History has witnessed that disabilities couldn’t suppress the indomitable spirit of the musicians. Similarly, Greta Van Flee guitarist Sam Kiszka has revealed how he used a disability to his advantage.

Sam Kiszka opens up on the matter

Both Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi and the jazz icon Django Reinhardt, have achieved legendary status while missing bits of their fingers, with both of them developing memorable guitar tones and/or playing techniques as a means of overcoming their challenges.

As it turns out, Greta Van Fleet’s bassist Sam Kiszka can also be counted in the category of players with missing (bits of) digits, as he reveals in a recent interview on “The SDR Show” that his older brother and GVF guitarist Jake lopped off the tip of his thumb when they were kids.

As the story goes, the two Kiszka siblings were “making stuff in the yard”, and Jake had gotten hold of a jack-knife – when the fact that they were six and nine years old enters the equation, the end result is easy to imagine. “I was trying to teach you a life lesson,” Jake teases with a laugh.

However, Sam argued how missing the tip of his thumb only made playing easier, as the flat surface of what remains of it makes resting his thumb on the bass when playing fingerstyle more comfortable. However, it is something that shouldn’t be tried.