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 dying happened on 24 June 2024 however gave no trigger.
Binzer, also called Shifty Shellshock, based Loopy City in 1995 alongside Bret Mazur. The band launched their debut album, The Reward of the Sport, in 1999.
It initially failed to seek out success, with two singles failing to chart. The band’s prospects seemed dim, notably after they withdrew from the travelling Ozzfest pageant 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 Sizzling 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 stated, as a result of they knew it could come to outline them. Binzer stated: “A music like Butterfly is a no brainer, everybody appears to like that irrespective of how exhausting they’re, it’s very radio pleasant, the feminine viewers loves it and on the similar time I feel 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 “quite a bit to show” due to the one – specifically that they had been “aggressive punk youngsters – an actual band and never a pop act”. Nonetheless, they acquired combined evaluations and had been dismissed as “the Butterfly boys”, MTV reported.
They launched a second album, Darkhorse, in 2002, which did not 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 satisfied Love Sick, beneath 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 did not chart. After Mazur left the band in 2017, Binzer renamed the group Loopy City X, and toured till 2023. The band had been kicked off a tour that 12 months with nu steel band Hed PE after a combat between their frontman Bobby Reeves and Binzer.
Binzer was born to Rollin Binzer, who directed the 1974 live performance movie Girls 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.
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Binzer spoke brazenly 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 combating dependancy.
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 beneath the affect.
Binzer’s dying follows these of earlier Loopy City members Rust Epique, in 2004, and DJ AM, in 2009.