There are a lot of different stereotypes about PK’s (preacher’s kids), but one thing I guess you can say is it sets them up for some expectations. We went to a Calvary Chapel church when we lived in Southern CA. Mark Foreman was our pastor, Jon and Tim Foreman were his sons who established the well known rock band “Switchfoot.” After years in the limelight, it seems that they turned out just fine, it seems the rock business didn’t change their core beliefs, if anything. they changed the rock business, pushing it to a little higher standard.
Joy Williams, who makes up half of the folk duo The Civil Wars, was raised by parents who were both in full-time ministry. Like Katy Perry, Joy Williams also began her music career in the Christian music scene. Before joining with John Paul White to form The Civil Wars in 2009, she had already recorded three CCM albums.
The three Followill brothers (who, along with their cousin Matthew Followill, comprise the band Kings of Leon) were raised on the road as the children of traveling evangelist traveling the rural South with their father, Leon, a United Pentecostal Church pastor and their mother, Betty Ann, who led worship.
Some people have this idea that pastor’s kids are a rebellious type, always bucking against their rigid upbringing. That rumor may or may not be fair, but it might have started with one Vincent Damon Furnier. You know him as Alice Cooper, a man whose rock shows legendarily feature “guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls.” In recent years, he’s been very vocal about being a born-again Christian.
The desperately sad story of Marvin Gaye’s relationship with his father—a minister in the House of God denomination—is one of the most famous and tragic in American music. Gaye was brought up in a deeply abusive home, the frequent target of his father’s brutal beatings. When he struck it big as phenomenally gifted singer, it drove his father mad with rage. In 1984, Marvin attempted to intervene in an argument between his parents, which ultimately resulted in his death. His father shot him with a .38 Smith & Wesson which Marvin had given him for his birthday.
The Jonas Bros father, Kevin Sr., is a former minister with an Assemblies of God church and co-founder of Christ For the Nations Music. A musician and songwriter himself, he helped manage the band and encouraged his sons to pursue music from an early age.
A little less than 15 years ago, the pop princess was releasing her debut album as a Christian artist under her given name, Katy Hudson. Her parents were Pentecostal pastors who sent her to religious schools and, ironically enough, discouraged her from listening to “secular” music. It’s unclear what caused Perry to ditch her roots, though she says she still has a great relationship with her parents.
Jean Wycleff famous for the Fugees. He’s been famous for running to be the President of Haiti. He’s been famous for his incredible humanitarian work in earthquake relief. But before all that, he was just Wyclef, son of a Croix-des-Bouquets Nazarene pastor. He cleared up any doubt as to his legacy with his 2003 album, titled—appropriately—The Preacher’s Son.
Though Mumford and Sons frontman Marcus Mumford isn’t comfortable with religious labels (he told Rolling Stone, “I don’t really like that word [Christian]. It comes with so much baggage. So, no, I wouldn’t call myself a Christian,” adding, his spirituality was “a work in progress”), his parents are of the Vineyard Church’s most important leaders in the U.K. Today, John and Elean Mumford help oversee congregations throughout the UK and Ireland.
Raised in the church by a family of “missionaries and pastors”, the frontman of the pop outfit One Republic was originally offered a Christian music deal. In a 2008 interview with The Houston Chronicle, the former Oral Roberts University student said that after hearing some of the negative experiences of “Christian”-marketed artists in Nashville, he decided to go the mainstream route. Since then, along with his band OneRepublic selling millions around the world, he’s become a sought-after hit-maker. Tedder’s written songs for a range of artists including Adele, Beyonce, Ellie Goulding, One Direction, Maroon 5 and others.
Needtobreathe frontman Bear Rhinehart and guitarist brother Bryant “Bo” Rhinehart are sons of an (Alabama football-loving) Assemblies of God pastor. With hints of bluesy hymns and doses of Gospel soul found throughout their catalogue, it’s still clear that the band’s South Carolina church roots are never too far behind them.
The Avett boys and Justin Timberlake both have grandfathers who were ministers.