Caleb Johnson wins American Idol... backed by Kiss

North Carolina native Caleb Johnson is the winner of the thirteenth season of American Idol. After auditioning in 2010 and 2011, the singer made it through to year's contest before performing a run of rock classics on his way to the final.

The tracks covered by the 23-year-old Johnson, formerly singer with Elijah Hooker, include The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil, Stay With Me by The Faces, Led Zeppelin’s Dazed and Confused, Pressure and Time by Rival Sons, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Travelin’ Band and You Give Love A Bad Name by Bon Jovi.

In the final itself, broadcast to 6.61 million viewers, Johnson picked the Aerosmith classic Dream On, Paul McCartney’s Maybe I’m Amazed and a medley of two Kiss songs — accompanied by the band themselves.

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.