Jason Aldean says his teenage daughter wants to follow in his footsteps -- but as a rocker
The Jason Aldean Army has one very special, talented teenager possibly leading the way in Aldean's oldest daughter, Keeley.
The country star is having a blast watching his 16-year-old blossom into a powerful musician.
"Everything kind of hit for me [in my career] when she was about 2 or 3 years old," he told "Good Morning America," adding that she's grown up around music all her life.
Keeley, the oldest of four children, has been playing electric guitar and "got the music bug," Aldean said.
But apparently, it's not just for country. She's into Aerosmith and as Aldean pointed out recently on Instagram, he took his daughter to see one of her idols, Slash from Guns N' Roses.
"It's really cool and kind of scary at the same time," he joked about his daughter picking up the family trade. "With them growing up, I've always played everything for them, from Ray Charles to George Jones, Merle Haggard, Guns N' Roses, everything. They have an appreciation for all different kinds of music."
Keeley has started to lean towards 80's rock and Aldean couldn't be prouder.
"I had been letting her use one of my old guitars, so for her 16th birthday, instead of a car, I bought her a Les Paul," he said. "I think she's starting to realize the magnitude of what I've been doing all these years. That's the cool thing about this, if it all ended tomorrow, there's a pretty cool legacy there for my kids to go back and listen to."
Aldean spoke to "GMA" right before he surprised a crowd of Amazon line-haul partners and truckers in Nashville Monday at the Amazon Truck Stop to celebrate National Truck Driver Appreciation Week 2019. Aldean has roots working in trucking years ago and also said his grandfather was also a truck driver.
"A lot of those guys drive for me, drivers on our tour," he said. "Those guys are away from home a lot and pretty underappreciated in a lot of ways ... I always had an appreciation for those guys and what they do."
Amazon brought out Aldean to sing his brand new hit "We Back," which dropped on Monday and is available on Amazon Music's country heat playlist, as well as classics like "She’s Country" and "My Kinda Party."
"It's just kind of a fun way to kick off the release of the new single and the [upcoming] album," he said.
His ninth studio album, appropriately titled "9," will be out later this year in November and Aldean wants to make this album "a different experience" from each of his other works. "We Back" and a few other songs dropped this week to whet the appetite for all the die-hard fans out there.
"I feel really good about the songs and that's where it starts," he said. "We live with [the songs] for months and months, and then a day like today comes along, and you can kind of turn it loose a little bit!"
In the first few hours, feedback for the new tracks had been great and he's excited for fans to check out the rest of the new music, he said. He's also grateful to his fans for 15 years of continued support and admiration for his art.
"It's the ninth record and people are still into what we are doing," he said. "Not only are we nine albums in, we're stronger than ever ... I'm a singer, I love going out and recording my music and playing live. Live is where it's at for me."
