Sunday Conversation: Greta Van Fleet On Their New Album, ‘Starcatcher’

For their third full studio album, Starcatcher (released this past Friday, July 21), Grammy-winning rock band Greta Van Fleet knew they wanted to mix things up. So the band headed to Nashville and Savannah, Georgia to record with super producer Dave Cobb (Slash, Brandi Carlile, Chris Stapleton).

The result is a superb collection that feels like the best moments of the band’s first two albums, but also finds them moving into a rawer, more improvised sound. In other words, perfect for their upcoming arena tour.

I spoke with lead vocalist Josh Kiszka and bassist Sam Kiszka about the making of the record, what the Republic of Greta Van Fleet is like, how the south influenced the new album and much more.

Steve Baltin: Are there subtle Dave Cobb influences that you hear when you guys go back in there or little Nashville things that you hear that are different than you might have heard otherwise?

Sam Kiszka: I think Dave’s entire style of production really lends itself to just full out creativity. And he actually uses a lot of techniques that they utilized in the ’70s, ’60s for the Beatles.

Josh Kiszka: I think more sonically in the production, that’s where I hear more of Dave’s influence on the record. Not so much musically but more sonically. And you can speak more on that.

Sam: Right. I think just the way that he actually captured the album is the way that we’ve always wanted to hear ourselves because it’s the way that we hear like the Rolling Stones or the Beatles or Led Zeppelin but with modern technology. So we’re using pretty much ancient recording techniques but also with modern technology and getting just really great s**t. So it’s utilizing the technology of today.

Josh: We feel that it’s the best sounding record we’ve made. We’re really satisfied, right?

Sam: We also used a lot of the room sound from historic air quotes, RCA Studio A. Dolly Parton cut a bunch of stuff there and Chet Atkins and all these very revered players, artists, all kinds of stuff. So using the sound of that room on the record, what I feel is very important to the sonic quality of what’s going on.

Baltin: I got to talk to Slash when he worked with Dave and he and I talked about the fact that especially for him who is one of the quintessential LA musicians, going to Nashville brings up all these different influences. And so for you guys just being in that environment, do you feel these different things? So do you feel the ghost when you’re in RCA and all of a sudden you start wanting to twang like Chet Atkins?

Josh: We kind of do. There is some unexplainable energy that runs through the building, whether that is something that literally or physically is happening or if it’s something that you’ve trained your brain to sort of acknowledge but something in there feels special and it is almost a bit eerie when you’re by yourself wandering the hallways of that building. You get a little bit apprehensive.

Sam: There’s one light in the corner that you are not supposed to turn off because if you turn it off, Chet will become upset. But yes, it is very blessed and haunted in many ways. And of course it’s on Music Row, it’s like downtown Nashville, so they could have just as easily cut the whole place down and made it apartments and made a f**k load of money but it’s still there.

Josh: Well, it does almost a bit of what a church might achieve. It has some hallowed space. It feels like a chapel or something in a way. And it was interesting that we were recording there with Dave when Dave was overseeing or curating that space. He was entrusted with it by the owner who bought it, saved it from decimation. And since Dave is up and relocated back to Savannah, Georgia where he was born and we recorded a lot of the vocals in Savannah, Georgia, actually.

Sam: And Steve, when you, Daniel and myself all spoke at the All Within My Hands function, I said we were recording in Savannah and this was months and months ago, obviously. And you said, “Oh, the only guy I know that records in Savannah is Dave Cobb.” And I was like, “Okay, well, cover’s blown, now’s a good time to spill the beans. We’re recording with Dave Cobb.” And it was that long ago but you knew. And it was such an inspiring place to be. Did you feel like Savannah was a great place for you to write a lot of the lyrics?

Josh: Yeah, incredibly inspiring. It is a another very energetic place to be, especially when you’re walking around at night and you fall into a bar somewhere and then you’ve got a bunch of art students from like SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and you have deeper conversations about more interesting things than some shallow conversation you might have in some s**t dive somewhere else. But the beach was there and we fell in love with it in a lot of ways. Something very charming about it. And the history there is so rich. And we were actually looking for a place to buy together to actually go and write and record and to be in Savannah. And so I suppose it inspired all of us. It had a lot of influence and I think it shaped a bit of the records, certainly lyrically and vocally.

Baltin: I’m a big believer in the fact that good writing is subconscious. So when you go back now and listen to this, do you hear the ghosts?

Sam: I just remember Jake, Daniel and I were going back and forth from Dave’s studio back to the place we were staying. And every time we were coming back, we always saw Josh sitting on this third storey balcony obscured by Spanish moss, just writing in his journal.

Josh: David said, “Why don’t you go over to this graveyard or that graveyard to write?” [laughter] And I thought, “Okay, well that’s macabre but I’ll give that a shot.” And so I would take walks, an hour here or there just to go sit in a graveyard somewhere and soak up the energy and let the environment drive the subconscious to, with very little parameters, arrive on a concept or an idea and communicate that. So I think in a lot of ways, I am hearing things now iIn the thematic aspects of the lyrics, what they’re getting at, that I didn’t when we were writing it or recording it. And so yeah, I think that probably did have some influence just like it probably did on a lot of the groups that have probably recorded in and around those parts.

Baltin: What were some of those moments that surprise you most when you go back and listen to this?

Josh: A lot of the vocal melodies formed very organically. I think ultimately because our process of play around this record was progress. So there’s this idea that we were just exploring or we were having an adventure or we were just allowing ourselves to go somewhere really far out, knowing we can always pull back. And so it was a lot of play that happened and a lot of discovering inside of there. So a lot of the vocal melody writing sort of changed very much from what the original conception was to the recording the vocal on the spot..

Sam: A lot of that really insane s**t was just unbridled improv. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think “Waited All Your Life.” that insane vocal thing was like an improv. You just made that up on the spot, is that right?

Josh: Yeah, most of it.

Sam: So if you hear something like, “Oh, wow, that is really earnest and impactful.” It was just bred through the past seven or eight years of playing just every night and really being in tune and understanding your instrument.

Josh: Well and also, I mean, not that you couldn’t discern this but a very odd track on the record, “Runway Blues,” was written immediately in one jam. Even the lyrics and the vocal and the instrumentation, it was just one big improvisation that just happened to fall from the sky, we caught it and that was just it and then it made the record. It took me a little convincing ’cause I thought of it as something that was a little bit silly almost.

Sam: Yes, we are somewhat democratic in The Republic of Greta Van Fleet. So, I think the three of us overpowered Josh, or at least convinced him, at the very least, to put half of the song on the record.

Baltin: I love the term you use, the Republic of Greta Van Fleet. So what would be the official song of the Republic of Greta Van Fleet?

Sam: I think if it was one of our tracks, it might be “Anthem” because it is kind of an anthem in a way. And then, I think if it was to be something else, maybe” Lay Down,” by Melanie Safka, “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).”

Baltin: And give me the cabinet. Who’s president, who’s vice president, who’s secretary of state of the republic?

Josh: I am president, vice president, secretary…

Sam: I think Daniel, Josh and I are always coming up with insane s**t and Jake is the one that says yay or nay. If it’s too crazy, then he’ll say, “No, we’re not doing this.” We’re like, “But Jake, come on, this s**t’s f**king cool.” So then there’s always a lot of negotiation, let’s say. We’re trying to make everybody happy. If it doesn’t make everybody happy, then it doesn’t go on the record.

Baltin: Who plays the inauguration?

Sam: The Wolf People.

Josh: We would invite Hozier, Michael Kiwanuka…

Sam: Florence and the Machine.

Josh: Melanie Safka is also there. First Aid Kit, The Fleet Foxes.

Sam: Jade Bird. The Rival Sons have been a really wonderful modern influence for a long time. So yeah there’s a lot of really fantastic bands. It’s just that the music industry is so different. It used to be like there are these enormous people, like bigger than life and now there’s so many people, there’s so many bands, there’s so many things going on. And there’s a lot of great stuff going on. You just have to dig for it a little bit more. ‘Cause it’s not in the forefront. It’s not on pop radio.

Baltin: The last time I listened to Starcatcher was tracks one through five, which is “Fate of the Faithful” through “Runway Blues” and then listened to “Indigo Streak” through “Farewell For Now.” So I actually got to listen to it like in a vinyl format unintentionally. It felt a little bit like a side A and a side B. Do you guys feel that on there?

Sam: Yes, and we spend enormously way too much time on sequencing our albums. But this one actually kind of really feels and intentionally so, like you are supposed to flip the vinyl. Even if you don’t actually physically go do it, it still feels like that ’cause you have “Runway Blues” that kind of fades out and then there’s this insane sound that happens on “Indigo Streak” that is like a part two. This is like you’re queuing up Kill Bill part two and you’re like, “Oh, s**t.”

Josh: And they should feel like there’s some kind of intended intermission.

Baltin: What do you take from it when you hear it as a complete album?

Josh: I think it really captures the essence of the moment and the time. And the same thing goes with the previous record. It really captures us at that moment. And I think lyrically it probably feels very congruent to you maybe. Like it all exists within this world, not only the influences that are coming in this three, four-month period but it really captures Greta Van Fleet and it really captures everything that’s going on in that moment.

Sam: And to me, what’s so surprising in retrospect when I’m listening to the record is the sheer density of the thing or the depth or the size of the scale of the record. Because it’s hard to conceptualize like a fully formed piece when you’re working at it day to day, chunk per chunk and you’re conceptualizing it as you go and you might be apprehensive about making this decision or that decision but inevitably a decision has to be made. And so when it comes together, it’s like some script sitting on a shelf to a fully formed movie that you get to see in cinema. It like all of a sudden becomes this bigger, fuller, tapestry of things. So that’s really cool to be able to all of a sudden realize, “Oh wow,” this was actually very intentional but it’s easy to get lost in the fog of the process of creating it.

Baltin: So are there little moments that you look back on now that really shaped this record?

Josh: A lot of it was trusting and letting go, which I think is always the hardest damn thing to do as a human or as an artist, to sort of allow things to happen to you and to trust the process. But I think in a lot of ways, on both the scale of the album and the scale of the songs as it were, there are decisions that were formative that were made that changed the actual work or shaped the actual work to be what it is now. And I think choosing to work with Dave was a big deal because we’d prospected a a couple other producers and it just didn’t seem that any of them would make sense to us. And eventually we kind of came back to Dave and really got in the studio and tried something out and it just took off automatically. There was no second thought about it. And it was very obvious at that point that he was the one to make this particular record.

Josh: We wanted to try something really unpredictable. And we kind of worked with some other people but it wasn’t the thing that we were looking for. So when we actually got in the studio with Dave, working with Dave felt somewhat like obvious, like “Yeah, of course Dave’s the person to work with.”

Sam: It was the least preconceived record that we’ve ever done. We would walk in and iyou were just writing and recording as you went along on the spot. And then the process it was moving rather quickly. And so I think that was the idea with this, that we wanted to go in and capture something that was just kind of falling out of the sky. You just kind of turn on the subconscious and let something come.