Greta Van Fleet’s a big, heavy rock ’n’ roll band — and for real

Gretna Van Fleet is an 80-something dulcimer player in tiny Frankenmuth, Mich., who had, at least until recently, avoided national attention. In the early 2010s, local brothers Josh, Sam and Jake Kiszka, who formed the core of a four-piece rock band about to play its first big show, decided to name the group after Van Fleet, though they did not know her. They converted “Gretna” to “Greta” because it flowed better. And though they weren’t thinking about it at the time, the change will also help in sidestepping any copyright issues that might have presented themselves as the band gets bigger.

And it will almost certainly get bigger.

Greta Van Fleet has released only two studio EPs (“Black Smoke Rising” in April of this year, and “From the Fires” in November) but is getting the kind of hype that hard rock bands in 2017 almost never get. The song “Highway Tune” went to No. 1 on iTunes. Shows are sold out everywhere. Even Gretna Van Fleet is doing interviews. To many critics and fans, the quartet is the future of rock, and its past (the sound is a lot like circa-1972 Led Zeppelin), all at the same time.

In separate phone conversations from the southern Tennessee studio where they’re recording, bassist Sam Kiszka and frontman Josh Kiszka (whose twin brother, Jake, is the band’s guitarist) talked about the rise of Greta (and Gretna) Van Fleet. The following are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Sam Kiszka: Usually the story is, “People kept telling me to listen to you, but I thought it was some kind of country singer, some kind of Taylor Swift kind of thing — or some solo female artist.” But it couldn’t be more far off.

Josh Kiszka: The first big gig we had, her name was on the marquee, and people started calling her up. She played the dulcimer, and they thought she was playing a show. She came down with her husband, and she gave us the go-ahead. For someone in her 80s to sit through a blasting rock ’n’ roll show was pretty cool. … It went over so well, at the end of the show she came up, and we all took pictures together. She was sweet.

Josh: We’re not always going to get along, but being brothers, it’s easier to get over something much quicker. That’s another thing we’ve learned, a lesson from history. Bands with brothers have been infamous for going at it all the time. That was a lot of what we did early on, and after a while, it made no sense. It’s a matter of saying, “This isn’t worth arguing about.” We’ll just save that for later.

Josh: I theorize it has something to do with the (fact that) we’re making rock ’n’ roll that’s different from the rock ’n’ roll people are making now. It’s been a privilege to go out and make exactly the music we want, exactly the way we want it, and people are receiving it well.

Sam: Rock doesn’t need any saving. There’s already a bunch of guys out there doing really great stuff. They paved the way for what we’re doing now. There’s lots of great stuff out there, you’ve just gotta dig for it.