It was an early realization that my family was uncommon.” “They didn’t know what any of this stuff was. Of course, such interests “made it harder to talk to kids my age in school”, Kiszka said. (Their mother is a science teacher.) “We had a lot of books that maybe children shouldn’t read, by Nietzsche and Sartre,” he said. The young men also absorbed the literature favored by his father, a chemist with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. “Those records were from a specific time and place,” said the singer, “but, to me, they’re timeless.” The Kiszka brothers learned about such things by digging into the countless crates of music their father owned, affectionately dubbed “the vinyl playground”. Their sincere love for the history of rock shows in the depth of their knowledge about it.Īfter all, how many other current groups of twentysomethings would think to cover a Fairport Convention song (Meet on the Ledge) on one of their EPs, or to eagerly allude, as did Kiszka in our interview, to everything from elder touchstones like Jethro Tull and Donovan to fossilized obscurities like The Gentle Soul or the Lord Sitar album by Big Jim Sullivan. More, there’s something winning about the members’ earnest intentions, as well as their unwavering commitment to them. If the results are unlikely to win over those already tired of the band’s sources, there’s plenty here to entrance fans. The music it contains pushes the band’s commitment to ‘70s pomp to a shrieking new peak, while its lyrics explore the kinds of subjects that made albums like Yes’s Tales of Topographic Oceans critical whipping boys. He may get his wish with the release of the band’s much-anticipated sophomore album, Battle at Garden’s Gate. “I ’ve gotten plenty of ridicule,” the singer acknowledged with a knowing laugh. NPR balked at his “grating, maximalist pitchiness”, while the Times called his voice scratchy and shrill. Josh Kiszka’s high and mighty voice – which, at full screech, can sound like an ejaculating hyena – has come in for special grilling. “They absolutely don’t,” while the New York Times led their review with the sarcastic line “somebody must have really missed this stuff”. “Do they have a musical knowledge outside of Led Zeppelin?” wrote a writer in Esquire. Rolling Stone wrote that the band often sound “preposterously close” to the creators of “Stairway to Heaven”, going on to label their songs “expert forgeries”. Many of the barbs centered on the band’s clear and present debt to the war-horses of classic rock, most glaringly Led Zeppelin. While Greta Van Fleet’s debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, released in 2018, excited enough fans to debut in Billboard’s Top Five, critics treated it like a fresh outbreak of Ebola. (The sole non-sibling member is their close friend, drummer Danny Wagner.) The musicians’ remove from the modern world also helps explains why their sonic taste falls so far from that of most in their generation, as well as part of why they have drawn so much scorn from contemporary critics. They include Josh’s fraternal twin Jake, who plays guitar, and their younger brother Sam, on bass. That mindset goes a long way towards explaining the insular world that shaped the music of the Kiszka brothers who comprise three-fourths of Greta Van Fleet.
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