Greta Van Fleet are having their moment right now, still riding out the popularity of their debut album Anthem of the Peaceful Army, nabbing four Grammy nominations, and coming off a debut appearance on Saturday Night Live. As can be expected from a newly popular band of youngsters, the members of GVF are marking their success in a classic rock and roll fashion: by offering their unprompted opinions of other bands in interviews.
Speaking recently with HEAVY (via Alternative Nation), bassist Sam Kiszka gave his take on The Black Keys. Specifically, he outlined the stakes that are at play whenever Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney release the follow-up to 2014’s Turn Blue: “They haven’t done a record in a long time, [so] at this point it’s going to decide whether they are some band, or a very serious staple rock band that shows and represents the rock and roll of the early 21st century.”
Drawing a comparison between that anticipated record and the pressure on GVF’s own new album planned for this year, Kiszka shared, “I think that if you think about it too much, then it becomes unnatural, and it’s very easy to be caught up in that. So, yeah, I think we’re just gonna do what we do, and we’re gonna make the music that we wanna hear, and we’re gonna grow musically.” Seems like a bit of a double standard, but so it goes with rock and roll.
Kiszka also revealed in the interview that he expects GVF Album 2 to be “very worldly.” As he described it, “Touring the world — seeing Japan, seeing Australia — and having all these new experiences, in a way, those sounds of…the colors of our mind get put into the record like that. This only skyrockets our creativity, because we get to see so many beautiful things that we’ve never seen before.”
The members of The Black Keys have been keeping busy even if they haven’t released music from their primary project. Carney got engaged to Michelle Branch and became a father… while also finding time to work on Branch’s first studio album in 14 years. He also notably produced a track on the latest album from Karen Elson, the ex-wife of The Black Keys’ longtime rival Jack White. Meanwhile, Auerbach produced Cage The Elephant’s Tell Me I’m Pretty and dropped new albums as The Arcs and under his own name.
