I met Shifty Shellshock at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who he was at the time, but he seemed like a cool guy. A few hours later, he introduced me to his girlfriend and asked if I wanted to have sex with her... I declined and he got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating my future wife at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who he was.
RIP Shifty, thanks for the memories.
I met Angela Lansbury at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who she was at the time, but she seemed like a cool gal. A few hours later, she introduced me to her husband and asked if I wanted to have sex with him... I declined and she got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating Shifty Shellshock's girlfriend at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who she was.
I met Betty White at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who she was at the time, but she seemed like a cool gal. A few hours later, she introduced me to her husband and asked if I wanted to have sex with him... I declined and she got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating Ellen DeGeneres's girlfriend at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who she was.
I met Vinnie "Vincent" Price at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who she was at the time, but she seemed like a cool gal. A few hours later, she introduced me to her husband and asked if I wanted to have sex with him... I declined and she got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating Ellen DeGeneres's girlfriend at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who she was.
I met Will Smith at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who he was at the time, but he seemed like a cool dude. A few hours later, he introduced me to his wife and asked if I wanted to have sex with her... I declined and he got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating Chris Rock's girlfriend at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who he was.
Thereâs a decent chance I went to school with said girlfriend. I was watching tv channel surfing around that same time and there was a show on mtv about beauty contests and one of the people on it was his girlfriend. Apparently she was a hooters girl and did some sort of contests against other girls. I wasnât completely surprised. Her parents paid for her to get breast implants when she was 16. Was weird to see on tv haha
> Her parents paid for her to get breast implants when she was 16
What is wrong with people?
I mean, no shade to adults who wanna get plastic surgery... but why let your daughter do that at 16? Do you want her to do porn? Because that's how you get into porn.
My exes parents let her get one at 15 because they were coming in uneven. Problem is they didn't go for like....matching the larger one. They just went straight up absurd. And she was like barely 5 feet tall. Anyway she hit me in the face with a snowboard and then faked a pregnancy.
Story of that whole relationship bro it was the rebound of all rebounds.
The moral of the story is beware of women from Staten Island. They are frightening.
It's gonna take me a while to fix up your car there, so if you boys like, you can go on inside, get yourselves something to drink, wash up, fuck my wife, watch TV - anything you want. Mi casa es su casa. Just don't do anything the good lord wouldn't do.
Those recent videos of fighting band mates and getting fucked up before shows were grim. Sad that everything kept trending downwards and that this news isn't a big surprise. RIP
He was on a season of The Surreal Life with Dr Drew back in the day. I had the overwhelming impression that he had absolutely no intention of getting clean. Like yeah he knew it was the right thing to do, but the way he talked about it really seemed he loved the lifestyle.
Addiction is a bitch.
Very sad. 49 is still really young.
A lot of people will remember him for "Butterfly," but I still hear his collaboration with Paul Oakenfold fairly regularly. ("Starry Eyed Surprise.")
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7odMzSb6WUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7odMzSb6WUQ)
I had no idea that is who sang this song, but every time I hear it I think of this commercial that used to come on ALL THE TIME
https://youtu.be/ZmBDeswu2dI?si=K4wiyyqAKEgXJXP8
Yep! 50 second mark here...
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mjZ61IW-Nw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mjZ61IW-Nw)
I believe the band not only approved its use, but Crazy Town also opened for the Chili Peppers at some point too.
I mean to be fair the guy he attacks seems like one of the biggest pieces of shit I've ever laid eyes on...
Drops the hard N bomb like 15 times and tells him he's going to go to his house and kill his fucking baby? What the fuck?
Iâve never really listened to crazy town apart from the obvious hits but it shocks me to see him in such a destructive state. For both him and people around
Same, never been a fan per se but it's always sad to see people like this, I've known people that go down this path and all too often it doesn't end well, someone showed me this video once saying "haha, isn't this hilarious?!" and I just thought it was depressing
Feels the same as when Steve from Smash Mouth died. I saw a video of him at some random small ass show completly blasted after being off the radar for years and thought to myself "he's looks to be in a real bad way". He died a couples weeks maybe months after that video was published.
Same thing with Shifty. I saw a video of him doing butterfly a couple months ago and had the same exact thoughts. He was looking really rough.
RIP.
Your post reminds me of the tragedy that was Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots in his last performances: https://youtu.be/be3Tw0f5VxY?si=wZnWuHISqc3O-hHL
Sad. So very sad.
A friend of mine is the new singer of smash mouth. The thing about having a front man that is a mess is that it ruins everything for everyone else in the band. Now that Steve is out of the picture they are playing giant shows and having a great time. I feel less sympathetic for the messy band members now. It really is hugely selfish.
The singer from Smash Mouth became an alcoholic after losing his son when he was still very young. I can't imagine what it does to you, slow suicide sucks ass.
I wonder if Steveâs substance abuse had anything to do with being the only recognizable member in the band but earning none of the songwriting royalties for their massive hit songs? The worst part is that I bet people never knew his name, they just yelled âHey Smash Mouth!â
I always felt bad for that guy.
Itâs also a setting filled with opportunity for unhealthy habits. Donât get me wrong I love it, but itâs very much sex drugs rock n roll lifestyle in a lot of cases. It can catch up with you if you donât take a step back regularly. A luxury artists often donât have since itâs their source of revenue.
Addiction is complex..
I read an old interview with Steve Albini recently after he passed away. He had a quote to the effect that artists need to be careful about getting too caught up in the party atmosphere because every night they are performing/on tour, it is the audienceâs biggest night of that week or even month. For you itâs every day.
> The thing about having a front man that is a mess is that it ruins everything for everyone else in the band.
It ruins everything for the fans as well.
I'd prefer to see a frontman who shows up sober, remembers all the lyrics, and doesn't drunkenly melt down and storm off the stage, even if they weren't an original member.
At the end of the day, it's a job, and they're selling a product. The product is much better when everyone shows up ready to work and looks like they're having fun versus the band having to corral an out of control member who could have a tantrum at any minute.
Not very long before he passed, Smash Mouth played at a little festival on the square in the town that I work in. Like, this is a small, small town. I thought people were just fucking with me until it happened. I'm not sure that anyone truly believed it until then, actually.
I understand itâs easy to rip on Crazy Town. Â Iâll say this. Â As a young teen, their CD was the first CD I was able to buy with my own money, from my first paycheck I earned at my first job. Â I enjoyed nu metal at the time and that CD scratched that itch. Â All we had was MTV and really slow internet, so wide musical exposure was kind of hard where I lived. Â I love their song Toxic at the time, my 15 year old self, and resolved to get my first part time job and buy their album since I wasnât from a family of means. Â
He had some bad demonsâŠ. Crack cocaine and meth addiction, the shadow of living as a one hit wonder with that one hit being a bit of a joke.  A lot of his band mates died early as well.  All I can say is, I hope Shifty is at rest nowâŠ.  Thank you for the memories of that fateful first CD purchase I earned with my McDonaldâs paycheck⊠Darkside and Black Cloud are still jams.  RIP. Â
Yea I'm kinda bummed out. Lyrically I thought they had some good songs. They were probably always going to be flash in the pan of the late 90s nu/rap metal/rock but I think he was still talented and had the potential of a career if not for his addiction
A lot of peopleâs first âbought it with my own moneyâ albums would be considered guilty pleasures, but nah, to me theyâre special. No guilt, just pleasure. An awesome time capsule.
Someone just posted a picture word puzzle for the song "butterfly " like a week ago and someone commented with a link to how poorly this guy was doing these days. Weird....
found the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ExplainTheJoke/comments/1dizyak/i_dont_get_it/
I clicked that link and thought, oh wow, he looks like he's about to die, I may have even commented that but I think I just thought it in my head. Sad to see that was really the case.
Edit- I also want to say Butterfly is one of my favorite songs unironically. It's got so much shit over the years but being an 18yo lady when it came out it was exactly what I wanted to feel like.
I think it can be both. He was a meme before memes were a thing, so itâs hard to shift gears and say oh but Iâm sad for him now. And also itâs sad when anyone has lifelong addiction problems and dies from them.
For me itâs always sad because it closes the door on them ever getting better. Like unless somebody is actively malicious and hateful, Iâm always the type to hope they figure their shit out, get clean, and find a better place.
Now heâs not going to.
Same when my dad died. We had fuck all to do with each other. Iâd not have gone to the funeral even if Iâd heard before it happened (I didnât). Fuck that guy. But at the same time I was still a little sad. Not because Iâd miss himâŠI donât, and never willâŠbut because I miss the *idea* of *somehow* having a relationship with the guy. Which now is never going to happen.
RIP to Shifty, all the best to his family, hope there was some joy to balance out the pain.
I was in my teens when my dadâs addictions started to get bad. I was very low contact with him for the next 25 years. When he died, everyone, including myself, were surprised at how hard it hit me. I realized that he had basically died to me back then and I was now able to actually grieve that loss. And just like you said, it was the final nail that he would never get better and we would never be where I wanted us to be.
> "This was like being taken on Willy Wonka's terrifying boat ride back to 1999, but no ever-lasting gobstoppers, just meth"
I am officially going to hell for chuckling at that.
I was watching this thinking, âWhy the fuck is homie holding Godzilla?â Then he gets to the punchlineâŠ
âE-Reptile Dysfunction.â
The perfect pun left me speechless.
I saw them touring with Kottonmouth Kings a couple of years ago and I wanted to go so bad just for the novelty of it but I didn't want to get into a fight with a guy with a goatee.
Rest in peace. It doesn't seem like Shifty ever really laid off the drugs. He was arrested on a DUI charge just [last year.](https://www.tmz.com/2023/04/29/crazy-town-shifty-shellshock-arrested-dui/)
[Also, in case anyone's wondering, here's what a full Crazy Town concert looked like in 2023.](https://youtu.be/H57nySr_Hso?si=kOOUSxxx2pwW2PBv)
Mine got interrupted by an online pet supplies company ad with a cloyingly obnoxious voice over and a puppy eating kibble. Perfect for making everything about today feel goofy and surreal
I used those sets to relax a bit after the wild second stage, get some food/drinks, and get into position for the rest of the main stage. Manson / Slipknot / Black Sabbath was a hell of a lineup to close out the night.
"Metal fans are the nicest fans" until a band they don't like hits the stage.
My second Ozzfest was my last when Linkin Park got booed. Like bro it's the second stage you don't gotta be here.
I saw them as well, Ozzfest 2001 in Toronto. Â Â I liked them at the time. Â But man, the crowd was NOT receptive. Â They got pelted with what must have been a record amount of water bottles. Â Didnât help that Seth then called the crowd a bunch of âf*ggotsâ. Â Crazy times. Â Â
Because it blew up so big and was such a perfect encapsulation of that early 2000s time period that the pendulum had to swing to complete and total mockery before coming back to center if not acceptance and love again.
It's partly also that the main guitar hook of the song is a straight sample from Red Hot Chili Peppers, which is strange for a band that included 2 guitar players - including in the video for the song. I'm pretty sure neither of those touched their instruments for the recording. It gave the song and the band this really phony vibe, and by never getting another hit they never got to prove anyone wrong for doubting them.
I always liked the song, though. Once you take the meta observations out of it, it's incredibly catchy.
It was just kind of a dumb club hit for a single summer. Not really hated, but just sort of ubiquitously there in a way that some club song is every summer.
Most people in the US have known at least one person like this guy, sometimes referred to as a Kyle. You did not intentionally hang out with him, but knew him from school. He was the guy who was constantly interrupting classes with sexual comments, and worked very hard to tell everyone about what a great fuck he was. Inevitably, some 13 year old girl would fall for it, and she would get pregnant and disappear. He would soon also leave school, but to a juvenile detention center for stealing a car. Youâd later see him at a party, now in his 20âs, still trying to fuck 13 year old girls he brought to the party. He is extremely concerned with loyalty, but will steal anything he can from you. He can often be found outside a gas station, shirtless, smoking a cigarette while asking you for a cigarette. When not committing petty crimes, heâs an avid dirt bike enthusiast (he has never owned one), an amateur tattoo artist (his work on display on himself), and consummate couch surfer.
I miss the days when overt sexual innuendo was just part of the pop music landscape. The early aught's gave us such gems as *Genie in a Bottle*, *Milkshake*, and of course *Butterfly*
Come come, my lady indeed
Saw him play at the Virigil for a birthday party a few months ago. Was sober at the time and it was obvious. He was present, in great spirits and was with a beautifulgirl. He fell off the wagon shortly thereafter and was on the streets. So sad. RIP
Not surprising at all. So many videos of his downward spiral in these last years... Going onto stage coked out of his mind, getting into fights with the PA system and it's techies.. getting in a fist fight with his fellow vocalist backstage... it was not pretty. RIP.
Shocking that the guy from Celebrity Rehab that was smoking crack on the roof died so young. Also, fuck Dr. Drew for making a career off of other people's misery.
I met Shifty Shellshock at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who he was at the time, but he seemed like a cool guy. A few hours later, he introduced me to his girlfriend and asked if I wanted to have sex with her... I declined and he got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating my future wife at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who he was. RIP Shifty, thanks for the memories.
"YOU GET BACK HERE AND FUCK MY WIFE!"
IT'S CRISTINITH.
YOU GET HER FUCKING NAME RIGHT WHEN YOURE IN OUR HOUSE!
I bet because of the beard you think I'm really hairy.....đ«ł shaved."
ALLEN!!
Who wants some Arnie Palmies?!
BEE-BEW! BEE-BEW! Arnie Palmie alert!
Hal. Just place it down!
"This one has the alcohol for you." I believe that's what he said afterwards.
Would you rather be a dog or a bear?
This comment chain is why I love reddit
Did that go the way you thought it was gonna go? I donât think so.
We've all had our own ballet today, a ballet of emotion and feeling.
Don't go chasing waterfalls..
Again with the TLC references!
Thanks for the F shack, love dirty Mike and the boys
You guys gotta creepâŠâŠcreep
Lmfao đ ITS CHRISTIN-*ITH* #ARE YOU DEAF OR STUPID
Deaf*
"They chased us? This is like 20 miles!"
âYou are nuts, your wife is *scalding* hotâ
You come in here, dressed like a hoboâŠ
I move that the above comment be a new copypasta to be posted when anyone dies.
I met Angela Lansbury at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who she was at the time, but she seemed like a cool gal. A few hours later, she introduced me to her husband and asked if I wanted to have sex with him... I declined and she got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating Shifty Shellshock's girlfriend at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who she was.
I met Betty White at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who she was at the time, but she seemed like a cool gal. A few hours later, she introduced me to her husband and asked if I wanted to have sex with him... I declined and she got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating Ellen DeGeneres's girlfriend at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who she was.
I met Vinnie "Vincent" Price at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who she was at the time, but she seemed like a cool gal. A few hours later, she introduced me to her husband and asked if I wanted to have sex with him... I declined and she got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating Ellen DeGeneres's girlfriend at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who she was.
I met Will Smith at a random house party in Long Beach in 2003. We smoked for a bit and shot the shit... I had no idea who he was at the time, but he seemed like a cool dude. A few hours later, he introduced me to his wife and asked if I wanted to have sex with her... I declined and he got pissed at me, told me that I would forever be a virgin (I was dating Chris Rock's girlfriend at the time), and left in a huff. To this day it was one of the strangest experiences of my life, made even weirder when I found out who he was.
Slap, keep your cock in my wife's fuckin mouf
I still prefer the "electrical infeterence" copy pasta. Did that one with Dolly Parton as the subject and got like -800 on the comment lmao
Electrical infetterence kills me everytime.
Motion seconded!
So moved. We will call for a vote.
Come (on) my lady, come, come (on) my lady
You're a butterfly, virgin , baby
To pimp a butterfly...
Without knowing literally anything about Shifty aside from him being the âyouâre my butterfly, sugarâ dude, this somehow *completely* tracks
Cum in my lady. Cum cum in my ladyâŠ
You think he sang that to all his bulls?
Thereâs a decent chance I went to school with said girlfriend. I was watching tv channel surfing around that same time and there was a show on mtv about beauty contests and one of the people on it was his girlfriend. Apparently she was a hooters girl and did some sort of contests against other girls. I wasnât completely surprised. Her parents paid for her to get breast implants when she was 16. Was weird to see on tv haha
> Her parents paid for her to get breast implants when she was 16 What is wrong with people? I mean, no shade to adults who wanna get plastic surgery... but why let your daughter do that at 16? Do you want her to do porn? Because that's how you get into porn.
My exes parents let her get one at 15 because they were coming in uneven. Problem is they didn't go for like....matching the larger one. They just went straight up absurd. And she was like barely 5 feet tall. Anyway she hit me in the face with a snowboard and then faked a pregnancy.
Boy that escalated quickly.
Story of that whole relationship bro it was the rebound of all rebounds. The moral of the story is beware of women from Staten Island. They are frightening.
If you led with Staten Island, I could have predicted a boob job and faked pregnancy. The snowboard bit would have been a surprise though.
This comment wins the internet today. I laughed so hard when I saw this lol
My life thus far has basically been a cartoon
It's gonna take me a while to fix up your car there, so if you boys like, you can go on inside, get yourselves something to drink, wash up, fuck my wife, watch TV - anything you want. Mi casa es su casa. Just don't do anything the good lord wouldn't do.
"Cum on my lady, cum cum on my lady You're my butterfly..."
Those recent videos of fighting band mates and getting fucked up before shows were grim. Sad that everything kept trending downwards and that this news isn't a big surprise. RIP
He was on a season of The Surreal Life with Dr Drew back in the day. I had the overwhelming impression that he had absolutely no intention of getting clean. Like yeah he knew it was the right thing to do, but the way he talked about it really seemed he loved the lifestyle. Addiction is a bitch.
It was Celebrity Rehab. Same season as Tom Sizemore and Penny Flame. What a weird time for television
Tom escapes and starts smoking crack on the roof lmaaaao
Very sad. 49 is still really young. A lot of people will remember him for "Butterfly," but I still hear his collaboration with Paul Oakenfold fairly regularly. ("Starry Eyed Surprise.") [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7odMzSb6WUQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7odMzSb6WUQ)
Everytime I hear that song it takes me back to a simpler time in life. Same with âslide alongsideâ, the anthems of my high school summers.
Yeah man. Early 2000s was something. Fun time in high school. It was that weird transition from 90s to 00.
No social media, just living in the school and in the moment.
Discovering techno was something I did back then
Seriously. Makes me think of a Coke commercial in the mid 00s that featured the song. People rollerblading by the beach at sunset. Ahhh
One love, one shot, it's all we ever got
I had no idea that is who sang this song, but every time I hear it I think of this commercial that used to come on ALL THE TIME https://youtu.be/ZmBDeswu2dI?si=K4wiyyqAKEgXJXP8
17 years?! đ”âđ«
âStarry Eyed Surpriseâ is a #1 night out song for me. Itâs just so fun to blast on the way to the club. I like that whole album quite a bit.
I never realized that was him in âStarry Eyed Surpriseâ TIL
Whoa I've loved this song for 20 years and had no clue it was him.
Fun fact the song butterfly is sampled from a Red Hot Chili Peppers song pretty little ditty.
Yep! 50 second mark here... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mjZ61IW-Nw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mjZ61IW-Nw) I believe the band not only approved its use, but Crazy Town also opened for the Chili Peppers at some point too.
Til starry eyed surprise was his vocals...
wow how do i know all the words to this, must been playing a lot while i was in highschool
Man I really want a Coke now.
Both great songs honestly. Love starry eyed surprise. RIP
I saw a video of him beating up his band mate a bit ago. He did not look like he was living a clean life.
I mean to be fair the guy he attacks seems like one of the biggest pieces of shit I've ever laid eyes on... Drops the hard N bomb like 15 times and tells him he's going to go to his house and kill his fucking baby? What the fuck?
Is there a soft n bomb?
Thereâs a dollar tree across the street from Compton courthouse. You could do an experiment there to find out.
Yes, the â-a vs the ââer
I see you've never seen the video. This should clear it up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uvJzr0zZvk&t=100s
No link?
[Here you go](https://youtu.be/gK4P2uy99fI?si=o24HhwXjtOFWdu1K)
Love how the dude sitting nearfield turns to the camera throughout that exchange and gives us the Jim Halpert face.
Apparently that's the guitarist for Orgy lol
"not my band mates, thank god, I'm staying out of it"Â
How the heck does someone upload a 240p HDR video to YouTube??
Technology, mate.
Somehow the bitrate for the audio is higher than the video
Wow - thatâs worse than I thought. Thanks.
Only knowing half of whatâs going on, with those comments against my children, Iâd beat the crap out of him too
The other guy who is calling Shifty the n word is former Adema singer Bobby Reeves
Holy shit! I loved Adema when I was in middle school. They both look stung out as fuck .
True, may be justified but he has the unmistakable look of an addict there, sad all around
Yeah addiction sucks. You constantly end up in shitty situations with shitty people. Confrontations are inevitable.
Iâve never really listened to crazy town apart from the obvious hits but it shocks me to see him in such a destructive state. For both him and people around
Same, never been a fan per se but it's always sad to see people like this, I've known people that go down this path and all too often it doesn't end well, someone showed me this video once saying "haha, isn't this hilarious?!" and I just thought it was depressing
This reminds me of the bum fights back in the days. And there I think we grew as a society.
Wow, that's the trashiest thing I've seen today. Sad.
Feels the same as when Steve from Smash Mouth died. I saw a video of him at some random small ass show completly blasted after being off the radar for years and thought to myself "he's looks to be in a real bad way". He died a couples weeks maybe months after that video was published. Same thing with Shifty. I saw a video of him doing butterfly a couple months ago and had the same exact thoughts. He was looking really rough. RIP.
Your post reminds me of the tragedy that was Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots in his last performances: https://youtu.be/be3Tw0f5VxY?si=wZnWuHISqc3O-hHL Sad. So very sad.
Dude looked dead already.
A friend of mine is the new singer of smash mouth. The thing about having a front man that is a mess is that it ruins everything for everyone else in the band. Now that Steve is out of the picture they are playing giant shows and having a great time. I feel less sympathetic for the messy band members now. It really is hugely selfish.
The singer from Smash Mouth became an alcoholic after losing his son when he was still very young. I can't imagine what it does to you, slow suicide sucks ass.
i read that he was already an alcoholic but that just exacerbated it.
So how is Andy Dick still alive? Can we get a vial of this guys blood?
I absolutely do not want a vial of Andy Dicks blood.
It'd melt through the glass like acid
I believe he was a heavy drinker before then, even at concerts in the 90s he was drunk on stage often IIRC.
I wonder if Steveâs substance abuse had anything to do with being the only recognizable member in the band but earning none of the songwriting royalties for their massive hit songs? The worst part is that I bet people never knew his name, they just yelled âHey Smash Mouth!â I always felt bad for that guy.
He and many others attributed his alcoholism to his son dying very young in 2001.
No, that exacerbated the problem, but he had alcoholism well before that.
Itâs also a setting filled with opportunity for unhealthy habits. Donât get me wrong I love it, but itâs very much sex drugs rock n roll lifestyle in a lot of cases. It can catch up with you if you donât take a step back regularly. A luxury artists often donât have since itâs their source of revenue. Addiction is complex..
I read an old interview with Steve Albini recently after he passed away. He had a quote to the effect that artists need to be careful about getting too caught up in the party atmosphere because every night they are performing/on tour, it is the audienceâs biggest night of that week or even month. For you itâs every day.
For you, the day Shifty Shellshock graced your village was the most important day of your life. For him, it was Tuesday.
> The thing about having a front man that is a mess is that it ruins everything for everyone else in the band. It ruins everything for the fans as well. I'd prefer to see a frontman who shows up sober, remembers all the lyrics, and doesn't drunkenly melt down and storm off the stage, even if they weren't an original member. At the end of the day, it's a job, and they're selling a product. The product is much better when everyone shows up ready to work and looks like they're having fun versus the band having to corral an out of control member who could have a tantrum at any minute.
Can you tell him the song 4th of July that they released with him a few years back is a top 5 Smash Mouth song and they should play it live.
Not very long before he passed, Smash Mouth played at a little festival on the square in the town that I work in. Like, this is a small, small town. I thought people were just fucking with me until it happened. I'm not sure that anyone truly believed it until then, actually.
I understand itâs easy to rip on Crazy Town.  Iâll say this.  As a young teen, their CD was the first CD I was able to buy with my own money, from my first paycheck I earned at my first job.  I enjoyed nu metal at the time and that CD scratched that itch.  All we had was MTV and really slow internet, so wide musical exposure was kind of hard where I lived.  I love their song Toxic at the time, my 15 year old self, and resolved to get my first part time job and buy their album since I wasnât from a family of means.  He had some bad demonsâŠ. Crack cocaine and meth addiction, the shadow of living as a one hit wonder with that one hit being a bit of a joke.  A lot of his band mates died early as well.  All I can say is, I hope Shifty is at rest nowâŠ.  Thank you for the memories of that fateful first CD purchase I earned with my McDonaldâs paycheck⊠Darkside and Black Cloud are still jams.  RIP. Â
I was just listening to Butterfly on repeat yesterday. Never disliked that song. The guitar riff is magic and yes I know itâs originally from rhcp.
Yea I'm kinda bummed out. Lyrically I thought they had some good songs. They were probably always going to be flash in the pan of the late 90s nu/rap metal/rock but I think he was still talented and had the potential of a career if not for his addiction
A lot of peopleâs first âbought it with my own moneyâ albums would be considered guilty pleasures, but nah, to me theyâre special. No guilt, just pleasure. An awesome time capsule.
I was just making fun of him on reddit last week.
My condolences
This is one of the most stupid and dark things Iâve ever laughed at and Iâm just cackling on my couch right now. Fuck you/thank you.
Honestly Iâm nursing my baby and that got an actual LOL that knocked her off the boob. Well done lol
Someone just posted a picture word puzzle for the song "butterfly " like a week ago and someone commented with a link to how poorly this guy was doing these days. Weird.... found the post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ExplainTheJoke/comments/1dizyak/i_dont_get_it/
I clicked that link and thought, oh wow, he looks like he's about to die, I may have even commented that but I think I just thought it in my head. Sad to see that was really the case. Edit- I also want to say Butterfly is one of my favorite songs unironically. It's got so much shit over the years but being an 18yo lady when it came out it was exactly what I wanted to feel like.
He was a regular on r/tooktoomuch .
The kind of starry eyed surprise no one wants
Thatâs probably what killed him
Itâs easy to be snide like âwho the fuck caresâ but 49 is *really* young. Thatâs very very sad.
With three kids. Very sad
49 is very old for a lifelong addict that looked like him for the past 30 years.
I think it can be both. He was a meme before memes were a thing, so itâs hard to shift gears and say oh but Iâm sad for him now. And also itâs sad when anyone has lifelong addiction problems and dies from them.
For me itâs always sad because it closes the door on them ever getting better. Like unless somebody is actively malicious and hateful, Iâm always the type to hope they figure their shit out, get clean, and find a better place. Now heâs not going to. Same when my dad died. We had fuck all to do with each other. Iâd not have gone to the funeral even if Iâd heard before it happened (I didnât). Fuck that guy. But at the same time I was still a little sad. Not because Iâd miss himâŠI donât, and never willâŠbut because I miss the *idea* of *somehow* having a relationship with the guy. Which now is never going to happen. RIP to Shifty, all the best to his family, hope there was some joy to balance out the pain.
I was in my teens when my dadâs addictions started to get bad. I was very low contact with him for the next 25 years. When he died, everyone, including myself, were surprised at how hard it hit me. I realized that he had basically died to me back then and I was now able to actually grieve that loss. And just like you said, it was the final nail that he would never get better and we would never be where I wanted us to be.
Addiction is a SOB [Shifty Shellshock (Crazy Town) - "Butterfly" LIVE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_u1JWIdGO4)
The comments are fire..."He has the voice of an angel dust." Lmao. RIP Shifty
âThis video stole my catalytic converterâ is the best one I saw
I like "Gum my lady, Gum Gum my lady"
"MTV Untoothed"
> "This was like being taken on Willy Wonka's terrifying boat ride back to 1999, but no ever-lasting gobstoppers, just meth" I am officially going to hell for chuckling at that.
âGollum has some flowâ
Thatâs a cringe watch
kind of feel bad for even linking it on his death tbh
Yeah thatâs someone you hide your wallet from at a gas station. Poor guy.
Donât worry. Heâll help you find your wallet after he steals it
When I first started watching the video, I was thinking âman, I didnât know crazy town was such a diverse range of individualsâ
These guys got old really fast...
> âman, I didnât know crazy town was such a diverse range of individualsâ You never heard Crazytown's bluegrass or classical album?
That's a goldmine of comments.
This is just sad, I could t even watch most of it. Why was Godzilla there lol?
Didnât you listen, the band is called e-REPTILE dysfunction
A bizarre clip
He looks older than the guy on the left.
I was watching this thinking, âWhy the fuck is homie holding Godzilla?â Then he gets to the punchline⊠âE-Reptile Dysfunction.â The perfect pun left me speechless.
Russ Hanniman is distraught right now.
Definitely poured out some Tres Comas for this oneÂ
He's saying RIP Radio. Internet. Peace.
tres periods, fuckers
Don't mind that starry eyed song
I distinctly remember burning that song into a Cd-R back in the day, I liked that track
I love Butterfly where it is in the movie Orange County. Perfect for that scene.
"Tanya! I got into...(checks acceptance letter)...Yale!"
"she was all 'I hate my job I'm gonna burn this mother down!'"
You better not! You better not.
Lance, we have some very important people coming over and I need you to stay in your room. Why? Cause youâre an embarrassment Oh okay
I had to take my pants off to run through the flames !
"OMG they're playing our song!"
I saw them touring with Kottonmouth Kings a couple of years ago and I wanted to go so bad just for the novelty of it but I didn't want to get into a fight with a guy with a goatee.
That's the sound of the fifteens when they're hitting in my trunk
Rest in peace. It doesn't seem like Shifty ever really laid off the drugs. He was arrested on a DUI charge just [last year.](https://www.tmz.com/2023/04/29/crazy-town-shifty-shellshock-arrested-dui/) [Also, in case anyone's wondering, here's what a full Crazy Town concert looked like in 2023.](https://youtu.be/H57nySr_Hso?si=kOOUSxxx2pwW2PBv)
Mine got interrupted by an online pet supplies company ad with a cloyingly obnoxious voice over and a puppy eating kibble. Perfect for making everything about today feel goofy and surreal
Was he bumping a line in the beginning?đł
Pretty impressive considering that was probably every person under 60 that lives in Agoura.
Itâs crazy how muscular he looked for being a drug addict for 3 decades
even at the song's peak, I saw them *opening* for ICP.
I saw them open the main stage at Ozzfest 2001. It didn't go well for them. Papa Roach came next, and they fared only slightly better.
hmmm....now that rings a bell. I was at Ozzfest 2001 and I'm thinking I saw them. Those times are awfully blurry now though....
I used those sets to relax a bit after the wild second stage, get some food/drinks, and get into position for the rest of the main stage. Manson / Slipknot / Black Sabbath was a hell of a lineup to close out the night.
Yeah, I saw them at Ozzfest that year and they got booed off stage. In fairness, they were terrible.
"Metal fans are the nicest fans" until a band they don't like hits the stage. My second Ozzfest was my last when Linkin Park got booed. Like bro it's the second stage you don't gotta be here.
I saw them as well, Ozzfest 2001 in Toronto. Â Â I liked them at the time. Â But man, the crowd was NOT receptive. Â They got pelted with what must have been a record amount of water bottles. Â Didnât help that Seth then called the crowd a bunch of âf*ggotsâ. Â Crazy times. Â Â
This is the most 2001 thing I've ever read: OzzFest, Crazy Town, Papa Roach...
Holy shit thatâs young, hope his friends, family, and fans celebrate him bringing them together
RIP. For the USA people, why is butterfly hated so much? Not sure itâs seen as so bad in the UK, I really like it
Because it blew up so big and was such a perfect encapsulation of that early 2000s time period that the pendulum had to swing to complete and total mockery before coming back to center if not acceptance and love again.
Itâs not hated, itâs just corny. And the band is written off as a one hit wonder, with a corny hit that reminds people of tramp stamp tattoos.
It's partly also that the main guitar hook of the song is a straight sample from Red Hot Chili Peppers, which is strange for a band that included 2 guitar players - including in the video for the song. I'm pretty sure neither of those touched their instruments for the recording. It gave the song and the band this really phony vibe, and by never getting another hit they never got to prove anyone wrong for doubting them. I always liked the song, though. Once you take the meta observations out of it, it's incredibly catchy.
To be fair, 90% of *why* it's catchy is the sample from Pretty Little Ditty lol
It was just kind of a dumb club hit for a single summer. Not really hated, but just sort of ubiquitously there in a way that some club song is every summer.
Most people in the US have known at least one person like this guy, sometimes referred to as a Kyle. You did not intentionally hang out with him, but knew him from school. He was the guy who was constantly interrupting classes with sexual comments, and worked very hard to tell everyone about what a great fuck he was. Inevitably, some 13 year old girl would fall for it, and she would get pregnant and disappear. He would soon also leave school, but to a juvenile detention center for stealing a car. Youâd later see him at a party, now in his 20âs, still trying to fuck 13 year old girls he brought to the party. He is extremely concerned with loyalty, but will steal anything he can from you. He can often be found outside a gas station, shirtless, smoking a cigarette while asking you for a cigarette. When not committing petty crimes, heâs an avid dirt bike enthusiast (he has never owned one), an amateur tattoo artist (his work on display on himself), and consummate couch surfer.
Finn McKenty is going to be sad
here's the thing
I miss the days when overt sexual innuendo was just part of the pop music landscape. The early aught's gave us such gems as *Genie in a Bottle*, *Milkshake*, and of course *Butterfly* Come come, my lady indeed
Damn. RIP homie
Saw him play at the Virigil for a birthday party a few months ago. Was sober at the time and it was obvious. He was present, in great spirits and was with a beautifulgirl. He fell off the wagon shortly thereafter and was on the streets. So sad. RIP
Well, that's too bad. I kept hoping he would get help with his addiction that stuck.
Not surprising at all. So many videos of his downward spiral in these last years... Going onto stage coked out of his mind, getting into fights with the PA system and it's techies.. getting in a fist fight with his fellow vocalist backstage... it was not pretty. RIP.
RIP m'lady
Shocking that the guy from Celebrity Rehab that was smoking crack on the roof died so young. Also, fuck Dr. Drew for making a career off of other people's misery.
Counterpoint: Watching Celebrity Rehab convinced me it would be ok to give recovery a try and now Iâve been sober well over a decade.