Steve Pratt talks to Ben Castle, the son of the late Roy Castle. 

IT’S the morning after a “real surreal day of craziness” for Ben Castle, musician and composer son of the late entertainer Roy Castle, when we speak. That day illustrates his wildly varied activities in the music business although he can’t go into much detail about future projects. “These days people are quite secretive about things until they’re released,” he explains.

“I had the strangest day yesterday involving a Hollywood A-lister and then went straight from him to a meeting with a comedian – one of my favourite comedians. But I can’t say who they were.”

He’s similarly vague about the project that sees him playing in York Minister this month in a one-off improvised performance of the music and light show Shivoham as part of the minster’s National Interfaith Week programme. This musical experience inspired by the Indian god Shiva is composed by electro, bass and underground composer Shri Sririam, who’ll also be performing live in a piece – with Castle on saxophone and clarinet – that combines South Asian Carnatic vocals by singer Supriya Nagarajan with contemporary electronica.

Castle's multi-talented father’s skills were many and varied as a singer, dancer, musician and actor. “When I was getting into performing I was also interested in becoming an actor, my dad lent me a bit of advice because he felt no one knew exactly who he was. He said stick to one thing and do it very well,” he recalls.

So he opted for music, but still encounters being put into categories within that. “There are so many different aspects to music and I’m like a kid in a sweetshop wanting to try them all. I’ve always tried to stay away from categorisation but I am realising how important that is with the recording I’m doing,” he says.

He grew up surrounded by music in the Castle household. He found it very infectious and went to watch his dad perform or his dad would take him to concerts. “Dad was very much into jazz and big band music. It was fantastic. There was always a lot of music around in the house and we’d make music together. There were four of us kids and he gave us all instruments to learn.”

His main instrument now is the saxophone although he began on a different instrument. “Dad had an old clarinet he bought for £20 many, many years before and because he played so many instruments had every intention of adding the clarinet to the list. But he never quite got around to it,” he says.

“So at the age of seven I was sent off with the clarinet for music lessons at school. My sister already played trumpet and my brother trombone. A couple of years later and it was a natural progression to go on to the saxophone. Those are still my two main instruments.”

He’s recently released an EP with his current band The Tombola Theory, but the release date for the album, which he’s been working on for several years, has been pushed back to the New Year, partly because his other work keeps getting in the way.

  • Shivoham, York Minster, November 22. Box Office: 01904-557208, yorkminister.org and boxoffice@yorkminster.org