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William Benton aka Cat Casual is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who has supplied guitar and bass for artists like Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Shilpa Ray (Nick Cave’s Bad Seed Ltd. label), The Phantom Family Halo (Knitting Factory Records), Ivan Julian (Richard Hell and the Voidoids)- and has collaborated with legendary musicians such as Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Steve Shelley(Sonic Youth), Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple)...among others.
He has also supplied music for television (including Jersey Shore), short films, and off-off Broadway productions.
Born and raised in Oklahoma, Benton divides his time and work between Louisville, Kentucky, and the New York area.
The first Cat Casual release (Cat Casual and the Holy Midnight), smashed open the rusty gates, releasing Benton's psyche-inspired, cinematic, troubadour-ish persona upon the world. (The record opens with Sending- “...a collaboration with Bonnie "Prince" Billy that sounds like Suicide, Grinderman, and a chain gang produced something unholy in a musical laboratory...”)
The Final Word- the most recent backing band that he has assembled- is fearlessly executing reinterpretations of previous Cat Casual songs as well as delivering the latest material: some of the most interesting, heady, unpredictable-yet-accessible music that Louisville and Benton himself have ever produced.
Cat Casual and the Final Word recently recorded, mixed, and mastered the full-length The Secret Self with Mike Bridavsky at Russian Recording in Bloomington, Indiana at the end of 2018, for release TBA in 2019.
