 His father (a Vietnam War veteran) committed suicide when Castle was nine years old; a theme that would later inspire Castle's first official single and video, "Both Ends of A Gun".Castle spent his teen years as a staff-writer in Nashville, Tennessee, working under such notable writers as; Casey Kelly (The Cowboy Rides Away), Wood Newton (Bobbie Sue), and Earl Bud Lee (Friends in Low Places).At twenty-one, he would leave Music Row to again perform in bars and coffeehouses in northern Ohio.