He was the lead singer and frontman of the rock band Smash Mouth: Steve Harwell died in Boise, Idaho on Monday, September 4. He was 56 years old. Band manager Robert Hayes said Steve Harwell died at home surrounded by family and friends. He suffered from acute liver failure. “Steve Harwell was a pure product of America. Let us remember him for his unwavering focus and passionate determination to achieve pop star status,” the band wrote on Instagram.
Consecration with the soundtrack of “Shrek”
The group met with success with their debut album Fush Yu Mang (1997) and the track Walkin’ on the Sun. In 2019, he told Rolling Stone magazine that the track “changed music and the way people listen to music” with this “sound [mixture of pop, rock, ska and punk] that we have created” and that “no one could copy”.
It is especially with Astro Lounge (1999) that he is recognized thanks to the piece entitled All Star. This title enjoyed a resurgence in popularity when it appeared in the opening credits of the animated film Shrek, which uses another title of the group: the cover of the song I’m a Believer by the Monkees, an American pop group supposed to compete with the Beatles.
According to the New York Times, All Star, which has been the subject of multiple adaptations in almost twenty-five years, has been streamed nearly a billion times on Spotify.
Pieces of the group appear in the soundtracks of many films, series or video games, such as Le Loup-garou de Paris, Fous d’Irene with Jim Carrey, Madagascar, The Jungle Book 2, in Goldmember (Austin Powers) in the Disney’s Extreme Skate Adventure video game released in 2003, etc.
Before founding in 1994 Smashmouth (renamed Smash Mouth in 1995-1996) with Greg Camp and Paul De Lisle, Steve Harwell was a member of the rap group F.O.S (Freedom of Speech). In 2021, he announced that he was leaving the group, which continued to play with Zach Goode as singer.
Along with Steve Harvell, Smash Mouth has sold ten million albums worldwide, according to Robert Hayes. Since the 2010s, Steve Harwell had experienced several health incidents in concert or in rehearsal and had advanced heart problems to justify his retirement two years ago. “Steve lived a 100% full throttle life. It lit up the universe before it went out,” said Robert Hayes.
