William Benton was probably always destined to be a musician. His mother remembers him as an infant in rural Oklahoma, crawling around to check out the records lying on the floor, and he recounts that she got him an eight-track player so that he could easily pop the tunes in and out whenever he wanted.
“So that was largely stuff she was listening to, 60’s music, Dusty Springfield, the Four Seasons, Glenn Campbell,” he recalls. “And then, of course, the country music that was always around, like Johnny Rodriguez and the stuff of the late 70s, early 80’s, Waylon and Willie and all that. And yeah, I just liked everything.”
He started to learn guitar around 10 years of age, but he accidentally put a stop to that as soon as he started.
“It was just typical redneck child s#!t,” he says. “I was just playing with a rusty knife, trying to cut some plastic, and it slit through my hand, severed the tendon, and went into the bone. They said they could reconnect the tendon and it’d be good as new, but it’s barely usable, even now. The guy who was going to give me lessons just said, ‘Well, there’s no point in trying now.’”
“So I dropped the guitar and didn’t think about playing until my punk rock awakening at 15, 16, something like that,” he continues. “I decided I’d play bass since that would require less dexterity, I thought. And my brother was starting to play at the same time, so that worked out.”
Benton spent some time in Louisville and then in Orlando, playing in groups like the “very aggressive art punk band” Body Hammer, which brought him to his first NYC gig in 1999, with The Locust and Black Dice at ABC No Rio.
“It was great!” he exclaims. “I’d been to New York to visit and I always wanted to move here. That kind of just solidified the dream.”
Part of that dream revolved around leaving his job at UPS, where he had spent 8 1/2 years loading packages onto planes – on the night shift. “Well,” he notes, “I guess that it got me ready for a life in rock and roll.”
He finally moved to the city in 2011, when his band The Phantom Family Halo got signed to the Knitting Factory label. A new career in hospitality kept him afloat, and his musical journey has brought him to his current combo, Cat Casual and the Final Word.
Since 2022, he’s been employed as a doorman and bellman at the Hotel Chelsea, where he also serves as the “unofficial historian and tour guide.”
A chance meeting with filmmaker Mark Shaw at a Devo photo show led to their collaboration on Benton’s current project, a series of short films under the umbrella title “Mind The Program.”
“I had lots of ideas around the Chelsea that didn’t go anywhere,” he says. “This was just one where I pitched it to them, like, hey, it could be a thing like Tiny Desk Concerts, but at the Chelsea. I was really surprised when months later they came back and said, yeah, just find a day when the space isn’t being used.”
The concept “is a new art film series that brings together musicians, writers, artists and performers from different generations of New York’s underground.” So far, they’ve filmed two episodes, one with Bonnie “Prince” Billy singing Lou Reed’s “Doing the Things That We Want To” in writer/curator/editor/publisher Raymond Foye’s room at the Chelsea. The other is a double header of the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs” and Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream.”
Those performances feature guest appearances by Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio), Eszter Balint, Shilpa Ray, Rhett Miller (The Old 97s), and Thalia Zedek (Uzi, Live Skull, Come), performing with the backing ensemble of Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth), William Benton, Rob Morrison, and Greg Eckelman, performed in the Bard Room.
Benton is hoping to film more episodes at Hotel Chelsea because, he says, “it’s the perfect home for it. And obviously, it’s an important and meaningful place to me and many other people.”
He’s also got a few ideas for future guest performers.
“Oh yeah, there’s a large wish list!” he says. “I mentioned before how important (the band) Suicide is, so I would really love to get Martin Rev involved. And some of the other old guard as far as New York punk goes. David Byrne would be amazing; he always does such a great job livening up covers. And Mark Ribot definitely. So it’s a little bit of everybody. I just like so many different things, especially in the weirdo jazz world, where those guys always kind of bring an interesting flavor to things, like Bill Frisell.”
“Sonic Youth is one of the most important bands of my life, too, so I really wanted to get Lee Renaldo, who is a big Dylan fan. So to get Lee doing a Bob Dylan song at the Chelsea, I think, would be super cool.”
In the meantime, Cat Casual and the Final Word have completed an album that is heading towards a release date. Asked to describe the band’s sound, he defers to the person who dubbed it “country contaminated psych rock”. While that description made him laugh, it might come the closest to describing a band that thrives on diversity.
“I am happiest,” says Benton, “when it is hard to describe.”
Watch for more episodes of “Mind The Program” on mindtheprogram.com. Follow the band on Instagram at @catcasual.
Cat Casual and the Final Word are scheduled to perform at the Bowery Palace on Aug. 12, where they will also be screening the latest video. For tickets, visit bowerypalace.com/tm-event/nathan-xander-cat-casual-the-final-word-phil-pickens.
