The ‘All Star’ rocker who sang the anthem of the aughts

Steve Harwell 1967–2023

There was no escaping Steve Harwell’s voice—“SomeBODY once told me...”—at the turn of the millennium.The Smash Mouth lead singer’s slight rasp, backed by the band’s peppy mix of surf, punk, and ska, became ubiquitous in pop culture. Their biggest top-10 hit, 1999’s “All Star,” was a last-minute addition to their second album. Record executives asked guitarist Greg Camp for a marketable hit, and the Converse All-Stars he was wearing triggered a flash of inspiration. But Harwell got the credit for making the ode to happy misfits a runaway hit. “Nobody else could have sung that song,” he said in 2019. “It’s iconic.”

Born in Santa Clara, Calif., Harwell grew up “in a comfortable middle-class family,” said the Los Angeles Times, and co-founded Smash Mouth in 1994.Three years later, the band’s debut album FushYu Mang—“a nod to Al Pacino’s mush-mouth Cuban accent in Scarface”—birthed their first hit, “Walkin’ on the Sun.” Follow-up album Astro Lounge achieved triple-platinum status and, in 2001, the movie Shrek was bookended by “All Star” and the band’s cover of “I’m a Believer.” That was the high point, though, and by the 2010s Smash Mouth had become “an alt-rock oldies act.”

Harwell, who died of liver failure at age 56, struggled with alcoholism and a related neurological disorder that “increasingly impacted his performances,” said Variety. After a 2021 Bethel, N.Y., concert in which he appeared intoxicated, threatening audience members and giving a Nazi salute, he announced his retirement. “Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of being a rock star performing in front of soldout arenas,” he said. “I have been so fortunate to live out that dream.”