INTERVIEW: GRETA VAN FLEET - Australian Tour 2024 Exclusive with Sam Kiszka

Grammy Award Winning U.S. Rock act GRETA VAN FLEET are set to make their highly anticipated return to Australian and New Zealand shores this August for the first time since 2019. GRETA VAN FLEET will open their tour at Fortitude Music Hall in Brisbane on August 21st before heading to Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion on August 24th and the Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne on August 27th before jumping over the ditch to Auckland to play Spark Arena on August 30th. Mark caught up with bassist Sam Kiszka to talk all about the Tour, the latest record ‘Starcatcher’ and the way the band approached recording that record.

Mark: Hi Sam, thank you so much for talking to The Rockpit this morning. It’s been an exciting week waiting for the announcement that Greta Van Fleet was coming back to Australia to see us!

Sam: Nice, right on. I’m very excited too because it’s been too damn long.

Mark: It has – it was 2019 – we have two albums to catch up on!

Sam: I know – we have a lot of new tunes to play for you! The problem was, and I hear everybody says this, so it sounds like a broken record… but the time that Covid19 really took hold was the time that we were supposed to be going back to Australia.

Mark: Damn it!

Sam: (laughs) But now finally we made the arrangements are we’re there.

Mark: It robbed us music lovers of a couple of years of our concert going lives, bands of your livelihood and venues and promoters of so much. But we’re back now and it’s great to see you return after the cancellation last time. It must be great to be back?

Sam: Well, it’s not exactly a short flight, but we have to go because we adore Australia, we fucking love your country. Out of all the places in the world we’ve been it’s one of our favourites: the beautiful beaches, there’s beautiful nature, its deserts, its giant trees, all kinds of wildlife. I love how it’s so easy to get out of the city and explore, and kind of delve into the local territory that’s around them. We spend so much time in the City because the shows are there, but it’s great to get outside. We’re coming back though!

Mark: We have some great airports too! I’m sure you’ll see a few of those!

Sam: (laughs)

Mark: What I most wanted to talk about is the third and latest album ‘Starcatcher’. I’ve been along for the ride from the off. When the first EP came out, I was hooked, and I loved wondering what you would do next. When a new release came out it always challenged me and I loved that aspect, and I loved the fact that I could feel the influences coming through the music, but that you did your own thing with them. I think a lot of criticism that is levelled at young Rock band s these days is pretty harsh and it’s pretty unfair and usually made by critics who don’t particularly like Rock music. We’ve seen the grandness of what the band can do but on ‘Starcatcher’ the stripped back sound that you and Dave Cobb have produced is wonderful – I love it.

Sam: Well, thank you so much, that was great to hear. The whole goal was to really isolate what the band is in its absolute rawest form… and to kind of capture that creative process as it was happening… (at this point we are interrupted by a train) I think the whole point of this album in my head was really to capture how we make music, because what we’ve always done is make an album that is very exact and ‘quote’ perfect. And what I really wanted to do was step backwards, and move forwards by looking back. Like when we were in the garage just playing our instruments and hanging out, maybe drink a beer and create a new idea. And that’s exactly what we did in the studio. Especially because we went in there with so many ideas and in the first session, we were just so relaxed. We were playing ideas that were going to be demos. We’ve always done it like that, played demos then listened back to them and decided what we liked and what we didn’t. All of those songs are like first take, second take maybe a few third take, It was all about us knowing a song that we had put together kind of on the spot, and recording it like that. And of course they stemmed from ideas that maybe came from a year ago, or five years ago. But it was really just us as a band, right? I really think that Dave was trying to create an environment where we were just so laid back, kind of like watching that Beatles documentary that Peter Jackson did. They’re all just slumped back in their chairs, strumming along. That’s where you get the best stuff in its most natural form.

Mark: It’s kind of like it was in the old analogue days, I remember reading quite some time ago that you were a big fan of my favourite bassist James Jamerson the Motown guy.

Sam: Yeah!

Mark: He created a whole genre of music and a lot of the stuff he did was on the spot. Completely spontaneous. “Here’s the song, here’s the music – now play!”

Sam: I’m sure he also said… well maybe he never said it because he was a session musician (laughs) but I’m sure he also thought “Gosh, I wish I could do that again!”

Mark: (laughs) That’s the musician talking!

Sam: (laughs) But when we look at it, we think “No. The way you just played it is perfect!” But you’re right, as an artist you always want to give it another go and play it again. But through this experience of ‘Starcatcher’ I realised there is a stark beauty to the process of being in the moment. Because in the moment I would have said ‘I wish I could do that again’. But sitting back a week later I go “Oh this is the best thing I’ve ever done’

Mark: It just works for me, and sounds so different to what we’ve heard so far. You’re one of the very few bands out there at the minute I feel take me on a journey with them when I play your records. Even from those first EPs. The first LP and especially the wonderful ‘Battle at Garden’s Gate’ all the way to ‘Starcatcher’ which having a few months to really get into now I feel is my favourite so far.

Sam: That’s awesome.

Mark: I know that at the end of the last tour you were playing a few of the new songs from ‘Starcatcher’ and you’ve played a lot so far this year. Are you feeling that growing love for the new material? It must be so hard to create and album as good as this and still have to play the older material? But equally impossible to stop playing the songs that got you to this point?

Sam: Exactly that’s the thing, we have so many songs. We could do crazy stuff with the setlist if we wanted but I just don’t want to do the fans a disservice by not playing ‘Safari Song’ or not playing ‘Highway Tune’. There’s a lot of complexities and movements within a lot of the songs. For example like ‘Fate of the Faithful’ off the new record or ‘Falling Sky’ – there’s so many different movements – but when you play ‘Highway Tune’ that’s just the point when people can lose their minds! Just sit back or jump around – and have a fuck lot of fun!

Mark: That’s the blunt instrument!

Sam: (laughs) That’s right – and that’s also very Rock and Roll! It’s not a complicated song – it’s all energy! And when I see everybody out there just jumping and freaking out and screaming and having a great time. That makes me so happy! So you have to play those songs! It fills my soul!

Mark: I love the fact that you encompass all the things I love about Rock and Roll. There’s that one side you just talked about there: the plain and simple elemental connection with the song: but there’s also levels of complexity and depth as well. I love the dynamics and the time changes that are there to drive the songs not just to be clever. And I love what you do with the lyrics as well: you’re creating an alternate reality for us that we can get as far into as we like. You don’t have to jump in with both feet, but If you want to you can. That for me gives the band a whole new element that you don’t get from a lot of Rock and Roll bands these days.

Sam: Well totally, and I appreciate that very much because you and I really like the same kind of stuff I think Mark. For example AC/DC – straight forward Rock and Roll that punches you right in the face. You just want to Rock out to it. Then we get into Led Zeppelin territory and it’s still Rock and Roll but it’s a bit more ‘thinky’ – there’s different time signatures and changes. Then you get into a Prog band like say ‘Yes’ – the band Yes. And I like all of them but for different reasons. But for Greta Van Fleet we have so many more influences and they go from Big Bill Broonzy to Muddy Waters to Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, John Denver and Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles and it just keeps going and going. And that’s what we kind of grew up listening to and of course all the Motown stuff: The Temptations, Aretha Franklin, The Ronnettes. So you take all of that – and that’s kind of all in here (Sam points to his heart) that’s all instilled in our hearts. So when we write music we try to get those layers of thought, they can be really enticing to start with – maybe just a great guitar rigg… a Guitar lover will love hearing that, and then wait what’s this vocal doing? What’s this complex melody? An Opera singer might like that? And it just keeps going and going. I love Josh’s lyrics – and that’s another element – they’re so profound, so intelligent and so poetic. So there’s a lot in there and there’s a lot open to interpretation. But at the same time if you’re not a lyrics person – you can just enjoy the melody, enjoy the attitude. But like you say Mark, if you want to go deeper, you can go deeper too. That’s a very astute observation.

Mark: Thank you, Sam, and that is what I love about the band. We only have a few minutes left so I’m going to hit you with a couple of big questions we traditional ask whenever we speak to people for the first time. These are the ones we’ll put up on the radio.

Sam: (laughs) Go! Bring it on! What you got!

Mark: This might be a hard one for you based on what you’ve already told me. If you could have been a ‘fly on the wall’ for the creation of any album in the history of Rock and Roll, what would you love to have witnessed being made? Just to see how the magic happened or to unwind that process?

Sam: I think that I almost have it figured out because I devoted almost all of my young adult life to figuring it out! *laughs) But I would have loved to have been there for the making of ‘Déjà vu’.

Mark: The Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young record?

Sam: That’s right. I am such a huge fan of all of those artists: David Crosby, Neil Young, Steven Stills and Graeme Nash, I’ve seen so much footage of their interactions with each other and all of their workings on different projects and what not, but I think that the dynamic is so electric and so interesting, and in a lot of ways it kind of reminds me of ourselves. Like you see them get angry at each other, you see them on stage looking at each other when somebody does something. You can see them battle too: like Steven Stills and Neil Young you see them onstage playing guitar and they give each other the side-eye like “Watch this fucker” and I love that. And I kinda see that with us, especially with Josh and Jake when they try and outdo each other. So that’s my answer for that one.

Mark: That’s a brilliant answer, it’s one of my go-to albums I’ve loved that since I was a kid, I love everything about it down to the embossed sleeve.

Sam: It’s one of the albums that made me say “I want to play music” I just listened to it and thought that I wanted to learn how to write a song and that and the Crosby, Stills and Nash album taught me how to write a song.

Mark: So we have to end with an easy one: what is the meaning of life?

Sam: (laughs) The meaning of life is… well actually I just wrote a book about this (Sam turns to retrieve a book)

Mark: (laughs)

Sam: (laughs) just kidding! Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life has to be it surely?

Mark: It may well be.

Sam: But if I can try to not avoid the question for a minute, I would say that the meaning of life is to spend tie with those that you love, and at no one else’s expense have a great time. I think we really get caught up with ‘work, work, work’ to try and create some dream life, not everyone needs to live in an $8 billion dollar house. It’s the people who pack up a van and go and surf for a living – they got the right idea! It’s about fuelling the self and doing the things that make you feel alive. So I guess that’s the meaning of life to me. Whether it be making the most bitching dish of salsa you’ve ever had or going out and surfing or climbing a mountain or playing music. But for me it’s playing music.

Mark: It could be all of those things. For me part of it is certainly talking to the people who make the music that makes me happy. But it’s different for everyone and it changes all the time. Thank you so much for making the time to talk to The Rockpit Sam, I shall see you in Melbourne.

Sam: I’ll see you there. It was great talking to you Mark. I loved your questions and insights and just your thoughts, I had a really fun time.

Mark: Thank you so much Sam, it’s been a pleasure to talk to you. I think I shall now go and blast the new album.

Sam: Right on. I’ll see you in Melbourne – take care!

Mark: You too Sam, bye.