Steve Harwell, the previous lead singer of the rock band Smash Mouth, which used to be superb identified for its 1999 hit “All Star,” died on Monday. He used to be 56.
His loss of life, at his house in Boise, Idaho, used to be showed by way of the band’s supervisor, Robert Hayes, who mentioned the motive used to be liver failure.
Smash Mouth used to be based in 1994 in San Jose, Calif., and used to be made up of Mr. Harwell, the guitarist Greg Camp, the drummer Kevin Coleman and the bassist Paul De Lisle. Its first luck got here with the music “Walkin’ on the Sun,” from the band’s debut album, “Fush Yu Mang” (1997).
An upbeat monitor with a gloomy undertow, calling to thoughts each the Doors and recent ska-punk, “Walkin’ on the Sun,” with songwriting credit going to all 4 band individuals, went into secure rotation on MTV and crowned Billboard’s selection chart.
The music’s song video laid out the band’s aesthetic and perspective. Dressed in short-sleeve shirts and sunglasses, with fedoras and soul patches, the 4 individuals seemed like rougher variations of the image-obsessed unfashionable hipsters depicted within the 1996 comedy “Swingers.” The video includes a dance birthday party instantly out of a Sixties seaside film and ends with a drag-race crash, with Mr. Harwell — beefy, with tattoos on his fingers — in the back of the wheel.
“The question of a particular style never once crossed our minds,” Mr. Harwell mentioned in a 1997 interview. “We didn’t want to be labeled as a punk band, a ska band, a surf band, a rock band, a pop band or a whatever band. We just wanted to be us, Smash Mouth, and leave it to the people to interpret what we are.”
The band’s big-time crossover got here with “All Star,” from its subsequent album, “Astro Lounge,” in 1999. Backed by way of harder-driving guitars, Mr. Harwell, with a slight sneer, sings an outsiders’ anthem to forget about ridicule and shoot for the moon:
Hey now, you’re an all megastar
Get your sport on, move play
Hey now, you’re a rock megastar
Get the display on, receives a commission
“All Star” — written by way of Mr. Camp, the band’s guitarist — went to No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, the band’s best-ever chart place, and located an enduring target audience thru film soundtracks. In 1999, it used to be utilized in “Inspector Gadget” and “Mystery Men,” and two years later the music were given its broadest publicity when it performed all over the outlet credit of “Shrek,” the animated hit that featured Mike Myers as a grouchy however good-hearted ogre.
The “Shrek” soundtrack — which additionally featured Smash Mouth’s amped-up model of the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer,” within the ultimate scene — went double platinum, and the movie gained an Academy Award for superb animated characteristic. “All Star” used to be in all places.
“We had no clue how big ‘Shrek’ was going to be,” Mr. Harwell recalled in a 2019 article in Rolling Stone. “We sold millions of records off that alone. The song was reborn again.”
Since then, “All Star” has lived on, turning into a rich source for online parodies. Nearly 25 years later, the music has garnered just about 1000000000 streams on Spotify by myself, and the sound of Mr. Harwell’s rather raspy voice continues to be related to the music’s recognizable opening strains: “Somebody once told me/The world is gonna roll me/I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed.”
Steven Scott Harwell used to be born on Jan. 9, 1967, and grew up in San Jose. He started his musical occupation as a rapper with the gang F.O.S., which stood for Freedom of Speech. With a legitimate harking back to West Coast teams of the past due Eighties and early ’90s like N.W.A and Cypress Hill, it launched a unmarried, “Big Black Boots,” in 1993. But by way of then Mr. Harwell used to be already stressed.
“Around the time we were about to put out our single, this kid Snoop Dogg came out and changed everything,” he recalled in 2017 interview with the song web site Stereogum. “I was at a radio convention in Las Vegas watching MC Hammer, of all people, and I just looked at my manager, ‘I’m tired of all this hip-hop’” — he added an expletive — “‘I want to start an alternative rock band.’”
After “Astro Lounge,” Smash Mouth launched 5 extra studio albums thru 2012, with diminishing ranges of luck. In 2006, Mr. Harwell used to be a forged member on “The Surreal Life,” a truth display on VH1 by which onetime celebrities reside in combination; his fellow forged individuals integrated Sherman Hemsley of “The Jeffersons,” Florence Henderson of “The Brady Bunch” and Tawny Kitaen, identified for her appearances in Whitesnake song movies.
For the decade, Mr. Harwell’s occupation have been marked by way of well being issues and from time to time erratic conduct. In 2013, he used to be identified with cardiomyopathy, a center situation, and Wernicke’s encephalopathy, a neurological situation that may have an effect on speech and reminiscence.
In August 2020, whilst many portions of the rustic had been nonetheless underneath primary restrictions associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, Smash Mouth seemed at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, an enormous annual tournament in South Dakota, and carried out sooner than hundreds of lovers — only a few of whom, in line with studies and movies of the development, had been dressed in mask or taking any precautions.
Mr. Harwell drew cheers from the gang — however extensive condemnation somewhere else — when he mentioned from the level, “We’re all here together tonight, and we’re being human once again,” and made a crude dismissal of the viral danger.
In 2021, Mr. Harwell left the band and retired from appearing after a reside display in upstate New York all over which he used to be noticed slurring his phrases, the usage of profanity and it sounds as if giving a Nazi salute.
“I’ve tried so hard to power through my physical and mental health issues, and to play in front of you one last time, but I just wasn’t able to,” he mentioned in a commentary at the time.
He is survived by way of his fiancée, Annette Jones; a brother, Mark; and 3 sisters, Carla Crocker, Michelle Baroni and Julie Harwell.
In 2022, Smash Mouth recruited a brand new lead singer, Zach Goode, and the gang has live shows scheduled in coming weeks, together with one on Thursday in Madera, Calif. Mr. Hayes, the executive, mentioned the band used to be nonetheless scheduled to accomplish there.
In a commentary on Monday, Mr. Goode mentioned: “I love singing these songs every night and carrying on the spirit of rock n roll in front of the best fans in the world. I will continue to try, in my own way, to honor what Steve and the band have created.”