John Lennon's musician son Sean is playing mentor to fledgling British punk band Fat White Family by putting them up at his New York home, giving them free use of his recording studio, and allowing them to play instruments belonging to his famous father.

Lennon met the six-piece group by chance at the SXSW festival in Texas last year (14) and he extended an invitation for them to join him in New York.

The band has spent several months laying down tracks at the recording studio in upstate New York that Lennon co-owns with his mother Yoko Ono, and they have also been staying with him at his home in Manhattan.

Lennon, who is helping to produce the band's second album, tells NME magazine that life with the hellraising rockers is tough, explaining, "They're chaotic and out of control. When they first came over to stay, things got... messy...

"(They) sort of remind me of the Wu-Tang Clan, because they all have very extreme personalities and it feels like a miracle when you get them in the same room together. But you'll discover that they can be a lot nicer than they appear. The reputation is real, but at the same time, it isn't."

Guitarist Saul Adamczewski tells the publication they have been using many of John Lennon's instruments in their recording sessions, saying, "Yeah, almost everything we pick up, Sean'll be like, 'Oh, that was my dad's.' We've been using this old Mellotron of his - I don't know if it's the one that's on Strawberry Fields, but for the sake of the story, let's just say that it is."