GRETA VAN FLEET
BEST NEW ARTIST / BEST ROCK ALBUM / BEST ROCK PERFORMANCE / BEST ROCK SONG
Greta van fleet frontman Josh Kiszka was sleeping in during a rare day off in December when his phone suddenly started blowing up. “I didn’t put together what was happening,” he says. “I thought the pope had died or something.” Pope Francis was fine, but Greta Van Fleet had just been nominated for four Grammys, all related to their 2018 debut, Anthem of the Peaceful Army. “These are some of the first songs we ever released,” says Kiszka. “So it’s kind of shocking. I didn’t expect us to get any nominations.” The nominations were the culmination of an incredible year for Greta Van Fleet that saw the Michigan hard-rock revival band go from playing clubs to selling out three consecutive nights at 5,000-seat theaters like the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago and the Fox Theater in Detroit.
But along the way, they became one of the most polarizing young bands in America, with many critics saying they sound way too much like Led Zeppelin (“The poor kids from Frankenmuth, Michigan, don’t even realize they’re more of an algorithmic fever dream than an actual rock band,” read a scathing review on Pitchfork in October). Robert Plant joked that Kiszka’s voice reminds him of “someone I know very well . . . they are Led Zeppelin I” — which Kiszka says he took as a compliment. “That’s lovely,” he says. “You can’t put that more Robert Plant than that.”
That attitude has helped the band brush off detractors: Kiszka swears he didn’t even read the Pitchfork review. “It’s unfortunate they’d be putting that energy out into the world, but it’s their prerogative, I guess,” he says. “Ultimately, I’d like to think that there’s substance to what we’re doing.”
Greta Van Fleet’s steadily growing live audience seems to back up his point — and the great box-office success of the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody suggests that there’s still a major mainstream audience for riffheavy rock. “Hopefully that spring has now been tapped,” says Kiszka. “And we can take some responsibility for that happening.”
ANDY GREENE