Seth Binzer, frontman of US band Crazy Town, dies aged 49 | Music

Seth Binzer, the lead singer of Los Angeles rap-rock band Loopy City – who had a US No 1 hit with Butterfly in 2001 – has died aged 49. The LA medical expert licensed that his loss of life came about on 24 June 2024 however gave no trigger.

Binzer, often known as Shifty Shellshock, based Loopy City in 1995 alongside Bret Mazur. The band launched their debut album, The Reward of the Recreation, in 1999.

It initially failed to search out success, with two singles failing to chart. The band’s prospects appeared dim, significantly after they withdrew from the travelling Ozzfest competition in 2000 after Binzer was arrested for throwing a chair out of a window whereas drunk.

Nevertheless in autumn 2000, they launched a 3rd single, Butterfly, which sampled Fairly Little Ditty by Crimson Scorching Chili Peppers, with whom that they had beforehand toured. The music climbed the US charts to achieve No 1 the next 12 months; within the UK it peaked at No 3.

The band had been hesitant to launch the music because the album’s first single, they mentioned, as a result of they knew it might come to outline them. Binzer mentioned: “A music like Butterfly is a no brainer, everybody appears to like that regardless of how arduous they’re, it’s very radio pleasant, the feminine viewers loves it and on the identical time I believe we saved our integrity with it.”

They’d made the proper assumption: after they toured with Ozzfest in 2001, Binzer advised Rolling Stone the band had “loads to show” due to the one – particularly that they have been “aggressive punk youngsters – an actual band and never a pop act”. Nonetheless, they obtained blended critiques and have been dismissed as “the Butterfly boys”, MTV reported.

They launched a second album, Darkhorse, in 2002, which didn’t attain the identical heights, prompting the band to go on hiatus from 2003 to 2007.

In 2002, Binzer collaborated with Paul Oakenfold on the one Starry Eyed Shock. In 2004, he launched a solo album, Completely happy Love Sick, below the Shifty Shellshock alias.

The band reformed in 2007; a 12 months later, Binzer would take part within the VH1 actuality present Superstar Rehab and a followup programme, Sober Home, throughout which he relapsed.

In 2015 they launched their third album, The Brimstone Sluggers, which didn’t chart. After Mazur left the band in 2017, Binzer renamed the group Loopy City X, and toured till 2023. The band have been kicked off a tour that 12 months with nu metallic band Hed PE after a struggle between their frontman Bobby Reeves and Binzer.

Binzer was born to Rollin Binzer, who directed the 1974 live performance movie Women and Gents: the Rolling Stones, and former mannequin Leslie Brooks. He was raised in Boston and LA and found rap by travelling to New York Metropolis to purchase cassette tapes, the place he additionally embraced skateboarding tradition.

Binzer spoke overtly about having frolicked in jail as a younger man following incidents together with assault with a firearm, in addition to promoting and utilizing medicine and battling habit.

Across the flip of the 2010s, his engagement to British mannequin Jasmine Lennard was marked by allegations of battery and drug use. In 2022, he was arrested in Los Angeles for driving below the affect.

Binzer’s loss of life follows these of earlier Loopy City members Rust Epique, in 2004, and DJ AM, in 2009.