VETERAN rocker Jim Kerr has revealed he entertained international superstars Coldplay at his luxury Sicilian hotel.

Kerr, 49, owns the Villa Angela, a 30-room five-star resort in the coastal resort of Taormina.

Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and his band visited the sunkissed island in the Mediterranean earlier this year.

They recorded the video for their number one hit Violet Hill on the slopes of Mount Etna - a live volcano on the island.

But after filming on the dusty slopes the band retreated to their posh digs where they relaxed in the company of Kerr.

Now the Glasgow-born singer has admitted he is a massive fan of their worldwide hit album Viva La Vida - and that he listens to it as he hikes through the Sicilian hills.

He said: "I met the band a few months back when they came to Sicily in order to shoot a video clip for the first single Violet Hill.

"Spending a few days at Villa Angela in Taormina, they seemed to be still humbled by their increasingly elevated position and for me that is always an attractive thing.

"I liked them and truly wished them well with the challenges that their new release would bring."

Viva La Vida is Coldplay's fourth studio album and topped the UK charts for five weeks after its release.

The album has returned to No1 and also sold over 300,000 copies on its first day of release in the US.

Kerr added: "I hoped that the record would deliver and that they would reap the same rewards brought by their previous titles.

"And boy did they come up trumps. The album has been No1 for weeks now, and that success has been repeated seemingly on every planet, star, and rock in the galaxy.

"More importantly for me however is the fact that I love listening to it.

"As I have every day this week during my morning hike up the hills surrounding Mount Etna - the very same peak on which they choose to set the video in fact.

"In that ancient and mysterious landscape the music sits perfectly."

Kerr's love affair with Sicily and Taormina started in 1982 while he toured with Simple Minds.

In 2001 he bought a plot of land for POUNDS 150,000. and built the hotel on it with the help of his local business partner Antonio Chemi.