4 Years Since Greta Van Fleet Released Their Debut Single, Highway Tune. What Are They Up To Now?

Photo courtesy of Greta Van Fleet's YouTube channel.

Four years on since the four piece, from Frankenmuth, Michigan released their first official single, Highway Tune, Greta Van Fleet have accomplished a lot in such a small amount of time. Although they formed in 2012, they shot to fame in 2017 and have only being going up since then. Being a member of their fan club myself, since late 2017, I am very proud of how far they have come and everything that they have accomplished so far. As they're new album, The Battle At Gardens Gate, is set to be released on 16th April, lets look back at the last four years that have catapulted the four piece into the limelight, and gained them so many fans around the world, as well as being one of the best modern rock n roll bands around at the moment, in my opinion of course...

Highway Tune was released on 31st March 2017, following on from this, the music video for this song was then released 18th April 2017. The music video shows the band jamming out to the song in what looks like an abandoned building. This was their first music video and although it was quite a basic video, it was a great introduction to the band.

Following on from Highway Tune, Greta Van Fleet then released a short ep on 21st April 2017 named Black Smoke Rising, this ep included Highway Tune, Safari Song, Flower Power, and Black Smoke Rising. These four tracks also appear on their double ep From The Fires.

Greta Van Fleet's double ep, From The Fires, was released on 10th November 2017. Although most of the fans see this as being their first album, the band say that it is a double ep because it's not a complete body of work. I myself still class From The Fires as an album though if I'm being honest.

Although the band were already touring small venues for a few years, once their double ep was released, they began to tour more regularly, not just in different states, but worldwide. Gaining more and more fans from around the world. Their online fanbase had grown at this point as well, where fans from around the world we're joining together to promote and enjoy this bands music.

Download Festival in Donnington 2018 was the first time that I saw Greta Van Fleet live, their set was short, and they were on in the morning, which usually doesn't bring much of a crowd in. It was around 11:45am, they hadn't even had a full album out at that point, and they only played four song, Highway Tune, Edge of Darkness, Black Smoke Rising, and Safari Song, however, the field was packed full of people, and the busiest I had ever seen it at that time of day. You could see that the crowd saw something in them and appreciated them as soon as they came on stage. Since then I have seen them live six times around England, and they just kept getting better at each show. Gvf are definitely a band that I recommend people to go and see live, so fun and energetic, and their fans are easy to get along with when you're waiting in line for hours before. I've made so many friends from around the world because of this band, their music, and their message. Singer Josh Kiszka said in a recent interview with Loudwire that they are "all about getting out, and being with people, and playing live shows... A lot of what Greta Van Fleet is, it's a live band and a live experience".

In 2018, Greta Van Fleet released their debut album Anthem of The Peaceful Army on October 19th. This was their first full length album and didn't disappoint. Every single song on this album is amazing in its own way, and they're even better live. It's hard to pick favourites, when every song is so good, but my top picks are Age of Man, which is one of my favourite songs by them ever, Watching Over, and Brave New World, but they're all just so amazing. The New Day is so underrated (just saying).

In 2019, after constantly touring around the world, and still in the middle of their tour, The Grammy's announced that Greta Van Fleet were nominated for not one, not two, but three Grammy awards. Best rock album for From The Fires (even though it was a double ep), best rock performance with Highway Tune, and best new artist. They ended up winning best rock album, and are now a Grammy award winning band, as well as other awards that they have won in the past few years.

Greta Van Fleet pictured before the Grammy awards show.

Photo credit: Nicole Schneider @nschneiderstyle on Instagram.

Although 2020 was a very hard year with the pandemic, it gave Greta Van Fleet more time to work on their up and coming album, The Battle At Gardens Gate, and the band even said that because of the time that they've had off, they've created two extra songs for the album, making the album longer for us to enjoy. They've also been able to create their own music videos, which shows off their creativity and ability in film making, as we know that they all enjoy film, but especially singer Josh who says that his first passion was and is film.

We've already heard four songs from the newest album which are My Way, Soon, Age of Machine, Heat Above, and Broken Bells. In my opinion they are all great and some of their best work, you can hear their musical growth from the first eps and their first album, and they are on a different level at the moment. My personal favourite so far is Broken Bells. I can't get enough of the four singles, they're on repeat daily, but I am very much looking forward to listening to the album all the way through from start to finish. Guitarist Jake Kiszka said in the recent Loudwire interview that the album "plays out very much like a film would be or a book was written" Jake also says "I think Josh had suggested The Battle at Garden's Gate because I think the title certainly fit within the stories that we're telling, and the sort of architecture of the album overall." We also found out that the last song on the album named The Weight of Dreams is actually a reworked version of a cover that they perform at their concerts which was originally Black Flag Exposition, I'm very excited for this because I absolutely love that song and I'm excited to see how they have reworked it and changed the lyrics to their own. Black Flag Exposition is a fan favourite for sure. I've spoken to a couple of people that were lucky enough to listen to the album early, for their jobs, and they've all said how phenomenal it is, saying that it's their best work yet, and one person even told me that Tears of Rain will make me cry, so I better get the tissues out.

The Battle At Gardens Gate is set to be released on 16th April 2021. Here is the full track list that has already been released by the band.

Heat Above
My Way, Soon
Broken Bells
Built By Nations
Age of Machine
Tears of Rain
Stardust Chords
Light My Love
Caravel
The Barbarians
Trip The Light Fantastic
The Weight of Dreams

Also with the new album, they have been doing a lot more promotion than they have done in the past. They have brought out more music videos for this album, for three out of four of the singles so far (still no Broken Bells music video), and they even brought out three live performances of the singles. They mentioned in recent interviews that one of the main reasons for this is because they have had a lot more spare time, due to the pandemic, therefore they have had more time to plan and create the music videos themselves, and in my opinion, you can tell because of how much more creative their music videos have been for this era. When you watch the Highway Tune and When The Curtain Falls music videos, compared to the Age of Machine and Heat Above music videos, you can see a massive difference, and I think that they should always have more creative control in their music videos now, because they have improved so much more creatively. Age of Machine is similar to a short film and from the stills that we have seen of Broken Bells, it looks like that will be an epic short film too. For this era, they have also been bringing out limited edition merchandise for all four of the singles so far (which is very bad for my wallet, thanks boys), and they have also made separate Instagram accounts for each single so far, which started out being private and secret, for fans to try find and figure out. They were also clever in only accepting a certain amount of fans into the accounts until the single had been released, and then they un-privated the accounts. They only accepted the same amount of followers as the time length of the song, when the accounts were private, before the songs and videos were released.

Watch their most recent music videos and live performances, for their new album, below:

My Way, Soon music video:

My Way, Soon on The Stephen Colbert Show:

Age of Machine music video:

Age of Machine live performance:

Heat Above music video:

Heat Above live performance:

Greta Van Fleet's music is available to stream on all music platforms and if you still like to listen to physical copies as well, like me, their music is also available in CD form and vinyl records. They have quite a lot of limited edition coloured vinyl for The Battle At Gardens Gate.

Like what you hear? Follow Greta Van Fleet on social media to get the latest information from them:

Twitter - @gretavanfleet & @jakekiszka

Instagram - @gretavanfleet @josh_gvf @jake_gvf @danny_gvf @sammy_gvf @thebattleatgardensgate @mywaysoon @heat.above @age.of.machine @brokenbells_gvf

Also become a member of the peaceful army here - The Peaceful Army joining up to the peaceful army gives you more access to the latest news, and they also send fans things in the mail. I got a letter in the mail from them, just by joining up, so you could too if you become a member of the peaceful army. What are you waiting for?