Shifty Shellshock’s wild life: How the Crazy Town singer battled a crippling addiction, a turbulent love life and multiple arrests

The cause of death of early 2000s rap-rock star Shifty Shellshock has been “deferred” pending toxicology tests after the star spent decades battling crippling drug addiction and being admitted to celebrity rehab centers.

The Butterfly singer – real name Seth Binzer – died at home on June 24 at the age of 49. The cause of death has not yet been determined, according to RadarOnline.com, pending toxicology tests.

Binzer’s long and painful road to fame began in 1992 when he met his Crazy Town co-founder Bret Mazur. He struggled to make music for nearly a decade, not achieving mainstream success until the release of Butterfly in 2000.

The success did not make Binzer happy and the singer spent decades in and out of rehab because of her crippling drug and alcohol addiction and appeared on reality TV shows to try to get healthy.

He was arrested several times, which led to violent arguments and separations with his then partners and to custody battles over his youngest child.

Binzer was a child of love for rock’n’roll: his father Rollin was a graphic designer, his mother Leslie a former model.

Binzer grew up in Boston and used his father’s drug stash. He learned to roll joints at the age of five. He told Rolling Stone: “My father was the artistic type who took a lot of cocaine and had weed everywhere in the house.”

He started dirt biking, growing a mohawk, skateboarding, and hanging out with girls two grades above him.

When he was 11, the family moved to LA and a few years later his parents split up, which caused him to party even harder and start selling weed and then harder drugs.

At the age of 18, he had his first run-in with the law when he and a friend robbed another drug dealer with a gun – for which he was sent to prison for 90 days.

He continued his partying lifestyle until he was admitted to rehab in 1997. In 1998, he pulled himself together, attended AA meetings, and helped found Crazy Town.

Binzer and Mazur recorded non-stop throughout the summer of 1999. He told Rolling Stone at the time: “We were completely out of our minds.”

The rest of the band formed and toured the US. Before the show, he recited an AA prayer: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can.”

When they came out, they drank a Red Bull and made out with the local groupies.

Then, in 2000, Binzer panicked, months before the band was scheduled to perform at Ozzfest and celebrate their big break.

After months of partying, Binzer slept through the show.

The band left him behind and he moved back to LA, broke up with his then-girlfriend, stole money from the band, and went on a rampage.

He told Rolling Stone: “I was just a big fireball of chaos. I was running from my emotions, sinking into psychosis. And loving it. I have to scrape my butt along that floor before I can save myself.”

It was the beginning of a darker decade in which Binzer repeatedly struggled with his addiction.

In the 2000s, Binzer appeared in four reality TV celebrity rehab shows: Celebrity Rehab 1 and 2 and Sober House 1 and 2.

He kept running away, losing his sobriety and becoming withdrawn until he was finally told he was no longer allowed to participate in the show.

He married Melissa Clark in 2002 and had his first son, Halo. They divorced in 2011 and Binzer had another son, Gage, with a woman named Tracy and a third son, Phoenix, with Jasmine Lennard. Lennard is also known for her affair with Simon Cowell.

Benzer’s relationship with Lennard ended in 2012 when he was arrested after a store clerk in Los Angeles caught him arguing with his girlfriend and called the police.

When they arrived, they searched him and found that he had cocaine on him.

He apologized to his friends and family for the embarrassment he caused them and was sentenced to three years’ probation after entering a no contest plea in court on both counts.

In 2013, Lennard applied to court for sole custody of their son. He claimed that Binzer had smoked crack in front of him and once left a crack pipe in the children’s room.

Lennard later called him an absent father, telling The Sun: “In the six years our son has been alive, he hasn’t contributed a single dollar. It feels like all he cares about in life is having another hit.”

“He was supposed to pay £500 a month but said he was in debt for dental costs because, as a musician and public figure, he needed a ‘Hollywood smile.'”

In 2022, he was arrested again for drunk driving in Los Angeles.

Binzer had many friends in the music world and revealed in 2001 that Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was a great support to him when he suffered a relapse after a bad breakup.

He told Rolling Stone at the time: “Anthony found me and took me to lunch – where I tried to borrow money from him so I could get high.”

“It took me a few days to finish my rampage, but it showed me that there are people who care and worry about me. Anthony is that angel who came into my life.”

Binzer is the third member of Crazy Town to die young.

The former band members struggled with drug abuse, addiction and domestic violence for years after the band disbanded in 2003.

In March 2004, guitarist Rust Epique was found dead in his home at the age of just 36. He apparently suffered a heart attack after leaving Crazy Town because he was too crazy for his bandmates.

After his death, Rolling Stone characterized him as “a notorious and beloved eccentric on the Hollywood music scene.”

Five years later, another bandmate, DJ AM, also died of an overdose at the age of 36.