Steve Harwell, the former lead singer of the rock band Smash Mouth, best known for its 1999 hit “All Star,” died Monday. He is 56.
His death, at his home in Boise, Idaho, was confirmed by the band’s manager, Robert Hayes, who said the cause was liver failure.
Smash Mouth was founded in 1994 in San Jose, Calif., and consisted of Mr. Harwell, guitarist Greg Camp, drummer Kevin Coleman and bassist Paul De Lisle. Its first success came with the song “Walking in the Sun,” from the band’s debut album, “Fush Yu Mang” (1997).
An upbeat track with a dark undertow, reminiscent of the Doors and contemporary ska-punk, “Walkin’ on the Sun,” with songwriting credits going to all four band members, went into steady rotation on MTV and topped the alternative Billboard chart.
The song’s music video laid out the band’s aesthetic and attitude. Dressed in short-sleeve shirts and shades, with fedoras and soul patches, the four members look like rougher versions of the image-obsessed retro hipsters depicted in the 1996 comedy “Swingers.” The video features a dance party straight out of a 1960s beach movie and ends with a drag-race crash, with Mr. Harwell — strong, with tattoos on his arms — behind the wheel.
“The question of a particular style never crossed our minds,” said Mr. Harwell in a 1997 interview. “We don’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 want to be us, Smash Mouth, and let people know what we are.”
Along came the band’s big-time crossover “All Stars,” from its next album, “Astro Lounge,” in 1999. Backed by bolder guitars, Mr. Harwell, with a hint of sarcasm, sings the anthem of the outsiders to ignore the mockery and shoot for the moon:
Hey now, you’re an all star
Get your game, play
Hey now, you’re a rock star
Go on show, get paid
The “All Star” — written by Mr. Camp, the band’s guitarist — went to No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, the band’s best chart position, and found a lasting audience through film soundtracks. In 1999, it was used in “Inspector Gadget” and “Mystery Men,” and two years later, the song gained its widest exposure when it played over the opening credits of “Shrek,” the animated hit featuring Mike Myers as a grumpy but benevolent ogre.
The “Shrek” soundtrack — which also featured Smash Mouth’s amped-up version of the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer” in the final scene — went double platinum, and the film won the Academy Award for best animated feature. “All Star” is everywhere.
“We had no idea how big ‘Shrek’ was,” recalled Mr. Harwell in a 2019 article on Rolling stone. “We sold millions of records on our own. The song was reborn.”
Since then, the “All Star” has lived, becoming a rich source for online parodies. Nearly 25 years later, the song has garnered nearly a billion streams on Spotify alone, and the sound of Mr. Harwell is still linked to the song’s recognizable opening lines: “Somebody told me once/The world is gonna roll me/ I’m not the smartest tool in the shed.”
Steven Scott Harwell was born on January 9, 1967, and grew up in San Jose. He started his music career as a rapper in the group FOS, which stands for Freedom of Speech. With a sound reminiscent of West Coast groups of the late 1980s and early ’90s like NWA and Cypress Hill, it released a single, “Big Black Boots,” in 1993. But by then it was restless Mr. Harwell.
“Right around the time we were about to release our single, this kid Snoop Dogg came out and changed everything,” he recalled in a 2017 interview with the music website. 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 — “’Would I want to start an alternative rock band.’”
After “Astro Lounge,” Smash Mouth released five more studio albums through 2012, with diminishing degrees of success. In 2006, Mr. Harwell is a cast member on “The Surreal Life,” a reality show on VH1 in which once-famous people live together; his cast mates include Sherman Hemsley of “The Jeffersons,” Florence Henderson of “The Brady Bunch” and Tawny Kitaen, known for her appearances in Whitesnake’s music videos.
Over the past decade, Mr. Harwell’s career has been marked by health problems and occasional misconduct. In 2013, he was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, a heart condition, and Wernicke’s encephalopathy, a neurological condition that can affect speech and memory.
In August 2020, while many parts of the country were still under major restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic, Smash Mouth appeared at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a large annual event in South Dakota, and performed in front of of thousands of fans — very few of whom, according to reports and video of the event, were wearing masks or taking precautions.
Mr. applauded. Harwell from the crowd — but widespread condemnation elsewhere — when he said from the stage, “We’re all together tonight, and we’re human again,” and made a rough dismissal of the viral threat.
In 2021, Mr. left. Harwell in the band and retired from performing after a live show in upstate New York where he was seen slurring his words, using profanity and apparently giving a Nazi salute.
“I tried so hard to overcome my physical and mental health issues, and play in front of you one last time, but I couldn’t,” he said in a statement at the time.
He is survived by his girlfriend, Annette Jones; a brother, Mark; and three sisters, Carla Crocker, Michelle Baroni and Julie Harwell.
In 2022, Smash Mouth recruited a new lead singer, Zach Goode, and the group has concerts scheduled in the coming weeks, including one Thursday in Madera, Calif. said Mr. Hayes, the manager, that the band was still scheduled to perform there.
In a statement on Monday, Mr. Goode: “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.
