Shifty Shellshock of Crazy Town has died aged 49 (Picture: Medios y Media/Getty Images)
Singer Seth Binzer, better known as Shifty Shellshock, has died aged 49 according to the Los Angeles medical examiner.
A cause of death for the Crazy Town singer is not currently known, having died on June 24.
The Butterfly hitmaker has previously shared battled with substance abuse but eight weeks ago wrote an emotional post about his sobriety.
In 2012, he was admitted to hospital after losing consciousness and had been in a coma before being released.
‘I’m a lover than a fighter …but the one I need to love more Instead of fight with is myself .. mr shifty true Love # Sober alive and grateful (sic),’ he wrote on Instagram two months ago.
He is best known for Crazy Town’s 2000 hit song Butterfly which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks.
He is best known for his song Butterfly (Picture: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Rockefellas Studio)
It also charted at number one in several other countries including Austria, Denmark, and Norway.
Binzer met co-frontman Bret Mazur, in 1992, and they first went by the name Brimstone Sluggers.
In 1999, they formed Crazy Town and a year later they were due to tour as part of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s Ozzfest, but Binzer was arrested after he threw a chair out a window while intoxicated.
Over the years, Binzer appeared in reality shows such as Celebrity Rehab 1 and 2 as well as Sober House 1and 2.
Crazy Town released their debut album The Gift of Game in 1999, which sold over 1.5 million copies.
Butterfly featured on this album and credits the Red Hot Chili Peppers as songwriters due to sampling from their track Pretty Little Ditty.
Despite this success, the 2002 follow-up album Darkhorse flopped and the band split temporarily.
Five years later, the group reformed and began touring but it would be nearly a decade before new music was released in the form of their third album.
January 2017 saw another split as Mazus, who was nicknamed Epic, decided to exit Crazy Town – with Rick Dixon, Nick Diiorio and Kevin Kapler leaving soon after.
Binzer then added an ‘X’ next to the band’s name, as it’s ‘used by gangs to symbolise a territory that has just been won’.
Two years later and the Crazy Town tour van crashed into a moose while in Ontario, Canada, leaving the band members needing treatment for minor injuries.
Binzer struggled with substance abuse issues throughout his life (Picture: Jim Spellman/WireImage)
Crazy Town – Binzer, DJ Rick One and Mark White – last toured in 2023 with Hed PEm, although this did not go smoothly.
While the shows went ahead, there was a bloody fight between Binzer and the group’s vocalist Bobby Reeves outside a venue in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Outside of Crazy Town, Binzer had a solo career and worked with British producer and musician Paul Oakenfold to supply the vocals for his 2002 hit Starry Eyed Surprise.
In 2004, he released an album called Happy Love Sick as well as forming Shifty and the Big Shots in 2010.
Binzer’s personal life was as chaotic as his career, with the singer running into trouble with the law for crimes such as attempted burglary.
He worked solo and with other music groups after Crazy Town split (Picture: Medios y Media/Getty Images)
Linked to his struggles with substance abuse, other crimes included selling and using recreational drugs.
Binzer has two children, a son named Halo, from his marriage to Melissa Clark and a son with a woman named Tracy called Gage.
He was in a relationship with Jasmine Lennard in 2010, but police were called to a domestic disturbance between the pair the following year.
In 2022, he started romancing his childhood friend, ‘Punky Brewster’ actress Soleil Moon Frye, 47, when he was arrested for driving under the influence in Los Angeles.
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