Steve HarwellWHO he co-founded the band Crushed mouth in 1994, he died at the age of 56, confirmed the band’s manager, Robert Hayes. The musician, best known for hits like “All Star” and “I’m a Believer,” died at his home in Boise, ID “surrounded by family and friends.”
Harwell had been in the hospital following medical complications. The cause of death was liver failure, Hayes said rolling stone.
Hayes said Harwell “passed quietly and comfortably.” In a statement to rolling stoneoffered a lengthy tribute to the artist, who was a staple of ’90s rock music and had success with multiple albums and singles.
“Steve has been retired from Smash Mouth for two years now, and the band continues to tour with new vocalist Zach Goode,” Hayes said. “That said, Steve’s legacy will live on through music. With Steve, Smash Mouth has sold over 10 million albums worldwide and topped the charts with two #1 hit singles, five singles Top 40, three Hot 100 singles, four Billboard 200 albums and a Grammy nomination not to mention the hundreds of film and TV spots and of course those musical features Shrek.”
He continued: “Steve’s iconic voice is one of the most recognizable voices of his generation. He loved his fans and he loved performing. Steve Harwell was a true American original. A larger-than-life character who shot skyward like a Roman candle. Steve should be remembered for his unwavering focus and passionate determination to reach the pinnacle of pop stardom. And the fact that he achieved that near-impossible goal with very limited musical experience makes his achievements all the more remarkable. His only tools were his irrepressible charm and charisma, his fearless and reckless ambition and his king-sized chests. Steve lived life at 100% full throttle. Burning brilliantly across the universe before burning out.”
Although Harwell has not been an official member of Smash Mouth since 2021, he and bassist Paul Delisle are the only two original members of the band who have remained constant for most of the group’s career.
Harwell began his musical career in San Jose, California as a rapper with the group FOS (Freedom of Speech). After the group’s demise, he began working with his friend, drummer Kevin Coleman in 1990. Later, he teamed up with guitarist Greg Camp and bassist Paul Delisle. The four piece released two demos that got airplay on a local radio station. They soon performed at a summer festival alongside No Doubt and Beck.
His debut album, Fush Yu Mangarrived in 1997 via Interscope and spawned the #1 hit “Walkin’ on the Sun” billboardList of Modern Rock tracks that reached number two on the Hot 100 chart.
The band’s second set, 1999 Astro Lounge, incorporated more pop and was more musically diverse than its ska-influenced predecessor. It also spawned “All Star,” his biggest hit of his career. The song appeared on numerous film soundtracks, including the first Shrek film and helped propel the album to triple platinum status. His cover of the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer” also appeared in 2001. Shrek.
Harwell talked about it Astro Lounge‘s new direction and had a message for the band’s detractors in 1999 interview with rolling stone. “A lot of people said we weren’t talented enough to do this kind of shit. Well, we did, and I want them to eat their words. We were really taken by the people who wanted us to fail,” he said. “Even friends want you to fail. They’d have a good laugh if I fell flat on my face. We made this record to let people know, ‘Hey, don’t mess with us. We have built this team and no one will take it away from us.”
That same year, the band released a collection of early songs called The East Bay sessions. Coleman left soon after, citing back problems. Mitch Marine, ex-Tripping Daisy drummer, replaced Coleman on the tour and on subsequent albums.
The band released two more albums in the early years: the self-titled LP in 2001 and 2003. Do you get the picture? They released their fifth album in 2006 summer girl to the new Universal label following Harwell’s appearance on the reality show The Surrealist Life along with Alexis Arquette, CC DeVille, Sherman Hemsley, Maven Huffman, Tawny Kitaen and Andrea Lowell, with Florence Henderson as the domestic therapist.
Smash Mouth’s most recent full-length album, magicit was published in 2012, the same year as his book Recipes from the road he fell. The band continued to tour as more members rotated in and out of the group.
Although Harwell remained a mainstay, he was prone to onstage outbursts before leaving the group in 2021. At a show in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 2015, he became angry during the encore, shouted profanities and came out after throwing bread on stage. He later apologized. (In August 2016, Harwell collapsed and were taken away in an ambulance as the band finished the set without him.)
But it was an incident on October 9, 2021 that led him to retire from music. At the Big Sip festival in Bethel, New York, Harwell was caught on video with his words, threatening the audience and giving fans the middle finger. A representative for the singer told him New York Post at the time his Wernicke’s encephalopathy, a neurological condition, affected Harwell’s motor functions and memory.
“Steve has been dealing with long-term medical issues for the past eight years and during his last performance on the Big Sip stage, he suffered from numerous symptoms directly related to his current medical condition,” the rep said at the time. . “As of today, Steve will be retiring from Smash Mouth to focus on his physical and mental health.”
To mark the 20th anniversary of “All Star” in 2019, Harwell addressed the enduring appeal behind the song by rolling stones oral history of the track “All Star” was more than an inescapable hit that graced movies and your favorite memes, it became part of the fabric of generations of music lovers for nearly a quarter of a century and continues to resonate .
“It was definitely a time when other artists and people finally realized that we weren’t a bunch of punk kids. We write great songs and it’s iconic,” he said.
“The song just won’t go away because it’s just one of those songs,” Harwell added. “It’s like Led Zeppelin ‘Stairway to Heaven’ shit. It’s like Lynyrd Skynyrd shit. You have certain songs that bands do that just don’t go away. We were blessed with that, and it was ‘All Star.’
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