Jake Kiszka is the lead guitarist of a rock band group named ‘Greta Van Fleet’ formed in 2012. They are an American band from Frankenmuth, Michigan, United States of America.
Jake is one of three Kiszka’s brothers who make up the band and his other brother; Josh is the lead vocalist for the band. The other members of the band include Sam Kiszka who plays the bass guitar, keyboards, and backs with vocals, and Danny Wagner who plays the drums and is also a backing vocalist.
Jake and the rest of his band members were signed to a record label named ‘Lava Records’ in March 2017 and by April their debut EP was ready and released. The EP was titled ‘Black Smoke Rising’.
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Jacob ‘Jake’ Kiszka was born on the 23rd of April 1996 in Michigan, United States of America. He attended Frankenmuth High School and went on to Delta College upon graduation from High School. His father was a chemist from Michigan who was fond of 70s rock music and used to play the harmonica a lot. His mother, though fond of music as well, was a science teacher in Michigan.
Born into a family that obviously loves music a lot, it is no surprise that Jake and his brothers would pick up music from an early stage in life.
He is the twin brother of Joshua (Josh) Kiszka who is the lead vocalist for their band. His younger brother is Samuel Kiszka and he is also a part of the band as the bass guitarist and keyboard player.
Jake is not only a guitarist, he also performs as a backup singer for his band. In fact, all other members of the band act as backup singers for the band as well making them all versatile and dynamic.
Jake started playing with his dad’s musical instruments at a very tender age and by the time he was 3 years old, he had started to play the guitar. He started playing as a duo with his twin brother when he was 9years old.
Jake’s very first guitar was given to him by his grandmother. Whenever they were at her house, they would go down to her basement filled with his musical instruments to play and he was always taken to the guitar. He started with an acoustic guitar and only got his first electric guitar at the age of 12. After practicing and learning the guitar well enough, Jake convinced his dad to get him a Yamaha guitar.
Jake co-founded the Greta Van Fleet band with his twin brother and younger brother in 2012. Along the line, they recruited a friend Kylie Hauck, however, Kylie only lasted till 2013 and then they replaced him with Daniel Wagner. Jake was only 16 years old when the band was founded.
Jake Kiszka has been so into music that he was part of a Jazz band in high school and apart from the guitar, he also learned to play instruments such as mandolin, drums, harmonica, keyboard, ukulele, organ, and saxophone. These instruments he taught himself.
Jake is the driving force behind the Greta Van Fleet band and he spent most of his days in his parent’s basement listening to old records and collections and he eventually formed the band with his twin brother and younger brother.
Jake and Josh adopted the name of an 87-year-old local resident who gave them her blessing to use her name as the official name for the band. The name of the resident whose name the band adopted is Greta Van Fleet and the boys were drawn to the name.
Jake loves to play awesome riffs that encompass retro sounds and he admitted to being influenced by Jimmy Page. Jimmy Page was the guitarist for Led Zepplin and Jake spent over a year intensely studying Jimmy and his style of play that he could even imagine the thoughts of Jimmy.
One of the songs that put Jake and his band out there and made them a famous name is the awesome single titled Highway Tune. The song made it to Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Chart and was featured in the 2016 TV series ‘Shameless’.
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Jake toured with English band; The Struts and has even played with legendary star Ozzy Osbourne at the ‘Louder Than Life’ festival.
Jake and his band played at Elton John’s AIDS Oscar Party. Elton admitted to loving their songs and he said it is the best rock’n’roll he has heard in over 20years.
To show how much he loved their music, he performed with them as they jammed the song; Saturday Nights Alright For Fighting.
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