PipemanRadio Interviews Greta Van Fleet at Shaky Knees 2023

0:04 Hey, you love them too, that's sure. I'm come from four s Why for you? Why up America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipeman on W four CWY dot com. West pom Beach is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. This is the Pipeman here on the Adventures Fight Man W four CY Radio and I'm here with Sam and Daniel Greta. Go ahead, Van Fleet, there you go. You you answered it so humble. I just wanted you to do the intro. But it's fine. You're You're finishing my sentences for me. It's great. We have that connection totally, totally. So it's funny too because we were talking before about you know, we were at other festivals together and why my daughter she like loves you guys. So I'm like, I hate to tell you this, but my festival and Greta's gonna be playing and I'm gonna be speaking

1:36 with them later. And she's like, a right, let's bring her out. Yeah she's not here. She's like, I'm so jealous, like huge, huge, huge fan of yours because I brought her to a festival. I'm like, you gotta check out this band. What's your daughter's name, Leah, Leah. Hello Leah. If you're listening, big hello from Greta van Fleets Nicelia. She'll love that. So, man, it's in a while. You guys have been doing a lot lately too, since way back then. So but here you're at shaking knees and you're gonna be playing tonight. Hopefully this rain is gone because I want to go out there and see your set. I didn't book an interviews during your set. Fantastic, We're honored. What what what can I plan for tonight? Like? How cool is it gonna be? The rain jacket? Probably, I was Sam, Yeah, well you it's impossible to tell thus far, but I think it's going to be really exciting. We just have a couple of festival shows in between. We just kind of wrapped up our dreams in Gold Situation, which was this massive, you know, two almost three year long tour of just exorbitants and fire. And you can probably expect some of that, right, yes you can, Yes, I have confirmation from I like exorbitants, some fire, the fire, yeah, the fire. The Pyromaniac So this giant gun blaster that shoots parks out into the audience. Nice giant rain park.

3:01 I'm gonna like knock over everybody in the crowd to grab one up. Please please do That would be a spectacle and I would love that. Oh, I would totally do that thing. Just a lot of rock and roll and a lot of energy, and obviously when you get this many people jammed together, it creates something really magical. So I think, just we're gonna get up there and have a very fun time, and I hope everybody does too. When you first started doing this, did you imagine you would be on this journey now how many years later? I don't want to say no, but I mean if we hadn't at least slightly, yeah, you know, there'll be no driving for us. But to be honest, no, at least at the pace that happened, were given that there was a pandemic through the center of all of that kind of acting as a misfortune to a lot of young musicians, and that was really sad to see, especially to be surrounded by so many of them. But yeah, it's it's been kind of mind blowing to to have the opportunity to play these stages and to have it feel so welcoming and so comfortable at the same time, and yeah, people, I mean they love you. Like I have been doing this a long time. There's not many bands I've seen that have captured like the hearts of so many so quickly. It was like you were like, you're like this phenomenon. Well, I mean, we can't really take a compliment and compliment very well, so we'll just say, you know, thank you, and I love it. But yeah, I think it's something about, you know, a testament to rock and roll in a lot of ways. You know,

4:31 you can credit us a bit, but it's just it's the sound and it's the energy, and it's what happens when people connect with that sound and that energy of rock and roll, you know what I mean, Yeah, totally. What I think too, is it's like bands like you guys are bringing back what rock and roll should be musicianship and fun. And I think that's what you guys bring to the table. We do have a lot of fun to We were quite a lot of fun. Our favorite stuff to listen to is just like these classic old cream live like these live videos and these live recordings, or like the Zeppelin stuff where they're just completely out of control and they can't really hear each other very well, but they're just like riffing on this, on this something they just made up on the spot and totally, you know, that's kind of where we we learned it. And you know, through that created a Gretivan Fleet and the whole a new thing in the twenty first century. Well, and it's like that kind of rock and roll is making a comeback, you know, And I credit bands like you guys for that, because it was kind of getting like stale and rehearsed.

5:43 And when I say rehearse out me in in a good way, it was like this formula, let's plug this formula in like music's and algebraic equation, and then come you guys who are bringing the real music. Absolutely why it was to kind of touch our what he was saying. When we were learning our instruments and becoming a band, we would you would see shows and I don't have any specific bands to name, but you'd see certain shows and you know that that looks somewhat fun. And then to talk about those old who and create like that looks fun, that like what they're doing looks awesome. I want to do that, no doubt, you know, and it is fun wait, that's why we have fun doing it because it is a lot of fun. Well, it's funny because when you were talking about this, I was thinking about one of the most fun experiences I had, which was the nineteen eighty three US Festival, And I'm actually going to be an interviewing Triumph that played there because they're doing some forty year anniversary of the US Festival.

6:35 I'm like, the publicist came to me, I'm like, yeah, you might want me to do the interview. I was there, you know, and what happened was at the end of the night, van Halen was like the headliner of heavy Metal Day. Can you imagine that van Halen the heavy metal headliner? You know, That's what it was like. And at one point, Eddie van Halen, they were about to take on starting ain't talking about love and Eddie van Halen so like looking over at David Lee Roth and like, what are you doing because he wasn't singing, And then all of a sudden, in front of three hundred thousand people, David Lee Roth goes, I fucking forgot the words, and the whole crowd roared like it was the best thing that just happened ever. Yeah, they probably thought it was a massive, massive mistake, but the crowd saw something that nobody ever got to see. So it's a special moment. Oh yeah, I love that shit, Oh totally. And see that's the thing rock and roll should be real, and that that's about as real as it gets right there, because yeah, hey, listen, shit happens on stage and a lot of times we don't notice as the audience. You guys notice because you're your own worst critics were under a microscope. Yeah yeah, you're like, fuck, I fucked that up, and you know, and we're like, yeah, exactly. And that's really what we're trying to go for inadvertently with this new album that we've got coming out sometime soon, probably July. Yes, thank

8:07 you. Somebody knows what's going on. But the whole idea was to get in the studio and capture exactly what's happening live, but in a way that we don't know the songs yet, so we're still writing our parts. So that's that's very much what Starcatcher is. It's this invention in the studio of something completely different and we're just we're just realizing what it is. But at the same time, we've been playing together for so long, and there was so much energy in this studio that it does feel realized. And we did take the time to kind of write the songs as much as we needed to, and then it was just like performance from there. So we tried not to overthink it and it was really exciting, and we worked with Dave Cobb, who absolutely he trigged us into do it, making it really raw because we went in for a couple of days and he's and he's like, all right, listen in with the intention of getting to know him right exactly a demo quote air quotes, demo out some material, and we were playing some stuff that we had and we came back a few weeks later to record more and he already had the like the basic tracks, like all all done right.

9:15 They were recording the entire time, and we came in. You know, we had a couple of months to sit on these songs and we wrote out parts and we were ready to go in and he's like, yo, four of them are already tracked. Wow. I love that it was very loose. That's so cool though, because they're catching the real you, because you think that you're just like demoing it, but they're catching the real you, and it's like no stress, no nervousness, no you know, worry about Oh, it has to be just like this. You're just jamming right. And to your point, there is no filter between the authenticity of us sitting in a room messing around, creating something, having a lot of fun with all that energy we have these young angsty kids and getting it on a record. So it's really fun, I mean, and that's something I really took away from watching Get Back. It was really exciting, but it was so it was so familiar. It was so familiar looking at like the dynamics between the artists in the room. It's like, Okay, I know how he would feel in that moment, and but they're also casual about it.

10:24 And I think that's up there when in Dave's brain trying to capture the thing. So it was interesting and that's what makes them brilliant is that like you had no clue what was going on, but he knew he was making magic exactly. Absolutely. The truth is you have to record as you're writing the song, because as soon as it's written, you have nothing to work for anymore. That's a good point third take, you lost it, you lost the energy. It takes one and two. Well, not only that, it's like, Okay, when I do voiceovers for commercials, let me do it the first time, because after the first take it'll take thirty takes. Like I always do it the first time, and then if you make me do it again, then I'm thinking too much. Sure you may get one that's technically accurate, but is it authentic? No, and you're overthinking.

11:11 So you're like damn, and people will hear it and they'll just turn off their system. They're like, da, this is contrived. I'm not gonna buy that. And I find that a lot with music nowadays. For somebody like me that's been listening to music forever, is like, sometimes I listen to some of this music or see these bands, I'm like, you're just plugging in an algebraic equation. That's all you're doing, Like, and that's not what it should be about. That's not what rock and roll will, what's ever about? Bingo, You're exactly right there you go, and so that's where you guys. I love you guys for bringing the real back to rock and roll. We appreciate that immense Bosh because we can't take a compliment very well. Hey, that's okay, but you know what, I gotta say, this album's probably gonna be your best album yet because of that.

12:05 And I also think kind of because of COVID, because if we're gonna take a positive at COVID, and you guys probably experienced this. Artists like you got to jump off the hamster wheel of the non stop to actually create. Like it's so hard when you're going from gig the gig the gig and try to create something. Then you have a deadline and it's like you finished the album, but it's not really what you wanted, but you got a deadline. Whereas yet all the time in the world to really just be authentically who you are, I think a lot of artists found out the direction they want to go that they weren't thinking about till then. Yeah, a whole lot of time to experiments and not only just artistically frame things in but also just after just growing as a person and being able to take stock and thinking like, oh, I am alive and I have a life. I'm not just this thing. I'm not just this member of this band, you know, and there's more going on than that, so it was also kind of self discovery, which is kind of interesting. And yeah, that's in that way.

13:13 We definitely grew through through COVID, and the self discovery comes because all the noise and chatter was gone and you got to be inside your own head instead of other people's heads. But we're right back. I love it. So let's tell everybody they should know. But let's tell them how they connect you on socials on the web and how they get the new album went drops in July. Well, just do a cartwheel and go on the internet and I'm sure you'll see ye there you go. I love it. So any final words you want to leave our listeners with, Well, I mean here we are Shaky Knees, right, yeah, and we're gonna have a lot of fun out there, and you're gonna be out there. Won't be there catching the parka yeah, yeah, yeah, knocking people over. I might.

13:58 I might start mosh pitch to get the parker. I know you have like a six foot lateral. I know you do. I love it. So yeah, thanks for being here at Shaking Knees and being such incredible musicians, and thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. Thank you for having us back again. Oh always, always a pleasure. Hello. This is Sam and this is Danny and we're great end fleets and you're listening to the pipe Man on W four c Y radio. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four CUI radio.