THE BEAST

British musician and progressive rock pioneer Steven Wilson has blasted GRETA VAN FLEET , calling the Michigan rockers "a terrible band" that is nothing more than a "third-rate impersonation of LED ZEPPELIN ."

Despite the fact that GRETA VAN FLEET has managed to sell out shows all over the world, the four-piece has been criticized for channeling a sound uncannily similar to LED ZEPPELIN , with some music fans slamming singer Josh Kiszka for allegedly copy-and-pasting Robert Plant 's vocal style.

During a recent interview with Denmark's "myROCK" podcast, Wilson brought up GRETA VAN FLEET as part of a general commentary on the current state of the music business.

"You know that terrible band GRETA VAN FLEET ," Wilson said (hear audio around 31:50 mark below). "Do you know that band? I think they're absolutely abysmal. I think they're terrible. I think it's a joke. But they're an example of a band, because they're pretty young boys, they look like a boy band, they play this really piss-poor, third-rate impersonation of LED ZEPPELIN . But they're pretty and they've had all the help of the media, the commercial machine behind them, and they've been able to reach a massive audience almost overnight by playing third-rate music. And I don't believe for one minute that anyone will even remember who they are in 10 years. Now, I might be wrong — maybe they'll prove me wrong. Maybe they'll suddenly develop into a good band and make a good record. But the point is, at the moment, they're not. They're like a boy-band version of LED ZEPPELIN ."

Wilson went on to say that he understands why GRETA VAN FLEET has managed to become such a sensation in a relatively short period of time while he has had to "struggle" for more than 25 years to get to where he is.

"I'm not naïve," he said. "I understand that a lot of the industry is based around being young, pretty, having the right kind of image and all that stuff. And I've never had any of those things. I've never been pretty. I mean, I have been young, but I'm not young now, so I understand. I'm 51 years old. That's not gonna work. So there is this frustration that the media has been slightly resistant to what I do."

In December, GRETA VAN FLEET scored four Grammy Award nominations, one for each major rock category — "Best Rock Album", "Best Rock Song", "Best Rock Performance" — and a "Best New Artist" nod. They would go on to win for "Best Rock Album" for their sophomore EP, "From The Fires" .

The band's debut album, "Anthem Of The Peaceful Army" , debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart in July despite earning a lukewarm 53/100 score on review curation site Metacritic .

Photo credit: Hajo Müller