GRETA VAN FLEET

GRETA VAN FLEET
Biography

Greta Van Fleet is a rock band from Frankenmuth, Michigan. It was formed in 2012 by three brothers, the twins Josh Kiszka (vocals) and Jake Kiszka (guitar) and their younger brother Sam Kiszka (bass, keyboards); a year later Danny Wagner (drums), an old friend of the family, completed the line-up that stands today. Their blues-rooted, classic-rock sound and Josh's high, piercing voice have drawn comparisons with Led Zeppelin from the start.

Their debut single, "Highway Tune" (March 2017), spent five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs chart, and the double EP From the Fires, released the same year, won Best Rock Album at the 61st Grammy Awards in 2019. Three studio albums followed: Anthem of the Peaceful Army (2018), The Battle at Garden's Gate (2021) and Starcatcher (2023). After leaving the stage in September 2024 the band came back in May 2026, and a new album, Palace for the People, was announced for that October.

In Japan their records come out on Universal Music. They played their first Japanese shows in January 2019 and returned for SUMMER SONIC 2024.

From a Frankenmuth garage, 2012 to 2016

Frankenmuth is a town of about 5,000 people known for its Bavarian-style architecture and its Christmas attractions. The Kiszka brothers grew up surrounded by blues, R&B and soul records, and the band took shape in the garage where Jake, in his sophomore year of high school, began playing with a drummer friend; Josh started coming out to sing and Sam to play bass. By the summer of 2012 the three brothers and drummer Kyle Hauck were a nameless amateur outfit working up songs by the likes of Led Zeppelin and Ozzy Osbourne, and it was their first booking, a slot at the town's annual Auto Fest, that made them realise they needed a name. In their covers days they even took Sam, then twelve, to play biker bars.

The name came from Gretna Van Fleet, a local woman: Hauck's grandfather had mentioned that he had to go and cut wood for her, and the band took her name and dropped the "n". When "Greta Van Fleet" went up on the marquee of Frankenmuth's Fischer Hall in early 2013, neighbours started calling to ask whether she was playing a concert, so she and her husband went down to the venue, had it explained to them by the young musicians and stayed for the show. She never objected to them borrowing her name, though she did not think a name like that would last.

About a year after the band formed, the brothers' friend Danny Wagner took over the drums from Hauck; Jake remembers that by the time Danny was asked, he could already play every riff Jake had written. In 2014 their original song "Standing On" was used in a commercial for the 2014 Chevy Equinox from the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers, whose website introduced them as a band of high school students, all under eighteen. Even before their debut they had begun working with three producers, Marlon Young and Herschel Boone, both of whom had worked on Kid Rock's records, and Al Sutton, and it was from the three of them that they learned how to work in a studio.

Two EPs and a breakthrough, 2017

In March 2017 Lava Records' CEO Jason Flom signed them on the spot, and that month they released their debut single, "Highway Tune". It grew from a riff Jake had come up with before the band existed, when he had only just started writing, by plugging a Gibson SG into one of his father's harmonica amps and working it out in about five minutes. The four-song EP Black Smoke Rising followed in April and entered the Billboard 200, and in May they made their touring debut supporting The Struts across the US. In September "Highway Tune" reached No. 1 on the US Active Rock and Mainstream Rock radio charts and on the Canadian Active Rock chart; it held the top of Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs chart for five weeks, and of the Canadian chart for nine straight weeks.

In October they were named Best New Artist at the Loudwire Music Awards, and on 10 November they released the eight-song double EP From the Fires. It adds to the four songs of Black Smoke Rising two originals and one cover each of Sam Cooke and Fairport Convention, recorded that September at Rust Belt Studios outside Detroit. Josh took its title and cover from childhood summers at Yankee Springs, where their families and friends gathered in the woods and sat around a campfire every night, playing music and telling stories. It entered Billboard's Hard Rock Albums chart at No. 1.

Anthem of the Peaceful Army, 2018 to 2019

On 4 March 2018 they played Elton John's Academy Awards party at his personal invitation, and he joined them for "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" and "You're the One". At the end of that month Robert Plant told an interviewer that they were "Led Zeppelin I" and called Josh a beautiful little singer. Asked about the comparisons, Josh had said simply that the band would take it, and Sam called them a very high honour; Josh has also said he did not know who Led Zeppelin were until he was in high school. In April they played Coachella, and they were booked to support the first two shows of Guns N' Roses' 2018 European tour.

Their debut album, Anthem of the Peaceful Army, was produced by the same three men as the EPs, Al Sutton, Marlon Young and Herschel Boone, and recorded at Rust Belt Studios outside Detroit and Blackbird Studios in Nashville. They had meant to use songs written on tour, but started writing again once they were in the studio, and Jake reckoned about half the album was written after recording began. The peaceful army of the title, Josh explained, is not the band but everybody. The lead single, "When the Curtain Falls", came out in July 2018, and on the 26th of that month they made their first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Released on 19 October 2018, the album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 3 and topped both the Top Album Sales and Top Rock Albums charts; Billboard noted that no band had topped Top Rock Albums with a debut album since Atoms for Peace in March 2013. Release day was also Gretna Van Fleet's 88th birthday. In December the band received four nominations for the 61st Grammy Awards, and announced that a dollar from every ticket for its three sold-out shows at Detroit's Fox Theatre at the end of the year would go to the Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation.

On 19 January 2019 they made their Saturday Night Live debut, and on 10 February From the Fires won Best Rock Album at the Grammys. In March "You're the One" became their fourth No. 1 in a row on both the Mainstream Rock and Active Rock charts, and "Safari Song" was named Rock Song of the Year at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. In September "Always There", recorded during the Anthem sessions but left off the album, came out on the soundtrack of Sam Taylor-Johnson's film A Million Little Pieces. According to Universal Music Japan, the touring of this period took in 246 sold-out shows in 13 countries on five continents.

The Battle at Garden's Gate, 2020 to 2022

In October 2020 they released "My Way, Soon" with a video they had shot, edited and directed themselves; in January 2021 it became their fifth No. 1 on both the US Mainstream Rock and Active Rock charts. By then the four had moved from Michigan to Nashville, and their second album, The Battle at Garden's Gate, was recorded in Los Angeles with producer Greg Kurstin. Jake has said they set out to make cinematic rock and roll, and that Kurstin, of the producers they considered, seemed the most interested. "Light My Love" was the first song they cut, as a test of how they worked together. Most of the album was finished before lockdown, and "Caravel" and "The Barbarians", written during the pandemic, were the last songs added.

Jake has explained that travelling the world had shown them poverty and hunger as well as beauty and hope, which made the record a little darker, and that the peaceful army of the first album now finds itself marching to war. Each of the twelve songs was given its own symbol, and the gate on the cover was designed by a creative director from the sketches and pictures the band gathered. A run supporting Metallica in South America, planned for December 2020, was postponed, but the album, released on 16 April 2021, reached No. 7 on the Billboard 200, topped the Top Rock, Hard Rock and Vinyl Albums charts, and reached No. 8 in the UK. On their 2022 world tour they headlined London's Alexandra Palace and sold out Wembley Arena.

Starcatcher, 2023 to 2024

Their third album, Starcatcher, was made by the band with producer Dave Cobb and recorded at the RCA studio in Nashville. Sam spoke of taking their heads back to the garage days and capturing what was happening in the room rather than spending all their time making it perfect, and their Japanese label described it as a record packed with live energy that explores fantasy and reality, light and dark. "Meeting the Master" led the way in April 2023, and the album, released on 21 July on Republic Records, reached No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart, their third album in a row to top it. It was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 66th Grammy Awards in 2024.

They were announced as support for selected dates of Metallica's 2023–2024 world tour, and in August 2024 they were back in Japan for SUMMER SONIC 2024. In September 2024, after a set at the Soundside Music Festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut, they left the stage.

A break, and Palace for the People, 2024 to 2026

With no shows on the calendar, the members pursued other work. Mirador, the band Jake formed with Chris Turpin of Ida Mae, released a new EP, The Gathering At Badon Hill, and Jake appeared in the Bruce Springsteen biopic Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere as a guitarist in a band playing a New Jersey club. Sam and Danny played on The Dreamin' Kind, the 2026 album by the singer-songwriter Langhorne Slim.

In early May 2026 a montage of their music videos signed off "Thanks for the wild ride" set off talk of a split; on 8 May they answered with a clip of a new song being played in the studio and the words "We're back, baby!", and on 27 May they played their comeback show at New York's Bowery Ballroom, a 575-capacity club, with tickets sold only at the box office the day before, for $20 including fees. "Play Your Games", released at the end of that month as their first new song in about three years, was recorded in Tennessee, co-produced with Mike Elizondo, and grew out of an early demo the band dug up while going back through its archive.

On 31 July, the day of a sold-out show at Chicago's Metro, they released "Saw You Stand" and announced a new album, Palace for the People, for 9 October on Republic Records. It was made in the spring of 2026 at their studio in Tennessee, in a stretch deliberately kept free of touring and press, from unfinished demos and half-written songs as well as new material. The title goes back to Alexandra Palace, the London venue they headlined in 2022, which they learned had been built as the Palace of the People, a gathering place for the public; Sam has said this is how they realised the music itself is their palace. The Japanese edition, on SHM-CD, has a release date of 14 October.

Members

Josh Kiszka (vocals) studied drama at school and acted in school and local productions, including musicals, and thinks of himself first as a writer and a teller of stories: he writes the band's lyrics, and also films, directs and edits videos and helps to stage their shows. He loves world music and names Hunter S. Thompson, Andy Kaufman and Stanley Kubrick as his heroes.

Jake Kiszka (guitar) learned by meeting challenges set by his father. Once he could play Bob Seger's "Night Moves" and Jimi Hendrix's "Wild Thing" on a cheap plastic guitar, he was given a red Fender Squier, and each new set of songs he mastered earned him a better guitar. He keeps his live rig minimal, feeling that piling on effects drowns out a guitarist's own voice, and names Hendrix, Elmore James, Pete Townshend and Woody Guthrie among his main influences; he has also said he spent a year intensely studying Jimmy Page's playing.

Sam Kiszka (bass, keyboards) has been teaching himself since the age of twelve, with lessons from his father, who played bass, and a great deal learned from YouTube videos. James Jamerson was a major influence and Bach is his favourite composer, and he has picked up guitar, drums, mandolin, Hammond organ, harmonica and ukulele along the way. On stage he sometimes moves to the organ and plays the bass part with foot pedals.

Danny Wagner (drums) took up the drums when a cousin who was leaving town left his kit behind, and in high school he also studied guitar, French horn and trumpet in the jazz band. He has perfect pitch and names Buddy Rich and John Bonham as major influences. The band's 2026 announcements list him as Daniel Wagner. The original drummer, Kyle Hauck, played with the band from 2012 into the following year.

Japan

Universal Music releases their records in Japan and opened a Japanese official site in May 2017. The debut EP Black Smoke Rising, first released digitally, reached Japan as an imported CD that September and was picked for Tower Records Japan's staff recommendations in its international section for November 2017; the double EP From the Fires was picked as well.

Their first Japanese show was to have been SUMMER SONIC 2018 that August, but the appearance was cancelled. Anthem of the Peaceful Army, released on 19 October 2018, was their Japanese debut, and its Japanese edition added all four songs of Black Smoke Rising as bonus tracks. The video for "When the Curtain Falls" was voted third in the 2018 best video poll of ROCK CITY, a music programme on the Japanese channel tvk.

The first Japanese tour came in January 2019, with three shows: Zepp Osaka Bayside on the 22nd, Zepp Divercity Tokyo on the 24th and Shinkiba STUDIO COAST on the 25th. According to the label's live report, Josh walked on carrying a bouquet of white roses, and the set opened with "Highway Tune" and ran to about eighty minutes. Talking to BARKS during the tour, Sam praised the Japanese sense of rhythm, remarking that their clapping never drifted off the beat, and Jake later remembered the view of Mount Fuji from the bullet train between Tokyo and Osaka and, above all, the respect with which the fans responded to the songs.

The Japanese edition of The Battle at Garden's Gate (2021) added live versions of "Heat Above" and "Stardust Chords", and the band were on the cover of the April 2021 issue of Gekirock Magazine. Starcatcher came out in Japan on 21 July 2023. From the Fires, their Grammy winner, got its first Japanese edition, on SHM-CD, on 7 August 2024, and that month they returned for SUMMER SONIC 2024, some five and a half years after their first visit, playing the AIR STAGE in Osaka on the 17th and the MARINE STAGE at ZOZO Marine Stadium in Chiba on the 18th. The Japanese edition of Palace for the People has a release date of 14 October 2026.

Discography (as registered on this site)

Year	Title	Type
2026	Palace for the People	Studio album
2023	Starcatcher	Studio album
2021	The Battle at Garden's Gate	Studio album
2018	Anthem of the Peaceful Army	Studio album
2017	From the Fires	EP (double EP)

What this site carries is the five records Universal Music Japan has issued on CD in Japan. The debut EP Black Smoke Rising (2017) was never released on its own in Japan; all four of its songs are on From the Fires and are the bonus tracks of the Japanese edition of Anthem of the Peaceful Army, so it has no page of its own. Digital-only releases, such as 2018's Up Next Session, and the four Strange Horizons 2021 live albums, issued on 2LP only, are not here either.

A note on sources

This article draws on the official site of Universal Music Japan, the band's Japanese label (its biography, its news from May 2017 to September 2026 and its product page for the Japanese edition of Palace for the People); GRAMMY.com's artist and category pages and its article of 11 February 2019; the official SUMMER SONIC archive; interviews published by BARKS (18 October 2018 and 11 February 2019) and Gekirock (April 2021); Billboard (10 November 2017, 25 May 2018, 27 July 2018, 2 November 2018, 20 January 2019 and 3 August 2023); Loudwire (14 June 2017, 25 October 2017, 5 March 2018, 24 October 2018, 4 December 2020, 10 May 2026 and 20 May 2026); BLABBERMOUTH.NET (6 September 2017, 16 September 2017, 4 January 2019, 20 May 2026 and 31 July 2026); Rolling Stone (9 January 2018, 6 September 2019 and 9 October 2020); NME (8 April 2023); Ultimate Classic Rock (7 April 2023); uDiscover Music (6 April 2023 and 31 July 2026); Louder (8 May 2026 and 31 July 2026); the Detroit Free Press (31 March 2018 and 27 December 2018); the Traverse City Record-Eagle (14 December 2018); a Fox Theatre announcement by its operator, 313 Presents (14 September 2018); and Chevy Detroit, the website of the Metro Detroit Chevy Dealers (19 March 2014). Chart positions are as those articles report them for the relevant Billboard chart week.