GRETA VAN FLEET singer Josh Kiszka has dismissed the notion that rock is dead, saying that rock is a “very elastic” and “eclectic genre.”
While rock and roll has been king of the music world for decades, in the past few years, it’s been unseated by the growing popularity of hip-hop. This has caused many pundits to proclaim the genre “dead” from an industry perspective, noting that it has been eclipsed in all measures by pop, hip-hop, and EDM.
A few years ago, KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons told Esquire magazine that “rock did not die of old age. It was murdered. Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed and now it won’t because it’s that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs. No one will pay you to do it.”
A number of hard rock and heavy metal musicians have weighed in on the topic in a variety of interviews over the last several years, with some digging a little deeper into Simmons‘s full remarks and others just glossing over the headline.
Kiszka, who is currently promoting GRETA VAN FLEET‘s sophomore album, “The Battle At Garden’s Gate”, spoke about rock’s supposed diminishing status during a recent interview with NME. Addressing the whole “rock is dead” debate, Josh said: “Maybe the world of rock [Gene] remembers is dead. I think rock and roll is a very elastic genre, it’s a very eclectic genre. It seems like every once in a while, a generation reinterprets what that is… And I’ve heard a lot, throughout the years, I guess people blowing hot air about…
“I think rock and roll can become dormant, but you can’t kill something that supersedes time,” he continued. “It’s an attitude and a spirit and a celebration. I think people pass the torch and time moves on.
“I think there’s probably a lot of people that would disagree with him,” Kiszka concluded.
The “rock is dead” argument has popped up again and again throughout the years, including in 2018 after MAROON 5 lead singer Adam Levine told Variety magazine that “rock music is nowhere, really. I don’t know where it is,” he said. “If it’s around, no one’s invited me to the party. All of the innovation and the incredible things happening in music are in hip-hop. It’s better than everything else. Hip-hop is weird and avant-garde and flawed and real, and that’s why people love it.”
“The Battle At Garden’s Gate” was released on April 16 via Lava/Republic.
