About 24 hours before Shifty Shellshock was found dead, the Crazy Town front man was begging friends for money.

His manager, Howie Hubberman, told DailyMail.com Shifty - whose real name was Seth Binzer -  told him he planned to go to a halfway house and needed the funds to get back on his feet. 

In reality, Binzer was renting a room inside a flophouse in a drug and gang-infested part of the Koreatown area near Downtown Los Angeles.

'He wanted about $600 and told me he wanted to go to a sober living house,' Hubberman said. 'But he knew that at a sober living house, he would be out in a day or two because they don't tolerate anything.'




Howie Hubberman, who managed Seth Binzer for nearly two years, said the musician asked him for money the day before he was found dead in a home in LA

Hubberman said Binzer 'never got clean' and was paying about $30 to $50 per night to stay at the Koreatown flophouse. 

The manager said he put his foot down and refused to give his client and friend the money because he knew Binzer 'needed tough love'. 

About five months ago, Hubberman said he gave Binzer $300 for a gig in Phoenix but the singer-rapper never showed up.

'I didn't give him the $600 he asked for but someone else did,' Hubberman said. 'He took that money and probably part of that money was what ended up killing him. The next day, he was dead.'




Binzer, known by his stage name Shifty Shellshock, told his manager he planned to check into a halfway house






Seth Binzer, center, was the frontman for the rap-metal band Crazy Town. The group biggest hit was 'Butterfly' released in 2000

Binzer, 49, was found unresponsive on June 24 by the property manager of the home, who called 911. The Crazy Town vocalist was laying on a mattress that was placed on the floor of the less than 60 square foot room he had rented for the past five days.

Emergency responders arrived at the home less than four minutes later, but it was too late.  

Jason Roberts, who also rented the room in the house, told DailyMail.com exclusively Binzer was already dead by the time police entered the home.

Binzer's cause and manner of death were 'deferred' by the LA County Medical Examiner's Office pending further tests and toxicology results, but Hubberman said his friend died of an accidental overdose.

 'It was a combination of prescription drugs, street drugs and whatever else he could get his hands on,' Hubberman told DailyMail.com. 'Seth was a person with a lot of ills and a lot of trouble in his life.'









Binzer was renting a room inside a flophouse in a drug and gang-infested part of the Koreatown area near Downtown Los Angeles 

Hubberman said Binzer was taking Xanax and Adderall before his death.

DailyMail.com also saw drug paraphernalia in Binzer's room, including a Narcan spray and other injectable medications, left on top of a shelf just above a plastic dresser container.  

While his roommate claimed Binzer was partying with women at his short-term room rental the week of his death, family and friends said this was not true. 

Binzer, who has three children, wanted to get sober and was working on new music with plans to get back on the road, his manager sad.

But Binzer's troubled past always haunted him.

'He didn't like himself,' Hubberman said. 'He didn't like his life, but I think the biggest thing that he really didn't like was how he had turned his back on his kids because he didn't know what else to do.'




Shifty Shellshock  singing 'Butterfly' at Norman Rare Guitars in Tarzana , Calif

Binzer and his rap-metal band Crazy Town's biggest hit was 'Butterfly' in 2000, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks.

It also was number one in several other countries including Austria, Denmark and Norway.

The group's debut album, The Gift of Game, sold more than 1.5 million copies. However, the band broke up in 2003 after their subsequent projects failed and tensions within the group led to various fights.

Hubberman said during periods when he was sober, Binzer had heart-to-heart conversations about how much he loved his three sons and wished he could've been a better father.

'As a man and a father, you have to take responsibility and raise your kids as you would've like to have been raised and make them a better person than you,' Hubberman said. 'That was the biggest thing that haunted him. He loved those kids and he had regrets that he wasn't there for the children.'

Model Jasmine Lennard, who has a 14-year-old son Pheonix with Binzer, told Daily Mail columnist Richard Eden she is 'heartbroken' over her former partner's death.

'He was a troubled soul, but a beautiful one and he had a heart of gold,' Lennard, 38, said. 'He struggled with addiction throughout his life. God knows, he tried so hard to beat his demons, but sadly he lost his battle.'




Model Jasmine Lennard with Binzer and their son, Phoenix, who is now 14

Binzer also had two other children - Gage, 16, with former partner Tracy Shelor and Halo, 22, with ex-wife Melissa Clark.

Clark and Binzer tied the knot in 2002 and divorced nine years later, citing irreconcilable differences.

According to a GoFundMe page started for Binzer's children, the musician sold off the rights to his music at the height of his addiction. 

'Distressingly, the three boys do not currently benefit from their own father's musical legacy, which we are working to change,' wrote Shelor on the fundraising page.

Shelor added: ' Seth loved his boys more than anything. He tragically battled addiction throughout his life, often unable to provide for his children the way he wanted. Despite this, his dedication to his music and his fans never wavered, even until the very end.'

Binzer was a Rock & Roll love child: his father, Rollin, was a graphic artist while his mother Leslie was a former model.

While growing up in Boston, Binzer told Rolling Stone he would help himself to his father's drug stash, and learned to roll joints when he was just five years old. 

'My dad was the artsy-fartsy guy who did lots of cocaine and had weed all over the house,' he told the publication.

Binzer struggled with his addiction to cocaine and even appeared on reality TV shows Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew 1 and 2 and Sober House 1 and 2 in the 2000s.

The singer-rapper had admitted to using both the powder form of the drug as well as crack cocaine. 

Binzer had been arrested multiple times as he struggled with his addiction, but the latest was a 2022 DUI in LA. 

He was sentenced in April 2023 to 36 months of probation on the condition that he enroll in a rehab program and complete community service, according to court records obtained by DailyMail.com. 




Crazy Town members struggled with drug addiction and arguments before they finally broke up in 2003

Binzer is the third member of Crazy Town to die young.

The former bandmates struggled with drug abuse, addiction and domestic violence over the years after the band broke up in 2003.

In March 2004, guitarist Rust Epique - whose real name was Charles Anthony Lopez - was found dead in his Las Vegas home from an apparent heart attack. He was 36 years old.

Five years later, another bandmate, Adam Goldstein - known by his stage name DJ AM - also died at age 36 from an accidental drug overdose.

Hubberman said despite the incredible loss Binzer had suffered in his life, the singer-rapper wanted to get his career back on track.

Actress Soleil Moon Frye, who was Binzer's childhood friend and former girlfriend, also directed and produced a documentary of the Crazy Town vocalist that's yet to be released, Hubberman said.

The Punky Brewster actress declined to comment when reached by DailyMail.com.

The manager added Binzer also recorded enough unreleased songs for a new album. 

'In the end, he let the drugs lead him to where he was and he didn't know how to correct it,' Hubberman said. 'This went on for Vape Vision pens decades. We all tried to help him, but ultimately we all failed.'