Related Tags
Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka thinks that modern rock bands aren’t experimental enough: “There’s so much tunnel vision in contemporary rock records”
The guitarist opens up about Mirador’s debut and why he thinks looking further backward may be the way for rock to move forward.
Credit: Per Ole Hagen/Redferns
Want more news stories from Guitar.com? Follow us on Google News.
Rock may not be dying just yet, but Jake Kiszka believes that rock as a genre isn’t pushing itself nearly hard enough.
In a new interview with MetalTalk, the Greta Van Fleet guitarist – who’s lately been busy with his side project Mirador, formed alongside Chris Turpin (formerly of Ida Mae) and drummer Marky Lennon – discusses the band’s self-titled debut album and shares why looking further backward may be the key to pushing rock music forward.
Beyond the blues, Mirador’s music, Kiszka explains, is steeped in folklore and ancient narrative traditions. The trio found themselves drawn to old ballads and myths, using those stories as a foundation while ‘re-adapting’ them for their songs.
For Kiszka, that mix of tradition and reinvention isn’t just central to Mirador – it’s something he believes rock music at large could benefit from.
“There’s so much tunnel vision in contemporary rock records,” he says. “Some of the philosophy in what rock ‘n’ roll could or should be for our generation. We were contemplating the future of rock ‘n’ roll, but what we did was the complete opposite: looking back, perhaps even further back, through the threads of influence that were the lineage of rock ‘n’ roll’s invention.”
“We went back into the blues and folk, but also further into Native American music, African tribal music, Sufi music of India, Eastern European music, and Nordic, Celtic, and Hungarian folk music,” Kiszka adds.
That spirit of exploration has continued on the road, where Mirador’s songs have morphed and reshaped themselves almost nightly.
“The amount of evolution these songs have taken is crazy,” says Kiszka. “The majority of the record was written on two acoustic guitars in an old Victorian house in East Nashville.”
“We played versions of the songs before recording them, then recorded them, and they changed again. Then we constructed the headlining set, and they changed for the fourth time – and then they change every night. It’s a shape-shifting thing as we go along.”