that other artists would normally encounter a decade into their careers,” Kiszka says. “To be honest, we don’t feel a lot of pressure because we’re four guys who are creating what we want. I don’t think success is really a factor that plays into how we make our music. That’s on the back burner, I guess.”

The band’s new album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, is bigger, grander and more ambitious than its predecessor, with each element – every gargantuan riff and whiz-bang solo, each majestic keyboard flourish and every foot-stomping rhythm – magnified to achieve maximum impact.

The record’s first two singles offered a split-screen view of the band’s approach: My Way, Soon busts out of the gate with turbo-charged force, propelled by Kiszka’s tangled, Pete Townshend-esque lead-rhythm riffery. Age of Machine is a nearly seven-minute-long cosmic doozy, full of slippery guitar leads and dramatic vocal textures. 

Throughout the rest of the album, the band explores a wide mix of moods and atmospheres. There are dark, symphonic rock ballads (Broken Bells, Stardust Chords) on which Kiszka shifts between scorching wah-drenched solos and unaffected blues-based leads, as well as a pair of arena-ready anthems (Heat Above and Caravel) where he bags the lead work altogether, choosing instead to employ the full range of his chordal abilities.

Light My Love is a piano-based beauty that stands as the band’s first unabashed love song, but before anybody thinks the group has gone soft, they tear up the walls and anything else in their way on the adventurous, nine-minute album closer The Weight of Dreams, which features a sustained crescendo of Kiszka’s sparky fretboard business. 

The Battle at Garden’s Gate was produced by Greg Kurstin, who, aside from his recent work with the Foo Fighters, is more known for his chart-busting affiliations with Adele and Kelly Clarkson. However, Kiszka makes it clear that they weren’t aiming to go pop.

“When we sat down with Greg, we said, ‘We want to make an orgasmic, cinematic piece of rock ‘n’ roll,’ and his eyes just lit up,” he recalls. “He knew exactly what we were after, and he knew how to bring it out of us. If we played him three pre-chorus ideas, he would tell us which one was best, and he could explain why musically. That was really exciting because it was a learning experience.”

Music that operates on such a widescreen scale demands themes of equal substance, and The Battle at Garden’s Gate doesn’t skimp on weighty topics. Throughout the album, the band takes on social inequity, personal enlightenment, warfare, religion – not exactly party stuff.

“It’s a bit serious,” Kiszka admits. “I think that plays into our experiences up to this point. Traveling the world for the past three years, we’re seeing things, different cultures. It’s not all roses out there. You see someone mopping the floor after a show, and they find a piece of food on the floor and they eat it – it’s things like that that we wanted to address, as well as this peace and love and unity bit.” 

Do you guys plot out the future that much? Do you have a five-year plan? 

“We do, but not necessarily in terms of where we want to be, career-wise. I think we plot what we want to try to achieve musically, but of course that can change. I mean, it’s hard to predict what will be influential at any given point. Everything’s a moving target.“  

Since Greta Van Fleet came on the scene, there have been a few bands that also dabble in modern classic rock. Is there anybody out there that you look at?  

“The White Stripes were past pavers, in a sense. They were very influential from a blues standpoint. We listened to them in middle school. Gary Clark Jr. is another fantastic artist. There’s the Black Keys and Cage the Elephant – they’re fantastic.“ 

Anybody newer?  

“It’s difficult to say because I sort of dabble. I could pull up Spotify and name some groups I’ve been listening to, but they’re kind of in the same world. I love the people we’ve toured with. We select who we tour with specifically because we enjoy their music. I love Ida Mae. I don’t want to leave anyone out. We’re all in the same boat. We’re all paving a new path for our generation.“  

A band like AC/DC is revered for never changing. Other bands evolve stylistically, and some, like U2, have even changed their sound completely. Could you see Greta doing something radically different from what you are now? 

“That’s very interesting, and I’m glad we’re touching on it. We see ourselves as being very elastic. We like to change and we want to move in different ways. We can’t be stagnant musically – that would be death. I think I can say that each album we put out will be different from the previous one.

“There’s so much to cover, all the different types of music – folk, country, jazz, blues and rock ‘n’ roll. We’re influenced by all of it, and we want to incorporate it into what we’re doing. 

"I think we see ourselves as a group that can evolve and try new things. Changing what we do over time, yeah, I think that could be beautiful and inspiring. Artists shouldn’t be afraid to completely throw something out and try something else, but it can be difficult. It’s an interesting concept, for sure.“ 

Are there any guitarists you’ve been listening to lately that might surprise people? 

“How contemporary do you want me to be?“  

As contemporary as you like. 

“OK. Well, I mentioned the White Stripes. I’ve recently re-listened to their entire discography, so I’ve been focusing on Jack White. There’s another contemporary blues artist, Cedric Burnside, the grandson of R.L. Burnside. 

"He put out an album, Benton County Relic, and it’s fantastic. It’s a really great contemporary blues album. Oh, and of course, I really like Chris Turpin from Ida Mae. His style is really cool; it’s sort of lighter folk and blues and rock ‘n’ roll. I like what he does with resonators.“ 

In the wake of Eddie Van Halen’s passing, a lot of people have gone back and listened to his work. How about you?

“I have, yeah. It always happens when somebody passes, how it can reinvigorate interest in their work. His whole career and the techniques he created – he’s such a dominant force. It’s crazy. When I was younger, I picked up on the tapping technique – I mean, everybody did. Everybody wanted to try to play like him. 

“You know, we’ve been rehearsing, and we’ll pull out a Van Halen song. It’s such fun stuff, and when you play his riffs and you start tapping a solo, you can just feel his energy. It takes you back. You start to wonder what he was thinking at the time when he was creating all that music. He was amazing.“ 

GVF recently moved to Nashville. Have you checked out the town’s players? 

“Well, we just moved there, so we’re still in a situation of isolation. We haven’t been able to really get around and jam with people. There’s so many really great musicians here. Before the pandemic, we’d watch some of these guys on Broadway, and they’re incredible. 

“If you want to be challenged beyond realistic means, you move to Nashville. You can learn from what everybody’s doing; they’ve got such different techniques and have this depth of musical knowledge. It’s nothing like the small town we grew up in. There’s a scene here, but it’s no longer a country city – it’s a music city.“  

Do you sit down and try to work on various techniques? Do you work on speed or play to a metronome? 

“No, no. [Laughs] I couldn’t do that. I pick up the guitar, and whatever comes out that day, that’s what comes. I do play every day – the guitar’s a real extension of me – but mostly it’s to write something or to play something for somebody.“  

Do you have ruts? And if so, how do you bust out of them? 

“Oh, sure. I think everybody has ruts. It’s interesting, because you pick up the guitar and it’s like, 'This sounds like something that’s becoming a song.' And then nothing comes out of it that day. You sit there and think, 'I should be able to finish this,' but for whatever reason it doesn’t happen. To me, that’s a rut, when nothing comes for a couple of days. It’s frustrating. 

“I always find that there’s some way out of it, though, and the best way is to just be patient. Don’t give up, but don’t force it. If you continue to come back to it, something dawns. A lot of times, you think you’re in a rut, but it’s just part of the process. I’ve often used guitar phrases and things that I thought were nonsensical – it’s like they had no place until I just took a little time and let them be.“ 

The band cut most of the new album in late 2019 expecting to tour throughout 2020. COVID-19 had other plans. 

“Yeah, who knew, right? By the time we came off the road in 2019, we were weary troubadours. We’d been touring a long time. So we made the record and thought, 'We’ll release it and tour on and off throughout the coming year.' Then the pandemic hit, and it was like, 'OK, now we have to re-evaluate everything.' 

"It actually gave us more time to work on the record. We sat down and listened to it, and we came up with a couple more songs. Hopefully, that contributed to the album’s depth.“ 

An observation about the album: You don’t overdo distortion. By that I mean your distortion doesn’t sound like a power tool; it sounds like classic-amp distortion. 

"That’s right. It’s very true to the amp and the guitar. I like when you can hear the inflection of the guitar; you can hear a silky, graceful sound, almost like a violin. I love that. It can be more authentic and transparent when you’re playing a little cleaner – you can hear little details. 

"I work very hard to articulate chords and notes. All of that sensitivity and technicality gets lost when you have too much overdrive. You lose all the nuances of your tone. A lot of the players I like can be heard beyond their distortion. They knew just how much to use and how to control it. Jimi Hendrix used overdrive, but you could still hear his technique.  

You could hear how hard his hands were hitting the strings.

"Right. Exactly. I don’t want to lose that.  

Your rhythm-lead riff on My Way, Soon reminds me of Pete Townshend. Fair enough?  

“Oh, yeah! My first real guitar was a Townshend SG with P90s in it. Pete was an early influencer. For a bunch of us boys growing up, we would just put on the Who, crank it and then run around like madmen. Pete is right in the British catalog of guitar heroes – Clapton, Page, Beck.   

I feel he’s sometimes underrated. 

“I totally agree, but I think he’s every bit as influential as those other guys. I’ve studied him quite a bit. From a tone standpoint, there’s a symbiotic relationship between him, the guitar and the amplifier. You can hear him. It’s the same as what we were saying about Eddie Van Halen: When you play a Van Halen riff, you can feel him. But as far as My Way, Soon goes, yeah, there’s some Townshend.“

The guitar orchestration in Broken Bells, your symphonic mix of acoustics and electrics, it’s very Jimmy Page.  

“Definitely. There’s so many Zeppelin songs that start simply with an acoustic and then work into the heavier electrified sections. It’s folk and then it’s rock. The whole idea of Broken Bells, which was written two and a half, three years ago, started with just a phrase on the acoustic guitar. We put some vocals on it, and then when we came back to it and built it up. 

”Originally, we thought it was perfect, but then everybody started saying, 'It needs something. There’s no crescendo.' The song itself wanted to be very linear. It goes up and up and up and up to this breaking point, and then we were like, 'What now?' 

"So we created this little turnaround with the 12-string, which I actually played on a double-neck acoustic Espana – really interesting guitar. From there it goes back to the electric. The crescendo comes with the solo and then the outro. It needed the big release.” 

Which is different from Heat Above and Caravel. They’ve got cool foundational riffs, but you hold back from solos. It’s as if you’re saying, “The riff is all you need.” 

”Precisely! I’m glad you picked up on that. I was really trying to make a point of that. On Caravel, when I crafted it, I was like, 'This kind of speaks for itself in a certain way. It needs to be a prevalent counterpart to the other instrumentation.' It needed to fill its space, and it does. It didn’t need much around it. 

”There’s other complexities: The bridge becomes really heavy, and there’s the pre-chorus where Josh is soloing in a sense. He’s taking the lead there, and it’s so beautiful. It’s a very dynamic touch, and then we go right back into that riff.”  

I have to bring up Page again. The riff to Built by Nation almost sounds like it could have come from Physical Graffiti. It’s very raw and sinister. 

“Yeah, I hear that. I’m using an octaver on that one. That riff needed an identifiable tonality to it that separates it from other things that I’ve done. I learned that Jack White uses a lot of octavers, and Neil Young used them for a lot of tones. 

"I was listening to his soundtrack for the movie Dead Man when I was working on the song. So I plugged into an octaver and transformed the tone of the riff. So it’s a mix of Jack White, Neil Young and Jimmy Page.“

What guitars did you use on the record?  

“My 1961 Les Paul is the one I mainly used; it’s got the SG shape. I had a lot of visits from friends who would bring instruments around. Greg had a couple of instruments and amplifiers that I used. One very interesting instrument turned up on Broken Bells – a factory black 1959 Gibson ES-335. 

"There aren’t a lot of them around. Keith Richards has one. Johnny Marr has one. So one got dropped off and we were looking at it, like, 'Wow, it’s an artifact!' So I used it on most of Broken Bells. The solo is the 1961 Les Paul.“ 

Any other guitars you want to mention? 

“On The Barbarians, there’s a solo in the beginning and a Middle Eastern-sounding solo in the bridge – that’s a 1960 Fender Stratocaster. I never really used a Strat in the studio until now. What a powerful instrument. I also used a 1962 Telecaster and a 1954 Gibson Les Paul. Oh, and I played the solo on Built by Nation on an Epiphone Casino. That was a really cool guitar. 

“The double-neck Espana was amazing. It’s a really rare guitar, but interestingly they’re not expensive. There wasn’t a big demand for it. I also used an Epiphone Texan – that was great. The necks on those guitars are perfect. I did a lot of the more technical acoustic stuff on the Texan because the neck is thin; it’s closer to my ’61 Les Paul. I think I also used a Gibson J-50 and a Silvertone Model 319 from the Sixties.“ 

What about amps? 

“I used what I normally tour with. There’s the Bletchley amp. I always carry a Bletchley to the studio, and I also bring a Marshall Astoria. I’ve gotten into Fender amps. We had two Champs – one was mine and one was Greg’s – so we used them in stereo. I also used a Fender Tweed and a ’65 Fender Reverb. Another standard studio amplifier for me is a Sixties Vox AC30.“   

You mentioned an octave pedal. Did you go pedal crazy? 

“Not super heavily. One amazing thing we did was – I think it’s on a few guitar solos – we’d take either an Echoplex or a Space Echo, and we’d run the guitar through each one. We would stereo them. 

"You can hear how wide-swept it is, especially if you’re wearing headphones. Pink Floyd did a lot of that stuff, and I always thought it sounded interesting. Other than that, I used a wah pedal and some reverb. That’s about it.“ 

Was there ever any thought to holding the record till you knew you could play live?

“I think the world needs music more than ever. So for us, the idea was to release this album now, and then we’ll write another one. I think that was what’s on the horizon.“

Do you guys get together to rehearse even though there’s no shows?

“We all live within a stone’s throw from each other, and we have a rehearsal space nearby. We’re in there writing and demoing. We do a lot of that, playing together and conceptualizing ideas. I think that’s what’s in store for us for the rest of the year – unless anything changes.“

• The Battle at Garden's Gate is out now via Lava Music.

Since bursting onto the scene with their debut album From The Fires in 2017, Greta Van Fleet have gone on to top charts, win awards and tour the world several times over, with a brand of electric guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll that has earned them legions of loyal fans. 

However, despite their success, the four-piece has been unable to shake the comments of detractors who are keen to label them as clones of classic-rock bands – labels that Jake Kiszka and co are none too fazed by. 

When quizzed about the comparisons in a recent interview with Guitar World, Kiszka commented, “Art is supposed to elicit strong reactions, isn’t it? I actually think it’s a beautiful thing. There’s something sort of perfect about having one or another direct response to what we’re doing.”

Comparisons to Led Zeppelin are particularly popular among the aforementioned detractors, due to the sonic similarities between the legendary band's repertoire and GVF's thunderous, heavy-riffing offerings.

Of the Led Zep links, the 25-year-old continued, “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.”

Despite the comparisons, Kiszka says that the band, who see themselves “a product of our environment”, are “very elastic”, and that “each album we put out will be different from the previous one”.

Citing Lightnin’ Hopkins, Elmore James, Robert Johnson and John Lee Hooker as some of his main inspirations, the guitar-wielding rock hero refused to rule out a stylistic change in the future, saying there is still “so much to cover”.

“We like to change and we want to move in different ways. We can’t be stagnant musically – that would be death,” he continued. “There’s so much to cover, all the different types of music – folk, country, jazz, blues and rock ‘n’ roll. We’re influenced by all of it, and we want to incorporate it into what we’re doing.

“I think we see ourselves as a group that can evolve and try new things. Changing what we do over time could be beautiful and inspiring. Artists shouldn’t be afraid to completely throw something out and try something else.”

Head over to Magazines Direct to pick up a copy of the latest issue of Guitar World, which features the full interview with Kiszka, plus Gojira's Joe Duplantier and an investigation into just what happened to Steve Vai's Crossroads guitar.

Note: this article is also featured in Australian Guitar #142, which is out now wherever great magazines are sold.

If there’s one thing filmmakers like Christopher Nolan understand (because it certainly isn’t storylines that make sense – did y’all see TENET!?), it’s the importance of music to make gripping action scenes and grandiose set pieces feel all the more intense. A good film score can be the difference between a bargain-bin flop and an Oscar-winning classic – especially in the hands of a prodigious composer like Hans Zimmer or John Williams.

But what if you flipped the script (pun intended) and approached a non-visual music project with the ethos of cinematic filmmaking? Of course rock operas are nothing new in 2021, but what if you went beyond the typical structure of one, and treated it as though you were scoring a blockbuster epic that didn’t exist? 

These are the questions Greta Van Fleet set out to answer with their bold and bombastic second album, The Battle At Garden’s Gate. Following 2018’s critically adored Anthem Of The Peaceful Army, the hard-rocking heavyweights looked to up the ante a thousandfold – the riffs are bigger, the hooks are catchier, and the solos are more ball-strainingly insane. If they keep progressing at the rate they are now, we’re scared their next album will end up banned for causing widespread heart attacks from its sheer intensity.

As guitarist Jake Kiszka fills us in, The Battle At Garden’s Gate is the result of years spent honing the band’s craft, and proof that sometimes getting a bit ahead of yourself in the conceptual stages of a project can really pay off.

What did you learn from making Anthem Of The Peaceful Army that informed how you wanted to approach this record?
I think there were some characteristics of our playing and style on that album that we identified with, and some of those carried over. But ultimately, once you’ve created and released a record, it lives in a past space. So as much as some of our earlier characteristics did inform this record, it also kind of informed itself to a certain degree. The album evolved as we wrote it; we had some objectives that we wanted to try executing on this album, like the ambition to create something that was vastly dynamic and very dense. We wanted to create something orgasmic and cinematic – which I guess is an ode to a lot of what our childhood was like. We were raised in a house that wasn’t just super musically influential, but also literarily and philosophically. We were inspired by a lot of film and visual media, and a lot of those elements went into the creation of this album.

You can tell by the title alone that when you put this record on, you’re in for a pretty cinematic journey.
For sure. And as soon as we had the idea for a rock ’n’ roll album that had this sort of cinematic aura fixed around it, I started listening to a lot of Hans Zimmer. We’d go up into the countryside, or somewhere like Chattanooga, Tennessee, and we’d be writing, and in-between sessions I would just be hanging out and listening to Hans Zimmer scores. So I’m sure some of that informed part of the writing.

In terms of your technicality – in particular, your soloing technique – how did you want this record to reflect your evolution as a player?
I definitely wanted to challenge myself. Blues would be my dominant influence as a player, and I suppose our primary influence as a collective. So I asked myself, “Okay, how do I apply these blues elements to what we do, and something cinematic, and something rock ’n’ roll?” It was kind of challenging, but I guess it’s also kind of symphonic in that same sense – the guitar is playing a melody, and you can apply that to music in orchestral sense as well, because orchestral music is both very melodic and cinematic. A lot of the melodies I was writing for the guitar were crafted in the mindset of wanting them to sound more like a violin, or a more symphonic instrument. I think that helped me navigate through some of those challenges.

The guitar and violin are two very different instruments, but you can approach them both in very similar ways.
I think so! I’ve always seen the guitar and violin being two very common sort of instruments – not so much in a physical sense, but more in a melodic sense. 

I remember when the last album came out, you were all about this beautiful ’61 Les Paul SG. Is that still your daily driver?
Yeah! I used that mainly on the album. It’s something I’m very used to. My first guitar was an SG with P-90s on it – it was actually the same type of model Pete Townshend would play – so I was drawn to the ’61 Les Paul because of the similarities to that. There was one other really cool guitar that I was able to use on this album, which was a 1959 ES-335. It was factory black, and there are only something like six of those in existence – that we know of, at least. And that was pretty crazy – I just had a friend hop in and be like, “Hey, do you want to use this?” And I was just like, “Dude, are you kidding me!?” I think Keith Richards has one, Johnny Marr has one, and John Shanks has one… Yeah, it was a really cool experience to play something like that. 

It’s one of those rock ’n’ roll holy grails!
Yeah, it’s one of those types of guitars you’d only ever expect to see in a museum, except I got to actually play one. It was pretty outrageous.

Do you reckon part of that Les Paul’s charm is that you’ve kept everything stock and let it live the rock ’n’ roll life that Gibson set it out for all those decades ago?
I guess it’s like an old car – it still runs the way it was built to run. There weren’t any corners cut, and you can hear the life it’s lived in that sense. I mean, I absolutely brutalise the poor bastard every once in a while, it’s pretty beat-up, but it sounds amazing. I suppose the guitar had to take that journey, though – it had to really live a life to have the kind of voice it does.

Guitars are made for playing, man. 
Exactly! That’s the philosophy I have behind every guitar I get my hands on. Like what do you want to do, put it in a case and hang it on the wall? What’s the point of that!?

So when can we expect to see your name on a signature model?
I’ve been thinking about it! But I don’t know – I’d have to conceptualise it first, I guess, so who knows when that day will come?

Greta Van Fleet have been steadily rolling out singles from the forthcoming The Battle at Garden’s Gate, including the epic Age of Machine and the decidedly non-Zeppelin-sounding My Way, Soon.

Now the Michigan four-piece are back with another new track, a swelling ballad – with an explosive Jake Kiszka electric guitar solo – titled Broken Bells.

The new song, according to Greta bassist Sam Kiszka, addresses “what the fetter of society does to impact a pure and innocent soul. Our intention is to remove the obligation of generational synthetic expectations; break down these walls and not build new ones.”

Greta Van Fleet have been touting The Battle at Garden’s Gate as informed by the band’s experiences “touring the world, and coming into contact with new cultures, histories and philosophies.”

The record is out April 16 and is available for preorder here.

The year is 2021, and the Foo Fighters have made a funky, pop-influenced post-rock album in a haunted mansion... Anything is possible in these crazy times, we suppose! To celebrate the wicked new set of tunes that is Medicine At Midnight, Australian Guitar caught up with shredder extraordinaire Chris Shiflett, chatted all about the gear, grooves and ghosts that led to it, and immortalised the yarn in an epic six-page feature for the cover of our 142nd issue!

Of course, there's much more in Australian Guitar #142 that'll have your inner rockstar going mental – like the ultimate guide to mastering the style of Led Zeppelin's legendary lead riffer Jimmy Page. Or for the history buffs out there, a loving look back on the history of Fender to celebrate the Californian legends' 75th birthday. And for those with a soft spot for true crime, we take a deep dive into the vexing story behind the most iconic stolen guitar of all time, Eric Clapton's "Beano". 

Once you've learned how to play it like Page, try punching it like Perry with the full tablature to Aerosmith and Run DMC's classic "Walk This Way". And we know what you're thinking – "Man, how wild would that track sound if you threw a loop pedal in the mix?" Well, what a coincidence – flip to page 74 and you'll find a shootout of all the biggest and best loopers on shelves right now! Flip back a few pages, and you'll find our DIY special on how to add a killswitch to your guitar – y'know, just in case you wanna make your cover of "Walk This Way" extra crazy.

But what if simply playing the song is not enough? Why not record it and share your virtuoso shredding skills with the world? Don't worry if you're green to the world of guitar vlogging – Australian Guitar #142 features a special on the best new camera to commit your jam sessions to memory. And speaking of recording guitars, we got down to the wire with one of the most storied producers in the world of Australian heavy music, Shane Edwards. 

You can read all about how Shane's making punk and hardcore history in this issue's Producer Profile column, then suss the Fresh Frets column to find your new favourite local band, and the Spotlight column to catch up with some of the buzziest names on the scene right now. There's also the Hot Gear column hated by wallets everywhere – and once you've drooled over all the goodies in that, head to the last pages of the magazine for a stack of reviews for the latest and greatest gear on the market.

That just about covers all the biggest features in Australian Guitar #142 – that is, aside from over 20 one-on-one interviews with such red-hot acts as Greta Van Fleet, Chrissie Hynde, Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen, Tomahawk, NOFX, Cheap Trick, Evanescence, Yvette Young, Mogwai, The Pretty Reckless... Honestly, we're starting to run out of breath – there's too many top-shelf names for us to fire off in the one sentence!

Australian Guitar #142 is available now from newsagents all around the country, and online via techmags.com.au or iSubscribe.

Artist interviews in this issue:

• A Day To Remember
• Adrian Smith & Richie Kotzen
• Carla Geneve
• Cheap Trick
• Chrissie Hynde
• DZ Deathrays
• Epica
• Evanescence
• Foo Fighters
• Greta Van Fleet
• Lande Hekt
• Melvins
• Middle Kids
• Miss Grit
• Mogwai
• NOFX
• The Pretty Reckless
• The Rubens
• Tigers Jaw
• Tomahawk
• Yvette Young
• Shane Edwards (Producer Profile)
• Axel Carrington of New Talk (Spotlight)
• Jack Gray (Spotlight)
• Kai Cult (Spotlight)
• Marie Ulven Ringheim, a.k.a. Girl In Red (Spotlight)

All the hottest gear reviews:

• Empress Effects ZOIA
• Blackstar Live Logic
• MXR Timmy Overdrive Pedal
• Boss Acoustic Singer Live LT Amp
• Ernie Ball Music Man Jason Richardson 7-String Cutlass
• Godin Radiator
• Vox Valvenergy Pedals
• Fender American Professional II Stratocaster + Telecaster Deluxe
• Fender Play
• EVH Striped Series Frankie
• Epiphone Prophecy Flying V
• Epiphone Joe Bonamassa Black Beauty Les Paul Custom
• Electro-Harmonix 1440 Stereo Looper
• Eventide PowerMax + PowerMini
• Orange Crest Edition Wireless Headphones

Subscribe to the print edition of Australian Guitar, and you'll enjoy each new issue on the day it's published, delivered straight to your door. Click here for all the details, including how to get 12 issues delivered for under a hundred bucks and win a ZOOM G6 Multi-Effects Modelling Floorboard valued at $799!

Grammy-winning classic-rockers Greta Van Fleet have confirmed a new album, The Battle at Garden’s Gate, set for release on April 16, 2021, and unveiled a new single, Age of Machine, which you can hear below.

While the band’s previous single, the Bowie-esque My Way, Soon, looked to temper the Led Zeppelin comparisons somewhat, Age of Machine veers into epic Zep and even Kansas territory, but with a darker, moodier take that’s very much their own.

Jake Kiszka’s rootsy chord riffs are lashed with reverb throughout, with his rich arpeggios building to a blazing climactic pentatonic solo.

The Battle at Garden’s Gate is said to be informed by the band’s experiences touring the world, and coming into contact with new cultures, histories and philosophies.

We’re promised more spacious arrangements and dynamics, some folkier acoustic offerings, as well as guitar noise freakouts to rival Neil Young.

We’ll find out just what that sounds like when The Battle at Garden’s Gate lands on April 16, 2021. The album is available to preorder now.

It's been a pretty busy week for us at Guitar World – we've been on the lookout for the hottest deals on gear to be had over the course of Amazon Prime Day, but that doesn't mean we haven't kept our ears peeled for the hottest new guitar tracks, too!

This week, we've a got a new, not-so-Led Zeppelin-sounding track from Greta Van Fleet, a cross-cultural heavy metal offering from new duo act Amahiru, a humorously shreddy take on the world's political climate from everyone's favorite guitar-wielding comedienne Mrs. Smith, and loads more.

So get comfortable – it's that time for you to get inspired and spark your creativity, or  just sit back and digest some of the coolest new guitar music out there. It's your call.

Greta Van Fleet – My Way, Soon

This generation’s flag-bearing classic-rockers deploy all the tricks in their creative arsenal on My Way, Soon. Released ahead of the band’s second studio album, it boasts an upbeat and jubilant sound – perfect for these crazy times.

While it’s riffwork undoubtedly borrows influences from the ‘60s and ‘70s – namely from acts like Creedence Clearwater Revival and AC/DC – Josh Kiszka and co have clearly tried to steer away from the Led Zeppelin-style sound for which they’ve arguably become known.

We particularly love the chromatically seasoned guitar solo towards the end… (SR)

Kellindo – Long Gone

The Janelle Monáe guitarist graced our Essential Guitar Tracks not too long ago with the R&B superstar’s Turntables, but there’s no way we couldn’t include his latest solo effort, which is a veritable riot of six-string prowess.

Long Gone sees Kellindo channel Hendrixian flair – dig those 7#9 chords – and teams it with a big Lenny Kravitz chorus and Black Keys-esque guitar hooks. It feels instantly classic – in a very good way. (MAB)

Mrs. Smith – Antifa Niece

Mrs. Smith – the comedienne act of guitarist extraordinaire David Hanbury – delivers a welcome, humorous commentary on today’s times, or rather, the “piles of poop we call our collective moment”.

With countless references to the memes and political happenings of 2020, there’s plenty to digest in the track’s fast-paced accompanying music video. 

The guitarist also offers a fitting homage to the late, great Eddie Van Halen, with a blistering guitar solo wrought with two-handed tapping. (SR)

Amahiru – Hours

Meet Amahiru: a new guitar duo consisting of Frédéric Leclerc (Kreator, Sinsaenum, Ex-Dragonforce shredder) and SAKI of Mary’s Blood and NEMOPHILA. Blending aspects of traditional metal with traditional Japanese elements, the pair are set to release their self-titled debut album November 27.

It’s first single, Hours, demonstrates just what the band have to offer. How seamlessly the traditional instruments weave into its heavy metal arrangement is something to behold, as the track simultaneously blends delicacy with destruction. Oh, and buckle up – the guitar solo (that starts at 2:41) will surely melt your face. (SR)

Stevie Wonder – Where Is Our Love Song feat. Gary Clark Jr.

This week, the Motown icon announced his first full-length album since 2005, heralded with the arrival of two fresh tracks, one of which features a welcome guest spot from one of the most vital guitarists of the decade, Gary Clark Jr.

Rather than the fiery contemporary blues with which Clark has made his name, Where Is Our Love Song is a ballad in classic Wonder vein.

The guitarist lends his trademark touch to the electric and acoustic licks that break up the verse and chorus, and even duets with Stevie on one seriously infectious harmonica solo. Heartwarming stuff. (MAB)

Sharon Van Etten – Let Go

The star of any Sharon Van Etten track is generally her commanding voice, and her new single, Let Go, is no exception. The guitars propelling the musical backdrop of the track, however, are an interestingly eclectic bunch. 

Alternately folky, shoegazey and jangly – all with an air of authoritative but unpretentious arena-rock sheen – they ably color in the lines of this fascinating tune, a contribution to the soundtrack of the documentary Feels Good Man. (JM)

Pearl Jam – Get It Back

Get It Back is presumably an outtake from the Seattle alt-rock vets’ best album in a decade, Gigaton, and comes from their most underrated songwriter, drummer (and Soundgarden lynchpin) Matt Cameron.

Previously only available on the – deep breath – Good Music To Avert The Collapse Of American Democracy Pt 2 compilation, the track deploys a wealth of expansive chords and time signature shifts, before it goes up a gear with a climactic, delay-drenched solo from Mike McCready. Good to have you back, boys. (MAB)

Cloud Nothings – Am I Something

For their new album, The Shadow I Remember, Cloud Nothings have reunited with Steve Albini, the legendary punk producer who manned the boards on their phenomenal 2012 effort, Attack on Memory. 

Though the famously minimalist Albini ensures that the band's muscular dual-guitar attack sounds as visceral as ever on the album's terrific first single – the guitars bite, gnash and tear their way impatiently through frontman Dylan Baldi's always-on-the-money hooks – Am I Something is actually a pretty welcoming entry point to those unfamiliar with one of the most consistently great punk bands of the past decade. (JM)

Greta Van Fleet just dropped My Way, Soon, their first recorded material in over a year.

Touted as “a liberating and jubilant track that celebrates and reflects the band’s personal transformation over the past three years,” My Way, Soon might just be the track that makes people ease up on those meddlesome Led Zeppelin comparisons.

While it's still undoubtedly indebted to the '60s and '70s, the track's major-key riffage touches on Bowie, Creedence Clearwater Revival and AC/DC more than Jimmy Page and co.

The track comes ahead of the band's second studio album, the highly anticipated follow up to 2018's Anthem Of The Peaceful Army.

“This song was inspired by what three years of touring did by opening so many doorways,” vocalist Josh Kiszka says. “This is my truth, how I feel about all of our travels, but I know it echoes the experiences and changes of perspectives for [his GVF bandmates] Jake, Sam, and Danny as well.”

“The definition of ’normal’ has very much broadened over the past couple of years, and it has affected us as musicians, especially in the writing and recording of this new album,” concurs drummer Danny Wagner.

“We realized that while growing up, we had been shielded by a lot of things, we were unaware of a lot of things. And then we were thrown out into this huge world, and it was a bit of a culture shock at first.”

In 2019, Jake and Sam Kiszka promised that Greta Van Fleet's second album will be “something quite different” from their debut.

“There's a little evolution, I suppose, with everything,” said Jake, while speaking to NME. “We're working on something quite different. It's interesting, because we never know exactly what an album is going to look like – it can only be so premeditated. But as it sort of unfolds now, it's an example of where we are musically right now. It's definitely much different than Anthem Of The Peaceful Army would have been.”

“I think it's really the next step in the evolution of what we want to do,” Sam added.

When American rock band Greta Van Fleet hit the scene a little over a year ago, their ’70s-style rock was a godsend for many. Their eight-song double-EP, From the Fires, eschews modern production wizardry in favor of an under-produced, throwback sound that relies mostly on musicianship and songcraft. Comparisons to Led Zeppelin have been rampant ever since the 2017 debut of Highway Tune, but this band of teenagers promises to be more than a derivation of their most obvious influence.

Hailing from Frankenmuth, Michigan, Greta Van Fleet recently wrapped recording their first full-length release. At age 19, Sam Kiszka is one of the band’s three brothers, including singer Josh and guitarist Jake (along with drummer Danny Wagner). They recently returned home from their first European tour and turned in a blistering set at Coachella in Indio, California.

What’s it been like to become so famous in such a short time?

What’s happened to us is not common at all, especially in the music industry. It’s amazing that so many people can jump onboard with what we’re doing. It’s great to be able to make music that’s fueling a new movement, and it’s cool to be the band that’s the catalyst for it.

Is it weird to have such big expectations at such a young age?

We went from a one-family house in the middle of nowhere, to never being home and living in tour buses, Airbnbs, hotels and studios. There’s no time to be at home, ever. There’s so much to do. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

You’ve now played mostly original music your entire career. Who are your influences?

I listened to all the Motown music, like Marvin Gaye, the Four Tops - it’s music that moves you and makes you feel good. When I picked up bass, the first line I wanted to learn was I Heard It Through the Grapevine. I thought that riff was so cool. I probably actually learned the Creedence Clearwater Revival version first, but I kept learning these Motown bass lines, and I realized it was all James Jamerson. I was blown away. I got into him heavily.

Anyone else leap out at you?

I listened to Joe Cocker, Sam & Dave, the Beatles, Cream. Those crazy Jack Bruce leads really taught me how to play bass. John Entwistle, too. Listening to people who turn the bass into more of a lead instrument, and who make bass interesting, is what appealed to me. Just playing the root note and following the chord progression is boring, and it’s kind of ineffective for a four-piece. For the sound that we have, [playing melodically] increases the amount of energy, it increases how interesting the music is to listen to, and it ultimately makes the music feel better.

Has touring impacted your playing in a positive way?

I’m a thousand times better than I was last year, because we have been playing live so much. With the new record, I’ve really been focused on melodies - songs like Ramble On [Led Zeppelin II]. People sing that bass line. That’s how you know it’s a fantastic bass line.

John Paul Jones is kind of like the rock & roll James Jamerson.

Yeah, you can totally hear Jamerson-like modes and feels in Ramble On.

What are you using to track bass on the new album?

A good number of instruments. My one and only bass is a Seafoam Green Fender Precision Bass with Jazz Bass neck; it’s a ’50s reissue made in the ’80s. That bass sounds fantastic, and it’s the most comfortable bass I’ve ever played. I also used a ’72 Fender Telecaster Bass for a few songs, and a ’65 Precision owned by our producer, Al Sutton, as well as a ’69 Precision. 

There are flatwounds on all of them except the ’69. That’s just in case I need a roundwound sound, but I do prefer flats. That’s another area where Jamerson influenced me - I like the mellower tone of the flats. It makes me do things that are counterintuitive to the sound that I want, like cranking my tone all the way up.

What about your signal chain?

My main sound is the Acme Motown DI tube interface, which Al Sutton makes. It’s fantastic; it puts the sound of the bass right in the spot where you want it. It sits back enough, but you can hear all the intricacies of the tone. We run that into a silver 1964 Fender 50-watt Bassman for a little more growl. You don’t have to crank it at all.

Are the Led Zeppelin comparisons intimidating?

Not really. I mean, it’s not like they aren’t the greatest rock & roll band ever [laughs]. It’s a huge compliment. I think the new record will pick up where we left off and show the many sides that Greta Van Fleet has in terms of soundscapes. And I think it’ll take our concept up a few notches. We’re also trying to keep live takes. We really value the natural feel of how we play live.

People seem fixated on your age, but the Beatles, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin were relatively young when they made game-changing records.

The young factor is a novelty. It’s not what we focus on. It’s great that people think we have a mature sound.

There seems to be something chivalrous about your music.

Chivalry. I like that. These days, there isn’t a lot of rock that gets stuck in your head. The expression of rock & roll lately is people being sad or angry. Why can’t we be happy about rock? Think about the late ’60s - Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stills & Nash. We can have a positive outlook on this, can’t we? People need to start looking at the good, because we need that a lot more now than ever.

Equipment

Basses: Early-’80s Fender Precision Bass with Jazz Bass neck, 2017 stock Fender American Standard Jazz
Bass Rig: Fender Super Bassman 300 Pro head, Ampeg SVT-810E cabinet Strings: D’Addario flat-wound (.050–.105)
Other: Acme Motown WB-3 DI 

Greta Van Fleet have announced new North American tour dates in support of their debut full-length album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army. The new dates kick off September 21 in Kansas City and wrap October 15 in Philadelphia.

Support on all shows will come from Shannon & the Clams.

Pre-sales for Peaceful Army Fan Club members begin Wednesday, May 15, and the public on-sale starts Friday, May 17 at 10 A.M. local time.  

You can check out the full itinerary, including all previously announced dates, below.

For more information, head over to GretaVanFleet.com.

Greta Van Fleet March of the Peaceful Army tour dates

MAY

13   Fox Theatre, Atlanta, GA

15   Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre, Charlotte, NC 

16   Red Hat Amphitheatre, Raleigh, NC

18   The Stone Pony Summer Stage, Asbury Park, NJ

19   Kerfuffle, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD (DC101 Radio show)

21   MECU Pavilion, Baltimore, MD

22   Rochester Dome Arena, Rochester, NY 

24   Boston Calling Festival, Boston, MA

25   Forest Hills Stadium, Queens, NY

28   Echo Beach, Toronto, ON CANADA 

29   Echo Beach, Toronto, ON CANADA

31   Bunbury Music Festival, Cincinnati, OH

JUNE

1    Bunbury Music Festival, Cincinnati, OH

2    Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica, Cleveland, OH 

4    Breese Stevens Field, Madison, WI

(June 27 - September 10 - Europe, Australia and New Zealand dates)

NORTH AMERICAN FALL RUN

SEPTEMBER

21   The Starlight Theatre, Kansas City, MO

23   Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, CO

27   The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV

29   Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre, San Diego, CA

30   FivePoint Amphitheatre, Irvine, CA

OCTOBER

 2    Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, CA

 5    Hollywood Palladium, Los Angeles, CA

 9    Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land, Sugar Land, TX

11   UNO Lakefront Arena, New Orleans, LA

13   Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, TN

15   The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA

The 61st Annual Grammy Awards took place at Staples Center in Los Angeles last night, February 10. Among the guitar-based artists who took home statues were Greta Van Fleet, High on Fire, St. Vincent and, posthumously, Chris Cornell.

Greta Van Fleet were awarded a Grammy for Best Rock Album, with their From the Fires EP beating out offerings from Alice in Chains, Ghost, Fall Out Boy and Weezer.

High on Fire’s “Electric Messiah” won the Best Metal Performance Grammy, coming out tops in a category that also featured Deafheaven, Trivium, Underoath and Between the Buried and Me.

In the Best Rock Performance category, Chris Cornell won for his song “When Bad Does Good.” Other nominees included The Fever 333, Arctic Monkeys, Greta Van Fleet and Halestorm.

Finally, the Best Rock Song Grammy went to St. Vincent, for “Masseduction,” who was nominated alongside Ghost, Twenty One Pilots, Bring Me the Horizon, and, once again, Greta Van Fleet, in the category.

The full nominee list in the above categories was as follows:

Best Rock Album:

Alice in Chains, Rainier Fog

Ghost, Prequelle

Fall Out Boy, M A N I A

Weezer, Pacific Daydream

Greta Van Fleet, From the Fires

Best Metal Performance:

Deafheaven, "Honeycomb"

Between the Buried and Me, "Condemned to the Gallows"

High on Fire, "Electric Messiah"

Trivium, "Betrayer"

Underoath, "On My Teeth"

Best Rock Performance:

The Fever 333, "Made an America"

Arctic Monkeys, "Four Out of Five"

Chris Cornell, "When Bad Does Good"

Halestorm, "Uncomfortable"

Greta Van Fleet, "Highway Tune"

Best Rock Song:

Ghost, "Rats"

Bring Me the Horizon, "MANTRA"

Greta Van Fleet, "Black Smoke Rising"

Twenty One Pilots, "Jumpsuit"

St. Vincent, "Masseduction"

For more information and a full list of winners, head over to Grammy.com.

“Greta Van Fleet are the saviors of rock and roll.” For much of the past year and a half, guitarist Jake Kiszka has been hearing that phrase over and over. While such a line might seem like little more than a well-worn cliché thrown about willy-nilly by jaded music journalists desperate for something — anything — to champion in the way of genuine, guitar-based rock, in the case of Greta Van Fleet, there might be some actual meat on the bone.

Consider the evidence: The Michigan- based group’s first two EPs, Black Smoke Rising and From the Fires, packed rowdy, rifftastic doozies such as “Highway Song” and “Safari Song” that shot to the top of Billboard’s Mainstream Rock charts. Radio buzz soon translated to sales (each EP moved more than 100,000 units), and in no time at all the band were headlining shows and receiving rapturous reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. All of which causes one to ask Kiszka the question: Are Greta Van Fleet, in fact, the “saviors of rock and roll”?

“Boy, I don’t know,” Kiszka answers with a laugh. “It’s a heavy crown to wear, isn’t it? You hear that and you think, ‘Can one band can have it all to themselves?’ The thing is, rock and roll has been around for decades and a lot of artists contributed to it along the way. Some of what once was doesn’t exist anymore, but that’s the thing: It always changes, and so I think it’ll always exist in some way. We’re honored and humbled by people’s reactions, and we’re happy to continue a tradition. Whether that’s ‘saving rock and roll,’ I’ll leave that to others to consider.”

Kiszka and his band of mostly brothers (Josh Kiszka is the lead singer, Sam Kiszka plays bass and occasional keyboards and drummer Danny Wagner keeps the beat) have been experiencing the spoils of rock stardom in ways that he deems “wild, chaotic and surreal.” Earlier this year, Elton John jammed with the group at his annual Oscar charity party. Dave Grohl recruited them to join Iggy Pop, Garbage and Tenacious D at his Cal Jam resurrection concert. They even got to hang out with Tom Hanks. And, as one might imagine, female fans have taken quite a shine to the young upstarts. “The aspect of girls certainly has been amplified during the last year,” Kiszka allows with a modest snicker. “There’s been some crazy stuff in that regard, but I won’t elaborate. Suffice to say, no complaints.”

If there’s been one negative surrounding the band, it’s been the constant comparisons that have been drawn between them and a certain outfit called Led Zeppelin. No less than Robert Plant weighed in during an interview, saying, “There’s a band in Detroit called Greta Van Fleet. They are Led Zeppelin I. Beautiful little singer. I hate him. He borrowed his voice from somebody I know very well.”

Kiszka has long owned up to the influence Led Zeppelin have had on him and his bandmates, but he tries to put it into perspective: “We’ve talked about it amongst ourselves, and we’re OK with using Led Zeppelin and other groups as a foundation for what we do. To me, it’s no different from Zeppelin being influenced by blues artists, and blues artists who were influenced by French jazz artists. So we want to use what we know and move forward, and we will.”

Greta Van Fleet’s first official full-length offering, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, might not entirely silence detractors. Produced by the trio of Al Sutton, Marlon Young and Herschel Boone, the album packs a cavalcade of hammer- of-the-gods-like riffs and gutsy, blues-tinged solos one might associate with Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II — check out the funk-fueled lead single “When the Curtain Falls” and the bulldozing rocker “Lover, Leaver (Taker, Believer)” for prime examples. Lead howler Josh Kiszka’s prodigious pipes still sound positively Plant-esque, though at times, especially on the album’s epic opener, “Age of Man,” he appears to be channeling early Geddy Lee. But there also are impressive signs of growth: parts of the sparky rave-up “The Cold Wind” recall the roaring country rock of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; the pastoral sweetness of the acoustic-based “You’re the One” is reminiscent of the Band; and the elegant set closer, “Anthem,” blends shades of early Wings-era Paul McCartney amid a soaring choir of backing vocals.

“We really want to build on where we’ve been and go somewhere new,” Kiszka notes. “We went into this album heartened by the success of our EPs, but at the same time, we didn’t take our task lightly. There was no sense of entitlement, like, ‘Those’ll be easy to beat,’ because we knew this was a full statement, a complete thought. In that way, it was a very premeditated endeavor, and we went about it with that singular goal in mind: Beat what we had done and put out something that was fully structured and had its own identity.”

From what I understand, you started recording with a full batch of demos, but halfway in you stopped and wrote new songs. Was that a source of conflict within the band?

Not really. We wrote a bunch of songs a while ago, so when we started the record we realized, “Hey, we can do better than this.” We were more mature and more seasoned from touring. I think we were all pretty unanimous about what we needed to do. In the end, we took some songs we had written a while ago, and then we wrote some new ones. Recording the new ones allowed us to see the older songs that fit into what we were doing. In the end, I think we came up with something that has its own identity.

The songs on the album vary from live-sounding cuts like “Age of Man” to more produced pieces like “Anthem.” When you’re writing, do you know the kind of treatment each song should have?

No, not particularly. All of the cuts on this album were tracked live; any production, if we thought it was necessary, came later. I mean, you kind of have an idea sometimes — you play the song through, and you go, “OK, this needs a little more whatever… ” But for the most part, we still wanted to capture our live energy. That’s what the four of us are all about, and I think that translates to the final recording. You can hear us all working together. Sometimes we redid certain parts — a guitar track, a bassline, whatever. Some tracks were pretty much there from the beginning; sometimes we did eight or nine takes.

When we’ve talked in the past, you spoke about Jimmy Page and other blues-based influences — Duane Allman, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones. Was shred ever a draw for you?

No, I was never into those guys, the master shredders. I’m not putting down that kind of playing, but it’s just my preference. Shred never really entered my world in a way I could identify with. I never knew how I could incorporate that kind of playing into what I wanted to do. Or maybe I just couldn’t play that stuff at all. [Laughs]

Songs like “When the Curtain Falls” and “The Cold Wind” are built on compact, crunchy riffs. Do those riffs come along fully formed, or do you have to refine and finesse them?

A lot of times they’re fully formed. I think the best riffs just come right at you — they don’t need a lot of refining. I travel with an acoustic guitar so I can play anytime, anywhere. A lot of the time, I’ll write a whole song out. I’ll get it to where I want it structurally, and then I’ll bring it to the guys: “Hey, what do you think of this?” Sometimes Josh will go, ‘Well, that’s not really up to par so go back and work on it again.’ Which is not that often, but it’s happened. So I’ll sit back and re-evaluate, and I’ll work on it to where it suits what he can sing. But yeah, riffs… they usually take shape right away.

What’s your process for constructing solos? The solo on “When the Curtain Falls” feels very spontaneous, almost haphazard in a Page-like way. Do you plot out something like that?

Solos are separate animals, so they can go either way. The song itself usually determines whether the solo needs to be written out or if I can just wing it. “Brave New World” has a pretty short solo, but I wrote it out. The same for “The Cold Wind” — written out. Other times I’ll just start jamming, and we’ll piece together things until I’ve got a full solo. I did that with the solo to “Edge of Darkness” [From the Fires EP]. I’ll have a bit of structure, but within that framework I’ll have spots for experimentation. So “Edge of Darkness” is more off the cuff, I guess. “When the Curtain Falls” was one where I sat down and said, “I’m just gonna start rippin’ and see what happens.” I put it down and said, “Yeah, I can live with that.”

What about “Lover, Leaver (Taker, Believer)”? It has two solos; the first one feels plotted out, with new ideas coming along every two measures.

That was a song we had from a while back, and that solo was written out. I kind of always knew from a guitar perspective what needed to be done. And so, yeah, the first solo in the song, which isn’t on the slide, was written probably about three years ago. For the second solo, I knew I wanted to go somewhere a little different, so that’s why I brought the slide out to take the song somewhere else. Both solos kind of evolved from what I originally had, but they were written out, pretty much.

You also do some cool slide soloing on “Mountain of the Sun.” What is your slide technique? You seem to use the slide and your fretting fingers simultaneously.

I do. I put a copper slide on the ring finger of my left hand. I’ve kind of worked out a cool technique. I can slide up on that finger and bring it back down, and if I’m using an open tuning, I can then fret notes using my middle finger and pinky. I’m basically holding my slide finger up in the air when I do that. It’s a little tricky, but it works.

You’ve played a lot of gigs in the last year. Do you notice a difference in your playing from before you started touring to now?

Oh, absolutely. There’s something about consistently playing before live audiences that just forces you to grow. It doesn’t even feel like practice, because it’s not — it’s performing. I’ve had people who’ve seen me two years ago, and they see me now and it’s like, “Wow, you’ve grown as a guitar player.” And it’s not just me — it’s the whole band.

Last year, we talked about your guitars — a ’61 Gibson Les Paul, a new SG Standard. Did you use them in the studio?

I used the Les Paul, and I actually got another ’61 model. I played the new one quite a bit on the album. It’s a little hotter than the ’61 I’ve always used, and that’s kind of interesting. You can have two guitars that are supposed to be the same — same year, same model, same PAFs — but they sound completely different. That’s so weird. We did some recording at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, and the owner, John McBride, loaned us some things. We also got some guitars from Andrew Yanqui, who is the owner and CEO of Chicago Music Exchange. The acoustics I used were a Sixties Gibson J-50 and a Sixties Guild acoustic. Oh, and I played a Danelectro Baby Sitar on “Watching Over,” and that was amazing. I could’ve played that guitar for days.

Any changes to your amps? Are you still using the Marshall Astoria Custom CMEs?

I used those, and I have a Bletchley amplifier I’ve been touring with for quite some time now, so I used that. Its essence is similar to a Marshall, but it has its own characteristics as well. I’ve been using Vox AC30s too, so they’re on the album.

What effect pedals did you use on the record?

There were a few of them. It was actually my objective to keep things minimal with pedals so I could focus on my performances. Some amps don’t have preset reverb channels, so it’s always good to keep a Holy Grail pedal around. I used a Fuzz Face on “Brave New World” and a delay — I can’t remember which one that was. [Laughs]

Last question: Now that you’ve achieved some success, do you guys ever ask yourselves, “OK, how do we not screw this up?”

We’ve never said that in a formal discussion. We realize we’re in a nice position. We have people who are taking care of business and watching the money, and to that end we sort of focus on our identity and our music. I think that’s what’s going to be the determining factor of our sustainability. It always comes back to the music. So that’s a collective mindset that we share, and hopefully it’ll help us not screw things up. [Laughs]

The nominees for the 61st Annual Grammy Awards have been announced, with a slew of rock and metal acts, among them Greta Van Fleet, Alice in Chains and Ghost, being recognized in a number of categories.

Among the nominees and categories are:

Best Rock Performance:

The Fever 333, "Made an America"

Arctic Monkeys, "Four Out of Five"

Chris Cornell, "When Bad Does Good"

Halestorm, "Uncomfortable"

Greta Van Fleet, "Highway Tune"

Best Rock Song:

Ghost, "Rats"

Bring Me the Horizon, "MANTRA"

Greta Van Fleet, "Black Smoke Rising"

Twenty One Pilots, "Jumpsuit"

St. Vincent, "Masseducation"

Best Rock Album:

Alice in Chains, Rainier Fog

Ghost, Prequelle

Fall Out Boy, M A N I A

Weezer, Pacific Daydream

Greta Van Fleet, From the Fires

Best Metal Performance:

Deafheaven, "Honeycomb"

Between the Buried and Me, "Condemned to the Gallows"

High on Fire, "Electric Messiah"

Trivium, "Betrayer"

Underoath, "On My Teeth"

Best New Artist:

Greta Van Fleet

Luke Combs

H.E.R.

Chloe X Halle

Margo Price

Dua Lipa

Bebe Rexha

Jorja Smith

Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package:

Guns N' Roses, Appetite for Destruction (Locked N' Loaded) Box Set

Grateful Dead, Pacific Northwest '73-74': The Complete Recordings

The Decemberists, I'll Be Your Girl

"Weird Al" Yankovic, Squeeze Box: The Complete Works Of "Weird Al" Yankovic

Johnny Nicholas, Too Many Bad Habits

The Grammys will take place in Los Angeles on February 10, and will air live on CBS. For more information, head over to Grammy.com.

Greta Van Fleet have unveiled another new song from their upcoming debut full length, Anthem of the Peaceful Army. The track, titled “You’re the One,” is a laid-back rocker that mixes acoustic and electric guitar with some burbling organ. 

Guitarist Jake Kiszka recently told Loudwire about "You're the One": "I think certainly around the period of time this song was written there was quite a bit of folk that we were listening to. It was Dylan and the Band, Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez and things like that.”

As previously reported, Anthem of the Peaceful Army was written collectively by all four Greta Van Fleet members—Jake Kiszka, bassist and keyboardist Sam Kiszka, singer Josh Kiszka and drummer Danny Wagner. The ten original songs explore a variety of topics that, according to the band, include fresh starts, love, integrity, innocence, adventure, diversity and peace, the life cycle and its inherent responsibilities, courage, masked deceptions, revolution and truth.

Anthem of the Peaceful Army was produced by Marlon Young, Al Sutton and Herschel Boone (The Rust Brothers) and recorded earlier this year at Blackbird Studios in Nashville and Rustbelt Studios in Royal Oak, Michigan.  

Jake Kiszka spoke with Guitar World earlier this year while the band was in the process of recording Anthem of the Peaceful Army: 

“This is going to be a definitive statement,” he said. “Our first studio EP, Black Smoke Rising, was kind of a snapshot of where we were at the time, but the full album is going to be the real deal. I see it as a big-picture look at where we are now and where we’re headed."

Greta Van Fleet have announced the first dates for their 2019 March of the Peaceful Army world tour. The outing will be in support of the band’s full-length debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, out October 19 on Lava/Republic Records.

The March of the Peaceful Army world tour will see the band visit Australia and New Zealand for the first time before heading to Europe and the UK, and then finally to North America. 

All confirmed dates and ticket on-sale details are below. For additional information and to purchase tickets head over to GretaVanFleet.com.

March of the Peaceful Army 2019 World Tour:

JANUARY

29 Enmore Theatre, Sydney, Australia  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 9:00AM/local)

FEBRUARY

3  Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane, Australia  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

5  Forum Theatre, Melbourne, Australia  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

8  Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland, New Zealand  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

22 Palau Sant Jordi, Barcelona, Spain  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

24 Alcatraz, Milan, Italy  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

25 Zenith, Munich, Germany  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

27 AFAS Live, Amsterdam, Netherlands  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

28 Lotto Arena, Antwerp, Belgium  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

MARCH

3  Zenith, Paris, France  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

5  Newcastle 02 Academy, Newcastle, UK  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

7  02 Academy, Glasgow, UK  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

8  02 Academy Leeds, Leeds, UK  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

10 Rock City, Nottingham, UK  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

11 Mountford Hall, Liverpool, UK  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

13 Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Ireland  (on-sale Friday, October 19 @ 10:00AM/local)

MAY

7  Bayfront Park Amphitheatre, Miami, FL  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

9  Daily's Place Amphitheatre, Jacksonville, FL  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

10 Orlando Amphitheater at Central Florida Fairgrounds, Orlando, FL  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

12 Fox Theatre, Atlanta, GA  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

13 Fox Theatre, Atlanta, GA  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

15 Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre, Charlotte, NC  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

16 Red Hat Amphitheater, Raleigh, NC  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

18 The Stone Pony Summer Stage, Asbury Park, NJ  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

21 MECU Pavilion, Baltimore, MD  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

22 The Dome, Rochester, NY  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

25 Forest Hills Stadium, Queens, NY  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

28 Echo Beach, Toronto, ON CANADA  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

JUNE

2  Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica, Cleveland, OH  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 10:00AM/local)

4  Breese Stevens Field, Madison, WI  (on-sale Friday, October 12 @ 12NOON/local)

Greta Van Fleet have unveiled a new song, "Anthem," from the band’s forthcoming debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army. You can check it out above. Due out October 19 via Lava/Republic Records, the record is available for pre-order now. 

As previously reported, Anthem of the Peaceful Army was written collectively by all four Greta Van Fleet members—guitarist Jake Kiszka, bassist and keyboardist Sam Kiszka, singer Josh Kiszka and drummer Danny Wagner. The ten original songs explore a variety of topics that, according to the band, include fresh starts, love, integrity, innocence, adventure, diversity and peace, the life cycle and its inherent responsibilities, courage, masked deceptions, revolution and truth.

Anthem of the Peaceful Army was produced by Marlon Young, Al Sutton and Herschel Boone (The Rust Brothers) and recorded earlier this year at Blackbird Studios in Nashville and Rustbelt Studios in Royal Oak, Michigan.  

Jake Kiszka spoke with Guitar World earlier this year while the band was in the process of recording Anthem of the Peaceful Army: 

“This is going to be a definitive statement,” he said. “Our first studio EP, Black Smoke Rising, was kind of a snapshot of where we were at the time, but the full album is going to be the real deal. I see it as a big-picture look at where we are now and where we’re headed." 

Anthem of the Peaceful Army track listing:

1.   Age of Man

2.   The Cold Wind

3.   When The Curtain Falls

4.   Watching Over

5.   Lover Leaver (Taker Believer)

6.   You’re The One

7.   The New Day

8.   Mountain of the Sun

9.   Brave New World

10. Anthem

Greta Van Fleet have unveiled a new song, "Lover, Leaver," from the band’s forthcoming debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army. Due out October 19 via Lava/Republic Records, the record is available for pre-order now. 

As previously reported, Anthem of the Peaceful Army was written collectively by all four Greta Van Fleet members—guitarist Jake Kiszka, bassist and keyboardist Sam Kiszka, singer Josh Kiszka and drummer Danny Wagner. The  ten original songs explore a variety of topics that, according to the band, include fresh starts, love, integrity, innocence, adventure, diversity and peace, the life cycle and its inherent responsibilities, courage, masked deceptions, revolution and truth.

Anthem of the Peaceful Army was produced by Marlon Young, Al Sutton and Herschel Boone (The Rust Brothers) and recorded earlier this year at Blackbird Studios in Nashville and Rustbelt Studios in Royal Oak, Michigan.  

Jake Kiszka spoke with Guitar World earlier this year while the band was in the process of recording Anthem of the Peaceful Army: 

“This is going to be a definitive statement,” he said. “Our first studio EP, Black Smoke Rising, was kind of a snapshot of where we were at the time, but the full album is going to be the real deal. I see it as a big-picture look at where we are now and where we’re headed."

Anthem of the Peaceful Army track listing:

1.   Age of Man

2.   The Cold Wind

3.   When The Curtain Falls

4.   Watching Over

5.   Lover Leaver (Taker Believer)

6.   You’re The One

7.   The New Day

8.   Mountain of the Sun

9.   Brave New World

10. Anthem

Greta Van Fleet have announced the release of their full-length debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army. The album is due out October 19 on Lava/Republic Records and is available for pre-order now.  Fans who pre-order the album will receive an instant grat track, the brand-new song “Watching Over,” which you can listen to below.

Collectively written by all four members—guitarist Jake Kiszka, bassist and keyboardist Sam Kiszka, singer Josh Kiszka and drummer Danny Wagner—the ten original songs on Anthem of the Peaceful Army explore a variety of topics that, according to the band, include fresh starts, love, integrity, innocence, adventure, diversity and peace, the life cycle and its inherent responsibilities, courage, masked deceptions, revolution and truth.

Anthem of the Peaceful Army was produced by Marlon Young, Al Sutton and Herschel Boone (The Rust Brothers) and recorded earlier this year at Blackbird Studios in Nashville and Rustbelt Studios in Royal Oak, Michigan.  

Jake Kiszka spoke with Guitar World earlier this year while the band was in the process of recording Anthem of the Peaceful Army: 

“This is going to be a definitive statement,” he said. “Our first studio EP, Black Smoke Rising, was kind of a snapshot of where we were at the time, but the full album is going to be the real deal. I see it as a big-picture look at where we are now and where we’re headed."

Anthem of the Peaceful Army track listing:

1.   Age of Man

2.   The Cold Wind

3.   When The Curtain Falls

4.   Watching Over

5.   Lover Leaver (Taker Believer)

6.   You’re The One

7.   The New Day

8.   Mountain of the Sun

9.   Brave New World

10. Anthem

Greta Van Fleet have premiered the music video for their new single, "When the Curtain Falls." You can check it out above.

The young Frankenmuth, Michigan-based group first debuted the single—taken from their as-yet untitled full-length debut—last month, and performed it on The Tonight Show the following week. 

When Guitar World asked Jake Kiszka—the band's guitarist—about the band's debut album earlier this year, he said that the album was going to be a "definitive statement."

“Our first studio EP, Black Smoke Rising, was kind of a snapshot of where we were at the time, but the full album  is going to be the real deal," he continued. "I see it as a big-picture look at where we are now and where we’re headed.”

You can read our full interview with Kiszka—taken from our March 2018 issue—right here.

Last week, Greta Van Fleet premiered "When the Curtain Falls," the first single from their highly anticipated, as-yet-untitled debut album. Last night, the band stopped by The Tonight Show to perform the single. You can check out their performance above.

The young, Frankenmuth, Michigan-based group first came to prominence last year with their debut EP, Black Smoke Rising, and its high-flying lead single, "Highway Tune." Since then, the group's profile has risen exponentially, with endorsements from the likes of Joe Satriani and a number of sell-out tour dates.

When Guitar World asked Jake Kiszka—the band's guitarist—about the band's debut album earlier this year, he said that the album was going to be a "definitive statement."

“Our first studio EP, Black Smoke Rising, was kind of a snapshot of where we were at the time, but the full album is going to be the real deal," he continued. "I see it as a big-picture look at where we are now and where we’re headed.”

You can read our full interview with Kiszka—taken from our March 2018 issue—right here.

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."

Performing the numerous half-step bends in the main riff for “Highway Tune,” each indicated by a curved arrow with a 1/2 appearing above it, is best accomplished by using a quick, downward pulling motion with the fretting finger, in toward the palm, to momentarily raise the pitch of the note the equivalent of one fret. In fact, this is the only way to bend notes on the low E string, such as the G# on beat four of bar 1, as pushing the string would cause it to “fall” over the side of the fretboard.

The bends in this particular riff go by quickly and are used more for attitude than melodic purpose, so you needn’t fuss about nailing the exact pitches. For example, while the transcription indicates in beat two of bar 3 that guitarist Jake Kiszka performs a quick half-step bend on the F# note on the D string’s fourth fret, a quarter-step or three-quarter-step bend will likely work just as well for imparting a similarly gritty, bluesy feel to the note.

The key to copping the song’s chorus guitar part is to first familiarize yourself with the chord fingerings shown at the beginning of the transcription. When moving between the A and A6sus4 chords in bars 25–28, maintain the A chord “grip” and then barre your ring finger across the D, G and B strings at the seventh fret to play A6sus4. During the second half of the chorus (bars 29–33), maintain the B chord fingering, which includes the thumb fretting the low E string, and use your pinkie to perform the ornamental pull-offs shown in the tablature.

For Jeff Perrin's tab of "Highway Tune," check out the March 2018 issue of Guitar World.

“This is going to be a definitive statement,” says Greta Van Fleet guitarist Jake Kiszka, discussing the full-length debut album that the hard-rocking Midwestern quartet is busy recording. “Our first studio EP, Black Smoke Rising, was kind of a snapshot of where we were at the time, but the full album is going to be the real deal. I see it as a big-picture look at where we are now and where we’re headed.”

Few industry insiders would have predicted that a young group of upstarts from Frankenmuth, Michigan, with nary a turntable or sampler in sight, stood a chance in today’s musical climate. But Greta Van Fleet’s infectious brand of high-octane rock, deeply influenced by bands such as Van Halen, Led Zeppelin and Cream, ambushed streaming services and radio with rip-snortin’ riffers “Highway Tune” and “Safari Song.” Following up such a big splash with an even bigger wave is a tall order, but Kiszka says the band (which includes his brothers Josh on vocals and Sam on bass, as well as drummer Danny Wagner) is aiming high.

“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,” he notes. “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?’ ”

Kiszka estimates that the band has amassed 30 songs that they plan to record, and then they’ll whittle the batch down to the best 10. “There’s a few tracks that have been hanging around a while, and there are some we wrote in the last month,” he says. “We might focus on the newer songs because they’re the freshest. This time, we want to showcase some of our eclectic influences and have more variety—light and shade. We might go from something rocking and super-aggressive into a softer acoustic track.”

For some bands, writing new material on the road is often a frustrating endeavor, but Kiszka notes that touring provided a fertile atmosphere for creativity. “It didn’t stop our songwriting, but it did change how we wrote,” he explains. “A lot of the songs we wrote on tour are more upbeat—we responded to the chaos and the pace. But then there were those moments when you’re about to pass out in bed, so you might grab the acoustic and write something sweeter, and that’s cool, too.”

Greta Van Fleet recorded Black Smoke Rising and its companion EP, From the Fires, with producer/engineer Al Sutton at his Rust Belt Studios in Royal Oak, Michigan. For the full album, they plan to track the basics with Sutton at Rust Belt before heading down to Blackbird Studios in Nashville for overdubs. Siszka will once again rely on his trusty trio of electric mainstays (a 1961 Gibson Les Paul, a Gibson SG Standard and a Danelectro) along with a newly acquired Gibson J-45 acoustic, but he’s looking forward to combing the music stores of Nashville for new axes. “Oh, I imagine I’ll spend some money down there,” he says with a laugh. “Nashville is a big guitar town, so I’ll pick up a few things.”

Looking back on the band’s triumphs in 2017, Kiszka says it’s hard to pin down a favorite moment (“Our first headline tour sold out in five minutes—how do you top that?”), but he was able to cross one item from his bucket list: meeting rock icon and fellow Midwesterner Bob Seger. “We opened for him on the first date of his tour at Dow Event Center in Saginaw, Michigan.” Kiszka says. “We grew up with Bob’s music, so we consider him to be a big influence. We snuck in during his sound check and watched him play ‘Let It Be’ on the piano, and then we got to chat with him. It felt like one of those magical passing-the-torch moments where things just came full circle.”

The much buzzed-about Michigan quartet, Greta Van Fleet, have announced a new EP, titled From the Fires.

The EP—which is set for a November 10 release via Lava/Republic—contains eight tracks, four previously released cuts from the band's second EP—Black Smoke Rising—and four brand new tracks.

The inspiration for From the Fires—according to vocalist Josh Kiszka—came from summer trips into the woods with his family.

"When we were all kids, our extended families and friends spent part of every summer together at a place called Yankee Springs. We were out in the middle of the woods, and every night, we'd sit around a campfire, play music and tell stories," he said in a press release.

"I always loved that, as it reminded me of ancient times when people would gather around the fires with the tribes' elders telling fables of wisdom and courage, passing down human history. That concept is where the cover art and title come from."

The members of the band have never been shy about their obvious classic rock influences, and seek to bring the style and attitude of those artists back into mainstream music.

“That big riff style that [Jimmy] Page pioneered is something that always excited me," guitarist Jake Kiszka told Guitar World last month.

"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.”

For more on Greta Van Fleet, follow along on Facebook.

Packing a Pantload of Zeppelin-esque riffs along with the unbridled energy of early Van Halen, the Frankenmuth, Michigan–based quartet called Greta Van Fleet has stormed radio and streaming services in a way that few rock bands have done in years.

High-velocity tracks like “Highway Tune” and “Safari Song” from the band’s debut four-song EP, Black Smoke Rising, seemingly came out of nowhere and are edging more established groups off of playlists.

“I think we’re all pretty surprised at the reaction we’re getting,” says guitarist Jake Kiszka. “We didn’t expect to receive such attention right out of the gate. I don’t know what to attribute it do; hopefully, it’s just because people are responding to great music.”

The 21-year-old Kiszka formed Greta Van Fleet with his brothers Josh (vocals) and Sam (bass) when they were in their mid-teens; their pal Danny Wagner soon climbed aboard on drums. Swept away by their parents’ “vinyl playground,” Kiszka and his siblings based the band on the music they grew up loving: Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.

“It didn’t feel like old retro music to us at the time,” he says. “It was exciting stuff. It wasn’t until I got to middle school that I even realized the other kids were listening to new stuff on pop radio, and it sounded nothing like what I liked. The contemporary music lacked feel, so we just stuck with what felt right to us.”

Kiszka started out playing a Fender Squier before graduating to Gibson Les Pauls and SGs. He cites Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix as enormous influences (“the first time I heard Hendrix play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ I nearly fell out of my chair”), and he doesn’t shy away from comparisons to Jimmy Page. “Are you kidding me? I embrace it!” he says with a laugh.

“That big riff style that 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.”

AXOLOGY
● GUITARS 1961 Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG Standard, Danelectro
● AMP Marshall Astoria 30-watt head, 1976 Marshall 4x12 cabinet
●EFFECTS Marshall Astoria 30-watt head, 1976 Marshall 4x12 cabinet