DEF LEPPARD's JOE ELLIOTT Defends GRETA VAN FLEET: 'Yeah, They Sound Like LED ZEPPELIN. So What?'

DEF LEPPARD frontman Joe Elliott has defended GRETA VAN FLEET over accusations that the Michigan rockers have ripped off 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 last week's interview with ET Canada, Elliott was asked if there are any new bands out there that he is listening to now. "Not much. I'll be honest," he said (see video below). "But the two obvious ones — there's GRETA VAN FLEET, which is the big thing at the moment. Or GRETA VAN ZEPPELIN, as somebody's called them. [Laughs] But, yeah, they sound like LED ZEPPELIN. So what? When we started out, we sounded like QUEEN and AC/DC. So, everybody's gotta start somewhere. It's okay to wear your influences on your sleeve these days, I believe. My favorite new band, though, are THE STRUTS. I say 'new' — they've been around for five years. Five years in THE BEATLES' career is more than half their career. But things have changed a lot. I'm a big fan of [THE STRUTS]. I think Luke [Spiller], the singer, is an absolute star. He deserves to be on the stadium stages. Hopefully one day he will be.

"But that's pretty much it," he continued. "I don't go searching for it anymore. When I was 16, every band was my band. And now, it's, like, unless somebody just plunks it in front of me and goes, 'You've gotta listen to this,' then I will. But I haven't got the time. When you start making your own music, you start to drop that 'fanboy' thing. You're always a fan — I mean, I'm always a fan — but, seriously, my record collection, if I never heard anything from 1979 onwards for the rest of my life, I'd be a happy boy, and that's coincidentally when we started out. 'Cause that's when I started concentrating more on what I do rather than what I listen to."

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

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 went on to win for "Best Rock Album" for their sophomore EP, "From The Fires".

DEF LEPPARD was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Friday night (March 29) — 14 years after the British rockers first became eligible.

The 34th annual ceremony took place at Brooklyn, New York's Barclays Center and saw DEF LEPPARD inducted by QUEEN's Brian May.

HBO will broadcast a truncated version of the ceremony on Saturday, April 27 at 8 p.m. EST.