CRAZY Town once said that “going through hell” shaped them, but there’s no denying they faced more hardship than they expected.
This week, frontman Shifty Shellshock (real name Seth Binzer) passed away at his home at the age of 49 after a lengthy, four-decade battle with drug and alcohol addiction.
According to TMZ, his body was found next to drug paraphernalia and a lighter, and the cause of death has been “deferred” pending the results of toxicology tests.
Seth’s death is one of many tragedies to strike the band, which rose to fame in 2000 with the single “Butterfly” and whose debut album, “The Gift of Game,” sold 1.5 million copies.
Crazy Town broke up in 2003 after eight years together due to allegations of irregular drug and alcohol abuse that led Seth to enter rehab multiple times.
The singer, who died two days ago, had a difficult upbringing: as a child he frequently raided his father’s drug stash, a graphic artist, and learned to smoke marijuana at the age of five.
“My dad was an artsy guy who did a lot of cocaine and had marijuana all over the house,” he previously told Rolling Stone.
As a teenager, Seth sold marijuana and harder drugs, and at age 18, he was jailed for 90 days for robbing another drug dealer at gunpoint.
He recalled that in the band’s early days, then called the Brimstone Sluggers, the band members would write songs, take cocaine and run speed marathons until a 1997 rehab stint.
A year later, Seth joined Alcoholics Anonymous, and the band began regularly reciting the Alcoholics Anonymous prayer before shows: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things I can.”
By 2000, he had been arrested for drunkenly throwing a chair out of a window, and Crazy Town was forced to cancel the group’s big break at the Ozzfest festival.
The incident contributed to a decade of hardship for Starr, who even went on “wild sprees” himself and stole money from the band.
He said: “I was just a ball of chaos. I was running from my emotions, wallowing in insanity. And I was enjoying it. To save myself, I had to scrape the bottom.”
In a 2001 interview, Seth admitted to having served three months in prison for attempted theft and that he regularly sold and used drugs recreationally.
The band went on hiatus in 2003 after their sophomore album, Darkhorse, and the singles “Drowning” and “Hurt You So Bad” did not enjoy the same success as Butterfly.
Tragic Death
Just a year after the band broke up in 2003, guitarist Last Epic (real name Charles Lopez) was found dead in his Las Vegas home from a ruptured aorta. He was 36 years old.
The musician, described by Rolling Stone magazine as “Hollywood music’s notorious and beloved eccentric”, was known for his long-standing struggles with drug addiction.
Last said his father managed Billy Joel in the 1970s and he recalled going into a music studio for the first time at age three and seeing a pile of cocaine on a drum kit.
“I was surrounded by a lot of addicts,” he told Rolling Stone. “To me, taking drugs was not mysterious or cool.”
He admitted to using cocaine and spirulina while writing the songs, then downing Red Bull before partying for months.
A similar tragic fate befell Adam Goldstein, better known as DJ AM, who died of a drug overdose at age 36 in 2009.
He left Crazy Town in 2001 after struggling to stay clean within the band due to a crack cocaine addiction he had had since he was 20 years old.
At any given time, I am five seconds away from walking up to someone, snatching the drink out of their hand and chugging it down. If I did, I’d be smoking crack within a week at most.
DJ Am
DJ AM has produced tracks for Will Smith, Papa Roach and Babyface, and collaborated with former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker in 2008.
That same year, Travis and DJ AM were traveling in a Learjet 60 when it crashed, killing six people and leaving DJ AM with third-degree burns to his head and arms and nearly dying.
Anti-anxiety and painkillers prescribed after the fatal accident are believed to have led to a relapse into drug addiction, which celebrity doctor Drew Pinsky said “opened the floodgates”.
In 2009, he was found dead in his New York apartment surrounded by drug paraphernalia, including crack pipes and bags of crack.
His cause of death was a large amount of a mixture of meth and cocaine.
DJ AM previously spoke about his nine years of sobriety, saying: “At any given time, I’m five seconds away from walking up to someone, snatching the drink out of their hand and chugging it down. If I did that, I’d be smoking crack cocaine within a week at the latest.”
Five rehabilitation sessions
Throughout the 2000s, Seth battled addiction and sought help on the reality TV shows Celebrity Rehab 1 & 2 and Sober House 1 & 2.
His struggles with drugs contributed to his separation from his first wife, Melissa Clark, whom he married in 2002 but divorced nine years later, citing irreconcilable differences.
It’s unclear when Seth and Melissa, who have a son together, split, but in 2008, Seth dated Tracy Sellers and had another son, Gage, with her.
In 2010, he began dating British model Jasmine Leonard (who had previously had an affair with Simon Cowell) and they had a son, Phoenix, but within two years the pair had split.
Seth was arrested multiple times during their relationship, first in 2011 after a reported domestic disturbance and fight with a security guard outside a nightclub.
The following year, the singer was arrested on assault charges after a store employee called police after seeing him assaulting Jasmine in public.
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While in police custody, Seth was found to be in possession of cocaine and was given three years’ probation for that offense in 2012.
That same year, Seth was hospitalized after losing consciousness and going into a coma, with sources at the time claiming that it was “likely drug-related.”
“The prospect of prison may have pushed the Celebrity Rehab participant over the edge,” a source told Perez Hilton.
Seth’s agent later revealed that he had checked himself into a “reputable” rehabilitation center and that his “life has completely changed” since the incident.
His relationship with Jasmine ended during that difficult time, and the following year his mother was taken to court for sole custody of their son, Phoenix.
She claimed in court that Seth smoked crack cocaine in front of the children and left a crack pipe in their bedroom.
In 2017, Jasmine accused Seth of being an absentee father, telling The Sun: “He hasn’t contributed a dollar in the six years since my son was born. It feels like the only thing he cares about in life is having another hit record.”
“He was being asked to pay £500 a month but said he owed money for dental work because he was a musician and in the public eye and needed a ‘Hollywood smile’.”
In 2022, Seth’s ex-wife Tracey told a similar story to The Sun, claiming that Seth was an “irresponsible father” who hadn’t seen their son and was behind on more than $64,000 (£50,500) in child support payments.
She was infuriated by the singer’s flaunting of his lavish lifestyle on social media, frequently posting pictures of his vacations at his beachfront home in Malibu and with his partner on the show Punky Brewster, Soleil Moon Frye.
We can’t just stand by and watch while he’s fighting a deadly battle with demons on his journey. He needs to get off his trip and deal with that problem.
Jared Gomez of the band Hed PE
Tracy described his “rock star lifestyle” during their time together, saying that not only was he regularly buying cocaine, but that he was “using anything he could get his hands on.”
She added: “He spent thousands of dollars, emptied my bank accounts, stole my possessions and pawned everything we owned. It literally took me 10 years to rebuild everything.”
Moose clash and violent fight
After Crazy Town went on hiatus in 2003, the group reformed multiple times with various lineups.
In 2016, they participated in the “Make America Rock Again” tour with other bands who had success in the 2000s.
A year later, after co-founder Brett “Epic” Mazur retired from performing, they changed their name to Crazy Town X.
On Facebook, the group posted that “the X is being used by gangs to symbolize territory they have just gained.”
During a tour in 2019, the band survived when their tour bus struck a moose while traveling on Route 17 in Ontario, Canada.
“By the grace of God we are all safe, just cuts and bruises,” Seth wrote online, sharing a photo of his and Elias Tanous’ bloodied faces.
He spent thousands of dollars, emptied my bank accounts, stole my possessions, pawned everything we had, it literally took me 10 years to rebuild everything.
Tracy Sellers, Seth’s ex
Many said they were lucky to survive, as four people had been killed on the same stretch of highway the previous year. Just 24 hours later, the band played a show in Greater Sudbury.
In 2023, Crazy Town began touring with nu-metal band Head PE after a fight broke out between Seth and co-vocalist Bobby Reeves outside a venue in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
The confrontation, which left both men bloody and bruised, reportedly began when Seth didn’t show up until the end of the gig, leaving Bobby to perform alone.
“I’m so mad at damn Shifty right now,” Bobby said, and Seth accused him of stealing and punched him in the face.
Bobby later revealed in a video that he had a black eye and some scrapes above his eye, telling fans, “Me and Shifty had a little fight, but it’s OK. We’re brothers.”
Despite the reconciliation, Hed PE frontman Jared Gomez pulled them from the tour, claiming that “Seth needs help.”
He continued, “We can’t just stand by and watch while he’s on tour and fighting his demons to the point of dying. He needs to get off the road and deal with that issue.”
“You saw the video. If it had just been a fight between band members, I would have been the first to intervene. But this is a much more serious issue.”
Just a week after the brawl, Seth was arrested on suspicion of DUI after he was seen veering in and out of lanes in a black SUV.
In March of this year, the group released an EP titled Flirting With Disaster. Bobby has since left the band, leaving only Seth, Mark White, Rick Dixon and Sean Heenan.