Crazy Town Frontman Shifty Shellshock Dead At 49
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Shifty Shellshock, troubled co-leader of the Los Angeles rap-rock band Crazy Town, has died. Variety reports that Shifty, whose real name was Seth Brooks Binzer, died at home in LA yesterday. No cause of death has been reported. Shifty was 49.
Seth Binzer grew up around the music business; his father Rollin directed the 1973 concert film Ladies And Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones and designed Chess Records album covers. As a young man, Binzer got into the LA rap scene and took the name Shifty Shellshock. He met fellow Crazy Town co-leader Bret “Epic” Mazur at a recording session for Will.I.Am’s pre-Black Eyed Peas group Atbann Klann in 1992.
Together, Bret Mazur and Shifty Shellshock formed a rap group called the Brimstone Sluggers, but they didn’t release any music until the late ’90s, when they became a rock band and changed their name to Crazy Town. The group signed to Columbia, released their 1999 debut album The Gift Of Game, and toured with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Crazy Town sampled the Chili Peppers on “Butterfly,” an extremely goofy love song from The Gift Of Game. “Butterfly,” released as a single in 2000, took off unexpectedly. In 2001, it became arguably the only track from the Y2K-era nü metal explosion to reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“Butterfly” made Crazy Town famous, though their success didn’t last. The visually distinct Shifty Shellshock, with his muscles and tattoos and bleached spikes, was their most visible member. The Gift Of Game went platinum on the strength of “Butterfly,” and Crazy Town joined the OzzFest tour. (They’d been booked for a previous OzzFest, but they had to withdraw after Shifty Shellshock drunkenly threw a chair through a window.) Crazy Town broke up after their 2001 follow-up album Darkhorse flopped. Shifty rapped on British DJ Paul Oakenfold’s 2002 hit “Starry Eyed Surprise” and released the 2004 solo album Happy Love Sick.
Crazy Town announced a reunion in 2007, and they played their first show back together in 2009. In 2015, they released the independent album The Brimstone Sluggers. Last year, Shifty and replacement co-leader Bobby Reeves got into a bloody on-camera fight after a show in Myrtle Beach, and they were subsequently kicked off of (hed)p.e.’s Nu Metal Madness 2 Tour. In a statement, (hed)p.e. leader Jared Gomes said, “Seth needs help.” Shifty and Reeves made up, and Crazy Town played at least one show together in Michigan this past May.
Shifty Shellshock struggled with substance abuse, and he took part in reality shows like Celebrity Rehab and Sober House. He was arrested for domestic abuse and cocaine possession in 2012 and for DUI in 2022. In 2012, he was hospitalized after losing consciousness, and he woke up after briefly being comatose.
UPDATE: Binzer died of an accidental overdose according to this rep. “Seth has been struggling with substance abuse problems for quite sometime,” Howie Hubberman told Rolling Stone. “Seth was not happy with the daily struggle that’s called life. Some people cope in many different ways. It’s unfortunate we lose so many people to addiction and accessibility to harmful drugs. Shifty was a real-life tragedy. Too fast, too hard, too soon.”
The singer’s ex-girlfriend Soleil Moon Frye (of Punky Brewster fame) paid tribute on Instagram. “My heart is whispering a million I love you’s for the way you loved my children and I so unconditionally,” she wrote.
