Joe Satriani has defended GRETA VAN FLEET over accusations that the Michigan rockers have ripped off LED ZEPPELIN.
During a recent interview with Classic Rock, Joe offered his opinion of the young act.
“Last year, everyone was asking me about Greta Van Fleet. And wherever people ask me about that, it was a controversial question or something like that.
“I would just remember always thinking, ‘This sounds so great,’ like, I’m not having a negative reaction at any point, the band sounds great; the recording sounds good, everyone is singing and playing great, sounds like they like what they’re doing – there’s nothing to complain about.
“And then when they would bring up, ‘Well, they’re just copying this.’ I thought to myself, ‘If you look at, let’s say, the age of the guys in Led Zeppelin and the age of the guys in Greta Van Fleet, there’s such a huge gap in age there.’
“And then you look back to Led Zeppelin, they were copying blues artists, and I mean really copying them, big time, and that age gap was teeny. They’re taking music, I love what they did, without casting aspersion, I’m saying they are paying homage to artists that are just 10 years older than they [Led Zeppelin] are, that came just a little bit before.
“Now, we’re talking about Greta Van Fleet here, I mean, the difference is that Led Zeppelin is like their grandparents’ age. If somebody was criticizing me in a high school band if I was playing music from the ’40s or something like that – musicians are allowed to dip back a little bit, right, and expand upon it.
“So I never ascribe to any negativity about that. I just think they’re a great band, I think we should all let them grow. I mean, can you imagine where they are going to go, fourth, fifth album? It’ll be amazing.”
Satriani‘s latest comments echo those he made two years ago when he told NJArts.net:
“I’ve been listening to this young band, GRETA VAN FLEET, and I’m really enjoying that exuberance that I’m hearing. When I first heard them, I sent their album to all my friends that were in my high-school band. We’re still good friends and we stay in touch and, I swear, that’s what we were trying to do when we were 15 years old.We were just trying to be like LED ZEPPELIN, BLACK SABBATH and THE [ROLLING] STONES, but these guys are really good at it. [Laughs] They have that same kind of… it just sounds like they love music and they love what they’re doing, and yeah, I’ve been listening to that quite a bit.”