Smash Mouth isn’t so much a band as a state of mind—an endless-summer fantasia where there’s always beer in the cooler, sausage on the grill and loose-fitting bowling shirts for everyone. Though the San Jose group formed in 1994 at the dawn of the SoCal ska-punk explosion, they swiftly ditched the mosh pit for the beach party. While their peers were making the kids pogo, Smash Mouth were going to the go-go on their 1997 breakout hit “Walkin’ on the Sun”, where lead singer Steve Harwell’s surfer-dude rasp coasts on a cool hip-shaking drumbeat and groovy garage-rock organs. That affinity for feel-good, pre-punk sounds would only become more deeply entrenched through their ska-sped rendition of War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends” and a faithful reading of ? and the Mysterians’ 1967 nugget “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby”, both of which became late-’90s alt-rock-radio staples. But to this day, any word-association game involving Smash Mouth will immediately yield the answer “All Star”: The band’s bouncy motivational anthem not only thrust their 1999 album, Astro Lounge, to triple-platinum status, it became a certified cross-generational bop when it appeared on the soundtrack to the 2001 kid classic Shrek (which also featured the group’s Top 40-cracking cover of The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer”). If Smash Mouth’s greatest successes seemingly crystallise a more innocent, pre-9/11 era, the band have continued to spread the good cheer well into the 21st century, embracing their destiny as ’90s alt-rock’s pre-eminent golden-oldies touring act. Even though they only released one new album in the 2010s, Smash Mouth still abide by the life-coach philosophies of their biggest hit: get the show on and get paid. After retiring from the group in 2021, Steve Harwell died at age 56 in September 2023.
Hometown
San Jose, CA, United States
Genre
Pop
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