I first heard about the rock hard group Greta Van Fleet in 2015 from family members located near Saginaw, Michigan who had seen them live many times during their local jam sessions. At the time, they were still high school prodigies performing covers of popular acts like Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and The Who. Their local fanbase in Bay City and Saginaw raved about their skill. I did not think much of it at the time, as there are many talented young bands that are proficient in covering classics. When they released their Grammy-winning EP From the Fires in 2017, comparisons were instantly drawn to Led Zeppelin. While being mentioned in the same breath as the greatest rock group of all time usually is not a drawback, traditional rock purists took issue with the amount of similarities Greta Van Fleet had with Led Zeppelin.
Both Led Zeppelin and Greta Van Fleet consist of four members occupying similar roles and noise. Most famously, the young band’s frontman Josh Kiszka gained recognition for performing vocal patterns eerily similar to that of Robert Plant. Drummer Danny Wagner uses the same drum kit as Zeppelin’s late John Bonham. Josh’s twin brother Jake Kiszka acts as lead guitarist and studied Jimmy Page and Jimmy Hendrix since he started playing guitar at the age of two.
When I first listened to From the Fires in 2017, the parallels in noise between Greta Van Fleet and Led Zeppelin were shocking. I was aware of their rare talent, but it started to make sense why famed music producer Jason Flom had signed them instantly upon hearing their EP. A good example of this would be “Highway Tune” sounding extremely close to Led Zeppelin’s 1975 hit “The Rover”. I was among the rock fans that wrote Greta Van Fleet off after a first listen to From the Fires.
Fortunately, I revisited the Great Van Fleet after their 2021 release The Battle at Garden’s Gate. I enjoyed the album immensely and it made me rethink my first impression of the rock rock band. Despite not being active since John Bonham’s death in1980, Led Zeppelin’s legacy casts a long shadow. They were the musical group of the 1970s and music critics have been quick to call newer acts “rip-offs” whenever they have a noise similar to Zeppelin. Writers declared Rush the “Canadian Zeppelin” after their debut album. Billy Squier’s Don’t Say No caught flack in 1981 after people drew comparisons between “Lonely is the Night” and Zeppelin’s “Nobody’s Fault but Mine”. In 1988, Jimmy Page went after Kingdom Come after they had released the single “Get it On”, which sounded eerily like Zeppelin’s 1975 hit “Kashmir”.
Greta Van Fleet hits differently now than other Zeppelin-sounding acts of the 1980s. Hip hop overtook rock as the prevalent musical genre in the United States in 2017. A music report by Nielsen said hip hop accounted for eight of top 10 albums in 2017, attributing this to popularity of acts such as Bruno Mars and Drake. The hard rock sounds of Greta Van Fleet stands out in a market over saturated with R&B and hip hop. Nobody owns the noise of hard rock, it belongs to everyone. I feel a lot of the Zeppelin comparisons would not have occured Josh Kiszka’s vocals were not as similar as they are to Robert Plant’s. Kiszka is not attempting to simulate Plant though, he just happens to have the same vocal pattern and musical register. After Robert Plant declared himself a fan of Greta Van Fleet and gave Josh Kiszka his blessing in 2018, I became comfortable calling myself a fan of the band. Seeing them perform at Red Rock Amphitheater in Denver, it became clear that they are carving out an interesting niche market. The crowd at Red Rocks consisted of both the demographic who would have seen Led Zeppelin live in the 1970s, and young people who never had the chance to see any of the original hard rock classics live. Greta Van Fleet is occupying a filling a music void that helps bring together several generations. And what good is music if not for doing good by bringing people together?
