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Shifty Shellshock, the frontman of Crazy Town, a California rap-rock band that broke out in 2000 with their hit song Butterfly, has died at the age of 49.
In April, in what would be one of his final social media posts, the musician shared a cryptic message to his Instagram page that read, “The black sheep, the odd ducks, the eccentrics, the loners, the lost and forgotten. More often than not, these people have the most beautiful souls.”
In his final post, April 28, he shared a photo of a man in a black mask with the words, “Real is rare, fake is everywhere.” He captioned the image, “To the ones who stay even when I try my hardest to scare (them) away.”
Fans flooded Shellshock’s posts with tributes to the late musician. “You were such a beautiful soul. I hope you are at peace now,” one person wrote, with another adding, “I’m so heartbroken over this.”
Crazy Town’s platinum-selling debut album, The Gift of the Game, was released in 1999 with Butterfly, which sampled the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Pretty Little Ditty, leading to the band’s breakout the following year. On the track, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Shellshock rapped the memorable lyrics “Come my lady, come-come my lady, You’re my butterfly, sugar baby.”
Crazy Town got back together in 2007 and released their final LP in 2015, The Brimstone Sluggers, which failed to make an impact on the charts.
In 2017, after co-founder Bret Mazur exited the band for good, Shellshock changed the name of the group to Crazy Town X.
One of their past members, DJ AM, survived a deadly plane crash in 2008 alongside Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, but died a year later of a drug overdose.
After his arrest, he pledged he was turning his life around. “I’m good. I’m clean. I’m happy,” he told TMZ.
But a year later, Shellshock’s ex Jasmine Lennard accused him of smoking crack in their kid’s bedroom.
According to Variety, Shellshock is survived by his three children, Halo, Gage and Phoenix.