Shifty Shellshock, the lead singer of Crazy Town, died of an overdose at the age of 49, the band’s manager, Howie Hubberman, confirmed.
“He was the last touring member of Crazy Town, and Shifty lived up to that name,” Hubberman told Fox News Digital Friday. “He was a performer and a friend. Shifty died of an overdose and a broken heart as he wanted to get upright and make peace with his world. Unfortunately, we failed him and our system failed him, or [Shifty] would still be here.”
According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s website, Shellshock, whose legal name was Seth Binzer, died Monday.
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“Soleil Moon Frye, Seth’s childhood friend and girlfriend about two years ago, has shot a documentary about Shifty, which is supposed to be amazing,” Hubberman added.
In Shellshock’s last Instagram post, created April 28, he shared an image of a man wearing black surrounded by people in white with text that said, “Real is rare, fake is everywhere.” For his caption, he wrote, “To the ones who stay even when I try my hardest to scare the away.”
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Shortly before that, the musician posted another cryptic message on Instagram that said, “The black sheep, the odd ducks, the rejects, the eccentrics, the loners, the lost and forgotten. More often than not, these people have the most beautiful souls.”
Shellshock, who appeared on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab” and “Sober House” in 2008, had been public about his struggles with addiction throughout his life.
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In a 2001 interview with Rolling Stone, Shellshock, who was sober at the time, detailed the difficulties of staying clean while on tour.
“I was going to show them what happens when I get high: Everything falls apart and the band ends,” Shellshock said after recalling trying to read his AA book while others were snorting lines of cocaine. “I remember saying, ‘If you guys don’t get sober with me, I’m going to go start a sober band.’ And I was smoking crack while I’m saying that. I was just a big fireball of chaos.
“I was running from my emotions, just submerging myself in psychoticness,” he added. “And loving it. I have to scrape my ass along that bottom before I can save myself. I don’t think I’d be such a professional drug user if I wasn’t such a professional a–hole selling them. Someone might look at me and go, ‘He’s got it going on.’ And I do. At the same time, I have a really hard time keeping it on. I have a problem with drugs.”
