“bencastle.com” the boring version

Biography

Ben was born from a very early age into a musical family. His dad, Roy, was a trumpeteering entertainer and his mum was a dancer. They were introduced together by Eric Morecambe.
Ben popped out at 6:30pm on the 30th October 1973. It took him 7 years to grow enough to hold a clarinet. Brother Daniel had already been dealt a Trombone, sister Julia a glockenspiel (if you ever meet her, try not to mention it!) and sister Anto was already on Trumpet and Piano. A family band was complete. 
Within 2 years Ben was on stage with his dad, playing his clarinet and performing comedy routines in front of large audiences and on TV. Around this time he became strong enough to hold an Alto Saxophone and became obsessed with Deep Purple (these things are not connected to my knowledge)

After a few years of practicing scales he achieved distinction on his grade 8 clarinet aged 13. By this time he had already started playing in local bands.
When he was nine, Ben had decided that he was either going to be a musician, actor or electrician. He whittled that down to musician/actor when he realised that he knew nothing about electrics. It was when his dad took him to see Buddy Rich at Ronnie Scott’s Club in London in 1986 that Ben became passionate about being a musician. He was transfixed by Steve Marcus, the big haired sax player who took many long solos. Ben recently met Steve and discovered that his musical driving force was also Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin

Are you bored yet? There’s more and it doesn’t really get much more interesting

Ben had started to do professional gigs (which in hindsight weren’t that professional) when he was 15 and left school aged 17 due to overwhelming popular demand (from the school). After a year of practicing and gigging, Ben attended the one year post-graduate jazz course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama

After that he recorded an album of jazzed up hymn tunes with his dad “Ben and Roy Castle’s Big Celebration” which was a lovely opportunity, but a little bit embarrassing to look back on! Then an equally embarrassing follow up followed, “Breathe Easy”
It was when he was recording these albums that Ben met Mark Edwards and Tim Harries, two astonishing musicians who turned Ben’s outlook of music on its head. They still remain in his band, and are two of the founding members of The Ben Castle Tribute Band.

You’re still reading…wow! I really won’t be offended if you want to click on something else

Having received many royalty statements from the record company saying “we don’t send cheques for less than £10”, Ben thought that if he’s not going to earn money from making records, he might as well make the records he really wanted to make. First on the journey was “Four From the Madding Crowd”, recorded in 1997 and slightly released in 2001. Then in 2004 came “Blah Street”, which went asbestos. It annoyed and confused some of the jazz critics and delighted the others. One of the tracks “The Heckler” won the International Songwriting Competition jazz category, judged by Pat Metheny, Bruce Lundvall and Arif Mardin.


Along side these albums, Ben also produced an album for Carleen Anderson “Alberta’s Granddaughter”, wrote and produced an instrumental album “Postmankind” featuring most of Marillion, Steve Hackett (Genesis) and John Etheridge (John Etheridge), and was bandleader/musical director for the Big Blue, the big band that was featured in the Pop Idol TV show, tour and number one album! Members of the Big Blue also featured in the wedding scene in Love Actually. Richard Curtis told Ben he was without doubt the best actor he’d ever worked with. There is a chance he was being sarcastic, but he did say it

Now even I’m getting bored and slightly embarrassed of talking about myself, I can’t believe you’re still reading. Also… I’m not sure how to subtly fit in that I won a British Jazz award and 2 BBC jazz award nominations without it sounding forced, it doesn’t seem to fit anywhere… oh, and I realise that now I’ve confused the 1st and 3rd person…
Anyway nearly done

Ben has worked with some really good people and some rather embarrassing ones. You can decide which is which in the “Played with” and “Writing” lists

He is currently working with singer songwriter Beth Rowley and has nearly finished The Ben Castle Tribute Band album

He has been involved with and inspired by many forms of music, and feels it important to embrace all influences, put them into the musical juicing machine in his head and see what comes out

If you need any more information you’ll have to go to your dentist’s waiting room and read the 4 page spread about Ben in Hello! Magazine and if you’ve always wanted to lick the back of Ben’s head, you’ll be able to in October 2006 as he will be appearing on a Royal Mail stamp

Well done… now see if you can get through all the quotes!
 

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