Shifty Shellshock, the frontman of nu-metal one-hit wonders Crazy Town, has died. He was 49.
As reported by Newsweek, the singer — who was born Seth Binzer — passed away at his residence on Monday (June 24th). A cause of death has yet to be disclosed.
Shellshock was a co-founding member of Crazy Town, who released their debut album, The Gift of Game, in November 1999 and supported the Red Hot Chili Peppers on tour soon after. In October 2000, Crazy Town released "Butterfly" — which fittingly samples the Chili Peppers' "Pretty Little Ditty" — as the LP's third single; the track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remains the band's biggest hit and defining song.
After Crazy Town's second album, 2002's Darkhorse, failed to repeat The Gift of Game's success, the band broke up. They would reunite in 2007 and release a third LP, 2015's The Brimstone Sluggers, named after the group's original moniker. In the interim, Shellshock launched a solo career, collaborating with Paul Oakenfold on the 2002 hit "Starry Eyed Surprise," and releasing his first album, Happy Love Sick, in 2004.
Shellshock had been very public about his struggles with addiction, appearing on VH1's Celebrity Rehab and its follow-up show, Sober House. He was most recently arrested for a DUI in 2022. Shellshock's issues notably caused problems for Crazy Town throughout their history. The band were booted off Ozzfest in 2000 after he arrested over drunken misbehavior. As recently as April 2023, the singer engaged in a fistfight with his bandmate after missing a show — video of which went viral — leading (hed)p.E. to remove Crazy Town from the Nu-Metal Madness 2 tour.
In his last Instagram post, which he shared eight weeks ago, Shellshock wrote, "To the ones who stay even when I try my hardest to scare [them] away," followed by an emoji of a black heart, under an image featuring the words "real is rare, fake is everywhere."
Shellshock is survived by his three children, Halo, Gage and Phoenix.
