We Liked Greta Van Fleet Better When They Were Called Wolfmother!

In a weird coincidence, I moved back to my home state of Michigan right around the time Greta Van Fleet formed in Frankenmuth, Michigan and almost immediately began hearing hype about a regional band that "had the goods".

A friend at a well-respected indie label out in L.A. called me out of the blue not long after and asked that I go check the band out, as he was one of many indie labels interested in signing the band.

Only weeks earlier, the band had recorded their first three songs; one of which was "Highway Tune", which, some five years later, finally found its way to the top of the Billboard "Active Rock" radio chart.

This accomplishment was all the fuel the hipsters needed to begin hyping the band to the hilt, building anticipation for the band's debut full-length album, Anthem Of The Peaceful Army, which hit record stores last week.

Within minutes of exiting my first Greta Van Fleet show in Grand Rapids, MI back in 2013, my indie label friend called me: "So what'd you think?"

I wanted to tell him that what I had seen were the forgettable ramblings of what I presumed was a group of teenage poseurs, but, instead said, "They need a little work".

Weeks later, one of the songs I'd heard that night - "Standing On"- began airing in a regional Chevy commercial. Ah, ok, I thought, the fix is in.

Why it took another five years for this ambitious band to finally be "ready for prime-time" one can only guess, but it does stand to reason that any band given five years to develop would've gotten substantially better at their craft and no longer so reliant on nakedly derivative songs.

Sadly, in the case of Greta Van Fleet, that is not the case.

Having spent a few days with their new album, what I hear is a young band with all the right influences to be the hit of the high school parking lot, but little of the muscle and swing that their heroes had in spades.

That hasn't stopped the hipster music press from embracing the band with the same mindless ferocity that elevated the Strokes to Godlike status before they even had a U.S. record deal. One is led to believe that, at the heart of the hype isn't so much a band's musical promise, but they're good looks, which, in the case of Greta Van Fleet, is undeniable.

But this is about the music and, in the case of the band's first album, one doesn't get the feeling that a great new band has arrived to show us that rock ain't dead, but, rather, a mediocre band has arrived to play dress-up to the sounds of their favorite '70s bands until the next real band shows up.

Thing is, I want to love this band. Hell, I want to love any band that has their feet rooted firmly in the late '60s through mid '70s because that was, indeed, a golden age of rock, but why the need to elevate this band when there are at least a handful of worthier bands already peddling in the past?



Have we forgotten about the Darkness, who are still around?

Hell, even Kingdom Come did a more convincing job of recapturing the spirit of Led Zep and they got absolutely savaged for doing so. After hearing Greta Van Fleet, I almost want to write Kingdom Come a letter of apology.

I also want to know what those who've been raving about the band failed to hear on the latest Wolfmother album, Happy Wolfmother's Day.

Oh, right. They haven't heard it nor do they remember all of the hype surrounding that band's self-title 2006 debut that, while deemed "derivative to a fault" back in the day sounds absolutely majestic compared to Greta's load of lukewarm lutefisk.

Here, check for yourself.