Having a rock star dad can be either a hindrance or a help if you want to make it in the music industry.

For Caitlin Russo, daughter of Scott Russo from punk rock band Unwritten Law, it was a blessing. She said that touring with her dad, when she was a child, inspired the excitement of being in a band. Growing up in that world of pop punk culture it was inevitable she would be bitten by the music bug.

Initially Caitlin performed solo, but met members of her current band through working with them on an instrumental project and they just clicked. The musicians named the band after her surname, Russo. Joining Caitlin in the band are Tyler McCarthy on guitar, Hayley Brownell on drums and Sean Ritchie on bass and backing vocals.

The ska pop-rock band were chosen by BBC Radio 1 Introducing to appear on their stage at this year’s Reading Festival, which runs from tomorrow until Sunday, August 26 with Russo performing on the Saturday.

Big names this year at Reading include Kings of Leon, Fall Out Boy, Kendrick Lamar, The Vaccines, Pendulum and Panic At The Disco. The Kings of Leon are originally from Nashville in the USA, getting together in 1999 and featuring brothers Caleb, Nathan and Jared Followill and their cousin Matthew Followill.

As children the Followill brothers were home tutored by their mother as they travelled the Deep South because their father was a preacher at various churches all over Oklahoma. They named themselves after their grandfather Leon. The band soon became a big name across the pond in the UK scoring nine top 40 singles, two Brit awards and their first three albums breaking into the top five of the album charts.

The stadium rock, southern blues anthems such as Sex On Fire, Use Somebody and Notion all making it to number one.Their last album WALLS reached no one on the Billboard 200 album chart and the musicians headlined at the British Summer Time Concerts in Hyde Park last year. They will be closing this year’s Reading Festival on Sunday, August 26 on the main stage.

The dance stage this year includes DJs Annie Mac, Danny Howard, Charlie Sloth and Get Cape Wear Cape, Fly.

Ones to watch at Reading are Spring King, Tom Grennan, Bad Sounds and Deaf Havana. Guitarist from Deaf Havana Matt Veck-Giladi said: “It will be awesome, I can’t wait. Reading is the festival where we always have fun and hang out with our friends.’’ To celebrate the release of his debut album, Lighting Matches, Tom Grennan this year tackled a Guinness World Record title attempt ending in Marlborough.

He won the title for Most Live Concerts In 12 Hours (multiple towns). Tom will be singing songs from the album when he performs at Reading. It features his hit single Barbed Wire, Sober, which had daytime playlists at Radio 1, Radio 2, Virgin, Absolute and Radio x, and Found What I’ve Been Looking For, which was used as the title music to Sky Sports’ Premier League coverage, racking up more than 20 million streams.

Last year was a good one for the hip-hop, rock band Bad Sounds from Bath as they played at Bestival and Glastonbury rock festivals and they notched up nearly half a million Spotify streams, and this weekend they played Reading Festival. For more details visit https://www.readingfestival.com/ - Flicky Harrison