According to his management, Steve Harwell, the original lead singer of the rock band Smash Mouth, passed away on Monday.
He was 56.
Harwell had been receiving hospice care over the weekend, however no specific cause of death was given. According to Robert Hayes, the manager of Smash Mouth, he passed away at his home in Boise, Idaho, with family and friends by his side.
“Steve Harwell was a true American Original. A larger than life character who shot up into the sky like a Roman candle,” Hayes said in a statement to CNN. “Steve should be remembered for his unwavering focus and impassioned determination to reach the heights of pop stardom. And the fact that he achieved this near-impossible goal with very limited musical experience makes his accomplishments all the more remarkable. His only tools were his irrepressible charm and charisma, his fearlessly reckless ambition, and his king-size cajones.”
The band Smash Mouth, best known for its number-one hits “All Star” and “I’m a Believer,” was founded in 1994, with Harwell serving as the band’s longstanding lead singer.
During Harwell’s career, the group received a Grammy nomination for “All Star,” a song that went on to become a cult favorite after being featured on the soundtrack of the 2001 animated picture “Shrek.”
“It’s weird, people ask me, ‘Do you get bored of playing these songs?’ I’m like, ‘Why would I get bored of playing them? This is what puts bread and butter on my table,’” Harwell told Vice of the group’s best known hits in a 2014 interview. “You know, there’s always somebody in the crowd who hasn’t heard it. Or hasn’t seen it live. When I go out onstage, I look at it that way. Once that classic song starts, people just go bananas. Has ‘Free Bird’ ever got old?”
To increase the band’s early notoriety, Harwell personally took their song “Astro Lounge” to radio stations around the nation to get it played on the air.
“We never do anything traditional,” Harwell said in 1999. “We never go through the front door. It’s always the back door, or an open window or something, to get our stuff played.”
While Smash Mouth saw its greatest level of popularity in the late 1990s, the band kept performing together, and their fans stuck by them.
“We’ve never sounded better,” Harwell said of touring in more recent years. “The shows have been great. Crowd response is fantastic. There’s just a great camaraderie in the band now. We’re all getting older, and I take more pride in it than I did years ago.”
With new lead vocalist Zach Goode since Harwell’s departure from the band in 2021 due to health difficulties, the band has continued to perform.
“Steve lived a 100% full-throttle life. Burning brightly across the universe before burning out,” Hayes concluded his statement. “Good night Heevo Veev. Rest in peace knowing you aimed for the stars, and magically hit your target.”
