5 Modern Bands That Sound Ripped From The Classic Rock Era

Who said that classic rock is dead? It not only lives on vinyl, safely stored and waiting to be spun, but in the souls of musicians in the present. No matter any and all cries that rock has had its day, there's actually a decent amount of modern bands writing high-quality music that sounds like it was ripped straight from classic rock's glory days.

There's actually a lot more classic rock-inspired bands out there than the reader might realize. These bands take inspiration from a variety of classic rock forays across its golden age (1964 to 1982), from the Beatles to Queen, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Southern rock outfits like Lynyrd Skynyrd, folk rock groups like the Byrds, early metal like Black Sabbath, and more. We want our recommendations to reflect this whole array of rock while not being redundant. 

This means omitting bands like Dirty Honey in favor of Greta Van Fleet, the Sword in favor of Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats, plus leaving bands like the Struts (Queen worship), Tedeschi Truck Bands (roots rock), and Waxahatchee (folk rock) to the reader to investigate. And when we say "modern" bands, we don't mean music that came out last Tuesday. We mean roughly 21st century, provided the band is still active, with a slight emphasis on newer rather than older.

On that note, we're going to pass along an obvious, Zeppelin-heavy choice we already mentioned, Greta Van Fleet, as well as psychedelic outfit Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats. We've also got a pretty big band, Wolfmother, along with the Sheepdogs, and the Lemon Twigs.

Yes, Greta Van Fleet often sounds like a Led Zeppelin tribute outfit. Yes, they've gotten flak for it and tried to put that flak to bed as far back as a 2019 Rolling Stone interview. And yes, singer Josh Kiszka wields "mama" in his lyrics the same way Robert Plant did. But really, is any of that so bad? Some classic rock fans are no doubt clutching their "Houses of the Holy" vinyl like Gollum does the precious (Zep were big LOTR fans). Others are happy for anything that sounds like quality music of yore and generally isn't garbage. For those people, Greta Van Fleet awaits — a trio of brothers and a drummer from Frankenmuth, Michigan.

To be clear: Classic rock fans are not going to find anything new with Greta Van Fleet. That's because Greta Van Fleet sounds like a chopped-up and remixed version of '70s arena rock down to the riffs and guitar tone, occasional flute and synth accompaniments, vocal stylings, attitude, and outfits — you name it. The best of their songs, like "Safari Song" from 2017's "From the Fires," rank amongst those modern rock songs we'll be blasting on repeat 'til the day we die. 

Brothers Josh, Sam, Jake, and long-time drummer Danny Wagner have been making and playing music since their teenage years, and it shows. No matter the band's copy-pasted elements, each of these elements reportedly formed organically, down to Josh's vocal style (he was trying to be heard over the other instruments during rehearsal). They were even credited with spearheading a kind of American rock revival in the late 2010's. All in all, classic rock fans ought to give them a shot.

Wolfmother isn't exactly a new band, but they're modern enough to make our cut. From their initial, 2005 debut, they made their retro mark with fuzzy guitars that invoked everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Black Sabbath's Tommy Iommi, plus contemporaries like the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and the White Stripes' Jack White. They're a bit rough in production, invoke garage scenes, and wield blues-rock phrasing on songs like "Dimension." Their most listened-to Spotify song, "Joker and the Thief" (about 393 million listens), is even named after the famous "Said the joker to the thief" line from Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" (famously covered by Jimi Hendrix).

Wolfmother isn't so obviously copy-pasted from one specific band, like Greta Van Fleet. It's more that they lift from '60s and '70s classic rock on the whole (but more '70s). Ultimate Classic Guitar tried to get to the bottom of Wolfmother's influences in an interview with band lead Andrew Stockdale, but Stockdale remained elusive. He admitted listening to the likes of Hendrix and Zeppelin, but ultimately said, "I just wanted to play a riff and that was it." Influences from the '90s, however, were off the table, which may have steered him towards earlier decades.

Note that we're talking about Stockdale, not other band members. That's because Stockdale is the only remaining original member of Wolfmother in a carousel of musicians. He more or less muscled everyone else out over the years — such are the personality and ego conflicts that have gone hand-in-hand with rock history. But no matter what, Wolfmother's generated a catalogue of solid, classic era-rooted rock that pulls from the past but remains pretty timeless in and of itself.

When you flip on the Sheepdogs, you'd best prepare yourself to convince yourself that you're not hearing the reincarnation of '70s Southern rock legends, Lynyrd Skynyrd. The band's guitar tone is uncannily identical to Skynyrd's, as is the overall rhythm, the arpeggiated riffs, the Hammond organ-like keys, and even the beards and hair. Okay, sometimes they sound like the Allman Brothers Band, yet another band whose songs defined '70s Southern rock. But all in all, their homegrown "we're just some dudes making songs" vibe and down-to-earth lack of pretentiousness feels directly pulled from Southern rock's greats. Also, they're Canadian. 

But the Sheepdog's musical schtick was never forced or accidental. The band members legitimately love the music that they sound emulate. They love it so much that they did the gig-playing grind in nowheresville locations for years, including at tiny bars and near hot dog stands, as Rolling Stone explains. That's why it was so impressive that the Sheepdogs won a battle of the bands with 1.5 million votes in 2011 and wound up on the cover of Rolling Stone — the first unsigned band to do so. The win practically pulled them out of crushing debt. At this point, we refer you back to the band's down-to-earth lack of pretentiousness.

As it stands, the Sheepdogs ought to appeal not only to Southern rock fans but also fans of the likes of Neil Young, the Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and other such roots rock-adjacent acts. They'll also appeal to fans of big beards, shaggy hair, and collared cowboy shirts with the top buttons unbuttoned. This is the '70s, after all, right?  

The first few bars of a song like "2 or 3" by the Lemon Twigs might leave baby boomers wondering if they time-shifted to their childhoods. The Long Island duo isn't just inspired by the past, sometimes it looks and sounds like they robbed its musical tomb. But if that's what you're looking for (you're reading this article, after all), then dig in. They've even got tracks with plain-named early '60s song titles like "I Just Can't Get Over Losing You," complete with black-and-white, Beatles-like video circa the Fab Four's early, Ed Sullivan "I Want To Hold Your Hand" days. 

But as easy as it would be to accuse the Lemon Twigs of pure gimmickry and aesthetic, their relative success proves there's a desire for their kind of music. Per The Guardian, brothers Michael and Brian D'Addario originally described their sound as "modern psychedelia, like MGMT and the Flaming Lips," which situates their roots somewhere between dream pop and, uh ... weird. This fits, as the duo just followed their natural creative inclinations right back to their early, teenage years gigs. Bit by bit, they incorporated obvious hero worship into the proceedings, right down to the Rod Stewart mullet and David Bowie-like latex pants. They really just do whatever they want, which over the course of their discography has expanded their sound into a variety of directions, but always tethered to classic rock of some branch.

And for all of the elders (or common sense-minded) out there, the duo even shuns digital recording and records to tape. As The Guardian quotes them, "we don't think being on phones all day is a good way to live our lives." Yes, people, there's hope after all.

Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats sound like what it feels like to sit in your room listening to '70s psychedelia spin on vinyl while coasting on the substance mentioned in the band's name. Formed "down the pub in Cambridge," as band leader Kevin A. Starrs told Psychedelic Baby Magazine in 2012, Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats traces its obvious musical lineage to '60s and '70s-birthed, Black Sabbath-spearheaded "heavy" music that directly spawned modern sub-genres of rock and metal like doom metal, stoner rock, sludge metal, desert rock, etc. Lo-fi and grimy production, thick riffs, low-to-mid-tempo groove-based percussion, trance-inducing pedal tones and repeated phrases: Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats is a killer group imprinted with the echoes of the past, but which carves out its own space in the present. Spacey space, at that.

In the interview with Psychedelic Baby Magazine, Starrs summed up the ethos and name of his band in one go, saying, "If 'Uncle Sam' represents governments, the establishment, war and all that crap then I suppose 'Uncle Acid' represents the lowlife street trash. Sixties burn-outs and all those left behind. The hippy nightmare!" There you have it. Not only does Starrs look the shaggy-haired part and shred old-school riffs, he's adopted the mindset of decades past. 

Such inspirations are only partially intentional, though, as with the Lemon Twigs, Starrs just rolls with whatever inspires him. It starts with storytelling, which in the case of 2015's "The Night Creeper," became an album centered around a noir-like detective story of a serial killer. But no matter the inspiration, music fans wanting a heaping helping of classic rock-era's heavier sounds and dirty psychedelia need look no further.