What is Crazy Town anticipating for this year’s Ozzfest? “I hope we finish it,” the group’s Shifty Shellshock says with a laugh. “I think we will.”
Of course, it was Shellshock’s drug relapse and emotional breakdown that pulled Crazy Town off of last year’s Ozzfest and put the group on the sidelines while he went through rehab and recovery. Crazy Town has come back strong, though, with the smash single “Butterfly” and a debut album that’s approaching double-platinum status.
But Shellshock, whose real name is Seth Binzer, acknowledges that a strong showing at Ozzfest – which kicks off in Chicago on June 8 – is essential. “I think we’re going to be able to prove ourselves a lot more,” he says.
Helping to keep him straight is, of all people, road manager Richard Cole, the former Led Zeppelin tour helmsman who was the ringmaster of many of that band’s legendary high jinks and wrote a memoir about it. But Cole has cleaned up, too, and Shellshock notes that “he’s like our dad. He looks out after me, and he’s teaching me how to function happily being sober. If anyone can do it, it’s him, because he was way sicker than I was, or at least as sick as I was. He did it for years and years.”
Shellshock says that these days he’s “in a good place.” He’s happier being on the road and more prepared for the attention he receives as Crazy Town’s focal point. He’s in a comfortable relationship with Josie and the Pussycats star Rachael Leigh Cook, and he’s over the moon about the new music Crazy Town is working on, which he describes as harder-hitting but still melodic. He’s even talking about giving up smoking, the one vice Shellshock says he has left.
“My problem last year was no one understood how hard it was for me to do it,” he explains. “I can’t tell you I’ve got it all down pat now; I’m still learning how to do it. But I’m mostly having a great time; I just need to make sure I stay in that head space. I don’t want to go into that dark place again.”
