Monsieur Bing

Benoît was born in Rennes, France in 1961. He was 11 years old when he bought his first guitar and by 1979, he evolved towards electric guitar, and then bass guitar.
In 1983, he joins a nameless band in Villejean Université, Rennes, to cover bands such as Siouxsie & The Banshees or artist 280811, but quite fast they plan to hire a female singer. End of 1983, they'll meet with Nathalie Cousin later known as Billy Ze Kick, fresh back from London where she met with the Punk scene. She went to Rennes to pursue her English degree, mostly motivated by the good reputation of the city over music.

Their first band was created under the name Les Passants. Benoît will also be part of La STPO the same year. Early 1985 will see the split of Les Passants and the creation of Le Kâ, with Cousin on vocals, artist 3367405 on guitar, artist 517794 on keyboards and Didier Larive on trumpet, Careil is on bass and computes a Roland TR-606.
In 1985 he also creates a non-profit organization called Les Productions Du Fer, managing STPO, but also artist 1406242, artist 1169661 and his forthcoming bands. Le Kâ will split in 1988.

At that time, Jean Vautrin will be releasing a novel called Billy Ze Kick, which Nathalie really enjoyed, so much that she decided to take the alias and to name her new band that way. The other members came aboard, Careil became Monsieur Bing, Nathalie's brother Benoît Cousin on guitar became artist 2781871 and relying on a beatbox at first, they'll soon be joined by Jean-Christophe Bénic alias artist 2781870, previously drummer with artist 1435690.
Benoît will record all the tracks sung by Billy on a 4-track recorder in his house of Rennes, some will be compiled by label 243749, from Canal B. Early 1992, they'll sign an edition contract with BMG, and end of 1992, a few labels are interested to sign the band but they back off once the lyrics of "Mangez-moi, mangez-moi" are assimilated. At this point the band is about to split, but Benoît convinces Nathalie to release an album with all previously recorded material, some with Les Gamins En Folie, their side band when going live and others as a wink to RPG which they all enjoy.
April 1993 will see the release of [m=209228], heavily aired by artist 1026177 and Ariel Wizman during summertime, then journalists at La Grosse Boule on Radio Nova. A distribution company called Media 7 will fast be overcome so the demand is high. They'll be programmed on Trans Musicales De Rennes that year, but decline label 420082 offered by artist 570904. Instead, they'll be granted the creation of a Barnum in the old Rennes, sold-out every night. Their motto: "No smoking, G's only"!
Soon, their BMG editor called Piranha will launch its own label: Shaman under PolyGram, licensing the album in April 1994. 100k records will be sold less than a month later granting them a Disque D'or selling certification, and by September 300k copies were gone. Somewhere during fall that year, a policeman from Nantes files a complaint against incitement of drug abuse, all the country seems to discover the existence of psilocybin, the hallucinogen mushroom as portrayed in [m=209229]. By the end of the year, the band decides to take a time off.

Benoît will then produce Nathalie's solo album [r=446398], still with Les Productions Du Fer, recorded with artist 115680 and released in 1995. He'll then sell all his rights on Billy Ze Kick to Polygram against quite some money, then produce a few friends album such as artist 1136331, artist 2991020, artist 1554630, then Sloy's firt LP initially recorded by Rosebud but sold to Benoît by artist 472853. The company will be sold to artist 2707406 freshly building label 688161 in 1997.
He'll bounce on the cultural scene, becoming head of a non-profit organization called Le Collectif and with the help of Martial Gabillard (later to become director of artist 1458354), will ensure the birth of label 278406. He'll be the director of the structure from 1998 to 2000, then president up to 2004, and the director of a Celtic music festival for 9 years called Bol d'Eire held in Noyal-Châtillon-sur-Seiche.

Leaving his responsibilities, Benoît will reform with Billy Ze Kick to release [r=2539335] in 2001, under the umbrella of a new production company launched for the event, label 217246. The production house will also release artist 6096945 (a duet between artist 1560951 and artist 6096989), artist 1560949 (Soazig's solo project), artist 6088448, artist 6567018 and many more.

His political engagements close to the ecologist movement since 1998, and at large in the city life will push him towards the creation of an indie network called "Labels A Rennes". He is an active member of Europe Ecologie Les Verts (one ecological party in France), and in 2008, he was elected to the city council, he's now deputy to the culture for the city of Rennes.