Caleb Followill has praised Taylor Swift for inspiring a new generation of musicians.
The Kings of Leon frontman has Dixie, 11, and Winston, five, with wife Lily Aldridge and though his children have always been aware of his own group’s work, it is the ‘Karma’ hitmaker that has made his daughter “see music differently”.
He told The Sun newspaper: “Dixie started wearing Kings Of Leon shirts around the house, but Taylor has made her see music differently.
“She’s impressed how she can walk in with a guitar and write a song. A new generation are discovering what it’s like to organically make music because of Taylor Swift.”
Caleb’s children inspired the group’s latest single ‘Mustang’.
He explained: “My son was wearing a shirt that said Mustang, while my daughter was watching YouTube videos of cats — that’s where the line ‘Are you a Mustang or a kitty’ comes from.
“My son hadn’t really reacted to our music before, so I put Mustang in the song to make him flip his s***. Now friends’ kids always say, ‘Play the Mustang song’, so if nothing else, kids love it.”
The band – comprising Caleb, his brothers Nathan, and Jared Followill and their cousin Matthew Followill – will tour the UK in June and are excited to get their families together.
Jared, whose wife Martha gave birth to their second daughter Charlotte just a few days ago, said: “I’m bringing my family over. We are all renting houses.
“I’m excited that the kids are all meeting up and the cousins can all go to the pub and get drunk for the first time as they don’t check IDs in the UK.”
The ‘Sex on Fire’ hitmakers admitted their tours these days are much calmer than in their early days, where their drunken fights were notorious.
Caleb said: “We try to avoid being on the road for three months at a time.
“When we were starting, we were like zombies and living on buses and in each other’s hair.”
Jared added: “It was crazy. How did we survive that?
“But we’re healthy adults and in a good place. It’s boring, and people want us to still be fighting and drunk.”