Former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Tracii Guns called Greta Van Fleet a ‘great success story’ for rock that’s good for the genre in a new interview, but that people should be careful about comparisons. Slash recently made bold Greta Van Fleet comments after some backlash.
Guns told AL, “I think first of all the singer sounds more like Geddy Lee than Robert Plant. It’s difficult when you go into comparing things to Led Zeppelin because Led Zeppelin’s mastery of music and that chemistry is very special. So, you can say a lot of great things about Greta Van Fleet, but they in no shape or form rival or compare to the use of Eastern influence and folk music of Led Zeppelin. Beyond that, they’re (Greta Van Fleet) a really cool band, there’s lots of room for growth.
And let’s face it Robert Plant and Jimmy Page up front, maybe Axl and Slash, maybe David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen, that’s some pretty sacred territory when you’re trying to make comparisons. Like, ‘Hey you should come see this band Greta Van Fleet they’re like Led Zeppelin’ and then you go and – and I get the maple drums, I get the cool shirts and the singer sings in a high falsetto – but there’s nowhere near the danger of ‘these guys are going to beat my ass after they f— my girlfriend.’ And Led Zeppelin had that.
And that’s the thing about rock & roll, it’s psychological, it’s about the stories, it’s about things that are attractive. The things Greta Van Fleet has going for them, they’re good looking guys, they sound cool, they’ve got a rough, vintage-y sound. But there’s another band out there called The Darbies that is even a little bit younger than Greta Van Fleet and these guys will scare they s— out of you.”
Slash said in December regarding Greta Van Fleet, “I’m interested to see where it goes the next few years, because there’s a lot of really hungry young rock and roll bands getting together right now that I’m aware of. Obviously Greta Van Fleet have done amazingly well and made everybody perk up and go, ‘Oh wow.’ Now there’s people looking for young teenage rock and roll bands to sign. It’s interesting, if you watch everything and as it develops in real time, it’s really boring. Shit takes what seems like forever, but if you’re not paying attention, all of a sudden you’ll turn around and go something just changed. It’s a constant state of ebbs and flows with rock and roll in this business.”
