Next-generation Harrison proves creative talent runs in the family

Dhani Harrison has gone to great lengths to have a different band experience than his famous father George.

You might imagine that the musical children of The Beatles would be hugely inspired by that mighty band's near-perfect body of work. Dhani Harrison, though - son of the late, great George - seems to have been influenced more by his father's extra-curricular activities.

Now 33, Dhani is proving something of a creative polymath. Musically, his current passion is for cutting-edge British genres such as drum 'n' bass and dubstep, which pour forth on several projects with his production partner, Paul Hicks, and various guest musicians. George's tastes seep in almost subconsciously.

"I absolutely love Indian classical music," says Harrison. "You notice the interest when I sit with Paul. With the vocals I'll do 'guides', then we'll get people to come in and sing them, and there's always a few notes and a few changes that people don't get, and Paul will say, 'Oh, it's one of those Dhani notes again, he's been listening to too many Indian classical music records.'"

It could almost be a quote from a Beatles session. George Harrison did much to help popularise artists such as Ravi Shankar in the West, and Dhani has quietly continued the process, remastering and re-releasing numerous works via his own label, Hot Records (named after his hometown, Henley-on-Thames). The occasional studio clash occurs because Indian classical can be rather complex, with notes that "really sneak up on you", Dhani explains. "Which gets really confusing for singers who are more used to singing along with pop music or something." Harrison Junior is emerging with new material at an interesting juncture, as his father has recently become newsworthy again due to Martin Scorsese's epic documentary about him this year, Living in the Material World. Dhani appeared frequently in that film but takes a low-key approach to his own music, the main outlet being a flexible collective called thenewno2.

The partners' new EP - simply titled EP002 - is intriguingly diverse featuring vocals from Wu Tang Clan rapper RZA, several lesser-known hip-hoppers and the popular Russian/American singer Regina Spektor. Dhani admits that the four-track result is "like the trailer for a film, and you go 'oh no, that film looks awful'. When the album comes out you'll see the more cohesive version".

If The Beatles' offspring were ever to form a band - which is highly unlikely - their output might be similarly eclectic. Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey became a drummer too, playing with rock giants The Who and Oasis. Julian Lennon - whose parents were John Lennon and first wife Cynthia Powell - enjoyed several Beatles-like hits, but his half-brother Sean - the son of John and Yoko Ono - prefers left-field beats and hip-hop.

Paul McCartney's son James, on the other hand, only released his first EP in 2010, shunning the limelight until his mid-30s, and Dhani Harrison was similarly reluctant to enter the family business early on. Like Paul's daughters - the fashion designer Stella McCartney and photographer Mary - Dhani chose a different creative outlet, and his initial career plan evolved from another of George's interests: motor racing.

"My dad was best friends with Gordon Murray, the car designer, and he's my hero," he says. "I wanted to be him, so I studied everything I'd need to go into Formula One and I ended up working with McLaren for a while."

Those prominent musical genes proved hard to ignore, however, and thenewno2's first album in 2008, You Are Here, received positive reviews.

Harrison's design work now generally involves rock-related products, his latest project being an iPad/iPhone application called The Guitar Collection. "It's a new way of documenting guitars, every scratch, every song," he says. "We're starting with my father's, then moving on to all of our friends, all their collections."

Harrison has successfully combined his tech skills and family background before, as the driving force behind the hugely popular video game The Beatles: Rock Band, in which competitors can play along with that impressive library of hits.

When he and a colleague came up with the idea "we both laughed, like, 'that's never going to happen, you'll never get anyone to agree on that one'," he recalls, "but four or five years later they were playing it. And I really just built it because I really wanted to play it myself. We all really wanted to play I Am the Walrus on a Rock Band game."

Creative differences and ego clashes eventually split the Fab Four in 1970, and, as Dhani suggests, getting the green light for new Beatles projects continues to be an uneasy process. Did George's experiences put Dhani off forming a traditional rock band of his own?

"It's more fun making music with different people," he said. "Bands get so isolated these days, I think it's really nice having a constantly changing line-up. It becomes more like a football squad - you can put out whatever team you want, depending on who you're playing against."