Smash Mouth (named after Mike Ditka's term "smash mouth football") was formed in San Jose, Calif., in 1994 when boyhood friends and former band compadres Steve Harwell (vocals) and Kevin Coleman (drums) recruited Greg Camp (guitar) from a local cover band. Camp then persuaded Paul De Lisle (bass), with whom he'd played in another outfit, to take a chance on the new band.
After toiling for a couple of years on the San Jose scene, Smash Mouth caught fire when area radio station KOME started spinning what would be their breakthrough: "Nervous In The Alley" (Smash Mouth were the first unsigned band to receive regular rotation on the influential Modem Rock outlet). Soon thereafter, the quartet inked a deal with Interscope Records, which released their debut, Fush Yu Mang, in 1997.
Smash Mouth supported the album with extensive touring, including jaunts with Sugar Ray, Third Eye Blind and Blur, among others. Buoyed by these road efforts, the #1 radio success of "Walkin' On The Sun" and a cover of War's "Why Can't We Be Friends" (not to mention a couple of heavily rotated videos), Fush Yu... bum-rushed the Top 20 and racked up double platinum sales.
The band built on their success with a rendition of? and the Mysterians' "Can't Get Enough of You Baby," which made its debut on the soundtrack to "Can't Hardly Wait." The cut is also included on Smash Mouth's latest opus, Astro Lounge.
Produced by Eric Valentine, who sat behind the boards for Fush Yu..., Astro Lounge was introduced by the radio track "All Star," which began rocketing up Modern Rock charts in May of 1999 (it entered the Top 5 of Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks before the month was out). "All Star" was also slated to be the first single and video from the soundtrack to "The Mystery Men."
Says principal songwriter Greg Camp of the tune that seemed likely to make Smash Mouth superstars: "That's sort of our 'Everybody is a Star.' It basically says, 'Don't get down on yourself - with a little bit of spring in your stride, you can do whatever you want.'" Camp is also quick to expound on another Astro Lounge standout, the more pointed "Radio." "It's kind of about our love/hate relationship with radio and the people who have power over it," he confides. "They can really stomp on you if they don't like you. They love you when you're on top - they all want to talk to you. But when you're not... It's something we didn't realize until "Walkin'on the Sun" started dying down and we got called 'one-hit wonders'. We don't take ourselves totally seriously, but we do want people to know we actually work really hard at doing this, and sometimes the ups and downs can be tough to roll with."
"Diggin'Your Scene," too, is something of a love/hate tale. Camp explains: "That song's about things you love and can't live without that can nonetheless kill you. It's mostly about a particular relationship, but I compare the relationship to drugs - people can be like drugs you're addicted to." "Then the Morning Comes," on the other hand, addresses what may be a more universal topic: the morning after. "If you've ever been on a tour bus, you've seen what happens - it's crazy," Greg attests. "And you drink and do stupid things and you wake up the next day and go, 'What was I thinking?' Of course I was doing that long before we started going on the road, and I'm sure I'll be doing it long afterward." Continuing in this "human nature" vein, Camp says of "Defeat You," a band favorite: "It's about people trying to get ahead - and stepping on the people in front of them to get there. We all have that instinct, whether it's when we're driving or going for the last carton of milk at the store or whatever. It's natur
al. Some people use it and other's abuse it. This is about the latter."
Admitting he was in a "dark" mood when "Defeat You" tumbled out of his head, Camp is perhaps closer to his natural emotional/philosophical state with "I Just Wanna See." "We have a house up in the mountains, and it's really super quiet up there," he explains. "When you go from the hustle and bustle of touring - all those crazy places - it's good to sit up in the mountains, out on the deck, and just listen to the wind. You don't even want to know why the wind's blowing or why the bugs are making their noises or anything else - you just want to sit there and listen and not question any of it. 'I Just Wanna See' is the 'stop and smell the roses' song of the'90s." I
With Astro Lounge poised to become one of the biggest records of 1999 - its remaining songs address such shared modern concerns as relationship regrets ("Waste"), losing a friend ("Fallen Horses"), confronting slackers ("Come On Come On"), mind alteration ("Stoned"), and UFOs ("Who's There") - Smash Mouth would do well to smell a few roses themselves.
The Mouth Speaks
Steve
On His Musical Forebears: "My grandmother's been playing the same three songs on the piano for 80 years. You can hear her fingernails hit the keys before they actually make the note. And she whistles backwards - not out, but in."
On Early Career Aspirations: "I always thought making it in the music industry seemed really easy. That might sound arrogant, but it's the truth. I've always said to myself, 'This is the most retarded business you can be in. If you can't make it in this business, you're stupid.'"
On Elvis: "Elvis is what turned my life around when I was a kid. He was the ultimate figure in anybody's eyes. He was amazing. I wanted to be that guy. It used to freak me out. You could be screaming in my ear trying to get my attention, and if Elvis was on TV, good luck."
On Why He Was Destined to Become a Frontman: "I knew I had it in me somewhere - I just had to find it. Teachers would say, 'You're going to be an entertainer,' and that stuck in my mind. Besides, I always had to be in charge."
On His Favorite Music: "I was a Van Halen fanatic in high school. I went through my mod stage, my Depeche Mode stage. I love country music. I'm still an Elvis fan. I like anything good - if it grabs my attention, I like it."
On Smash Mouth: "The music we do is better than anybody else's. It's more fun and it's easier to listen to. It's what everybody should be listening to because we're not trying to fuck up anybody's world. We're not giving excuses to go kill somebody. We're giving excuses to go have fun."
On Singing Greg's Songs: "I feel like what Greg writes is part of me. I connect with him on a really deep level - we've been friends for so long. And I think he writes with me in mind. I don't have the kind of ego where I have to write everything and play everything and sing everything. I don't have the talent to do all that. I have the talent to be a frontman, to be the entertainer figure."
On Astro Lounge: "It's everything you wanted in every other record you bought but didn't get. It was time for us to go in this direction, explore some other things, raise the bar. And we nailed it. We totally nailed it."
On His Favorite Astro Lounge song, "Waste": "It makes you think about a lot of shit in your personal life. It makes you look deeper inside yourself than you want to. And it scares you."
On Being Onstage: "It's my world - I'm in control. But it's more than just being in control; it's about making sure everybody else leaves there going, 'I had the best time of my life.'"
On What It's Like to Be an "Overnight Success": "I'm not - I've been a success all my life."
Greq
On His Musical Antecedents: "My grandfather played piano in a bar - he wore a straw hat and a red-and-white-striped vest and a garter around his arm. My grandmother was the bartender."
On His First Instrument: "My dad says from day one I liked noise - I was always pounding on things. So my parents bought me a little toy drum set."
On Switching to Guitar: "When I was nine, my parents split up. My mom later got a new boyfriend and we moved in with him. He was anti-drum guy, so my mom bought me a guitar. A guy down the street tuned it for me and taught me a few chords."
On His First Live Music Experiences. "The first concert I went to was The Carpenters - I still listen to them. The second concert was Johnny Cash, and the third was Jose Feliciano. Jose Feliciano blew my mind because he was this blind guy who could just fuck up a Flamenco guitar - it freaked me out."
On His First Musical Paradigm Shift: "I was heavily into KISS, but then this band called Van Halen came along and everything changed. I was like, 'Okay, they don't need makeup, and they rock.'"
On an Unlikely Early Influence: "I was way into commercial jingles. I always said to myself, 'That's so cool - it just stays in my head all day long.' I'm at school going, 'Seven kinds of fruit in Hawaiian Punch.' How do they do that?"
On Becoming a Songwriter: "When I was in sixth grade, my mom was doing this quality-control thing about my guitar playing - she wanted to see how I was doing. So I started playing this KISS song one note at a time. And she pretty much said, 'Learn some chords and then talk to me.' So I started playing my own chords - which aren't real chords, but I still play them - and it totally impressed her. I was like, 'Hey, this stuff impresses chicks.' And I'm sure there was some girl I had a crush on and was trying to write a song for. But I saw right away how writing songs could affect other people."
On His Musical Education: "My parents always listened to The Carpenters and The Beach Boys and Stevie Wonder. I remember hearing 'Master Blaster' and asking my mom what kind of music it was and her saying, 'I don't know - it's Stevie Wonder music.' When I first heard ska I was like, 'Cool, this sounds like sped-up Stevie Wonder.' So I was into ska before I found out about reggae. Then this very good friend turned me on to Yellowman and Gregory Isaacs and Peter Tosh. My older sister was always into funk and disco, Parliament and Bootsy. I heard 'London Calling' on the radio one day and discovered punk rock. My older friends turned me on to U2, and there was the mod thing. My brother and I heard Devo and Blondie at the skate park. At some point I got into all this '60s garage and surf music - these faceless, no-name bands that had a song on the radio for about a week. I've got endless amounts of vinyl of that stuff. I love the Farfisa [organ] and reverb and wonderful pop songwriting. It's so animated, and a lot
of it's just really funny. I mean, the 'Scooby Doo' theme is this cool little go-go California-type song."
On Why Smash Mouth's Music Is Impossible to Categorize: "Our singer likes hip-hop and country and '60s Elvis. Our bass player likes punk rock and really popped-out Beatlesy type of things. Our drummer's an ex-speed metal freak-turned-Ramones-Dead Kennedys fan who's now into Sublime. And I like anything that sounds good to me. Our music is a California goulash. It's hip-hop, it's Latin, it's reggae, it's ska, it's punk rock, it's pop, it's surf - it's everything."
On What He Writes About: "Everyday people, love, partying. I do feel it's important to present something positive because that's naturally the way I am. And now I feel I have a certain responsibility because I'm in a lot larger arena than just my bedroom or garage."
On How Astro Lounge Is Different From Fush Yu Mang: "This is music for everybody, not just moshers. A lot of these songs were written on the road. And when you're playing [Fush Yu tracks] 'Flo' and 'Nervous in the Alley' every night, the last thing you want to do is write another song with ten downstrokes per second."
On Smash Mouth Reinventing Themselves: "When we were opening up for Sugar Ray, we'd go sit out in front of the clubs after the show with acoustic guitars and just hang around with the kids and play songs, whatever they wanted to hear. We started playing all the songs off Fush Yu acoustically, and all of a sudden, they're new songs. It's really fun and it helps you understand the parts of the music and the words."
On Steve Singing His Songs: "Steve's a great interpreter of my songs, and I keep him in mind when I write them. I don't want to say anything that he wouldn't feel comfortable saying. And there are probably a lot of things he'd like to say that he doesn't really know how to say. Plus, he says things in a way I wish I could say them. He's a rock star - he's big and flamboyant and charming. I'm this little short guy who's kind of shy most of the time. I can't do what he does. We live vicariously through each other."
On Keeping up With the Fans: "I read all the mail we get. It's fun. You wake up in the morning, you have a big paper sack next to you and you just go through the mail while you're waking up with your coffee. It's totally neat to see how many people love you and how many people hate you."
Paul
On Wanting to Play Bass: "You know that album Frampton Comes Alive? I got that record when I was 12. The cover was a fold-out, and inside was a picture of the band. The bass player's wearing some sort of Japanese thing, and he's playing this really neat, big instrument, with all these tuning things on top of it. I looked at this guy and this thing - I didn't even know what it was - and I said, 'Dad, I want that.' And bless his heart, he went out and bought me a cheap bass and a cheap amp. I learned how to play by listening to KISS and Van Halen and Foghat records. But then my dad would get mad at me for playing when I was supposed to be doing my homework."
On His Evolving Musical Tastes: "I went from Van Halen and KISS and Aerosmith to The Circle Jerks and X and The B-52's. I made the change in, like, a day."
On Hooking Up With Greg: "When I was in high school, I was a surfer and all my friends were surfers, but none of them were artists. At night I'd go play in rock bands and I always wondered, 'Why are my surfer friends not artists, and why are my rocker friends not surfers?' The surfers were really cool, but they had no sense of art or music or any kind of soulful groove thing. And then I met Greg. He's a skateboarder and a surfer - he understands that culture - and he's a brilliant musician. When we met, I said, 'Dude, I've been looking for you my whole life.'"
On Coming Back Around to Steve: "Greg and I were in this punk rock band called Lackadaddy, but we couldn't really get it together because no one would show up for practice. Then Greg said, 'I've been doing this thing for a month with this dude Steve and his buddy Kevin. It's kind of cool. Why don't you check it out?' And I said, 'Are you playing guitar?' And he said, 'Yes.' And I said, 'Are you writing the songs?' And he said, 'Yes.' So I said, 'I'm there.' So I go with him to a practice and there's my drinking buddy Steve. And I'm all, 'Hey - what's up, dude?' And those guys are all, 'You know each other?' And I'm like, 'Yeah. We got hammered together last night. He threw up all over the bar.'"
On Why He Likes Playing With Kevin: "He brings this straight-ahead rock energy and punk attitude to the band. And he doesn't show off, which I think is the key to why he's so good."
On Why He Ditched His Other Band for Smash Mouth: "These hot-shots I was playing with were like,'Dude, those guys are stupid and they suck. You got to quit this Smash Mouth thing and play with us full time - it's us or them.' And I said, 'There's something going on with those guys that I can't describe, but I really like it.' What I said to myself, though, was, 'Oh my God, Greg Camp's the best songwriter in the Bay Area, and no one knows it.'"
On What He Calls the Music Smash Mouth Plays: "I don't call it anything. It's whatever and wherever the spirit moves us."
On the Origins of His Favorite Astro Lounge song, "Waste": "We'd been on tour for a year. We were in Peoria, Ill., and it was the middle of the day and we were fucked-up bored. So Greg and I climbed to the top of these bleachers and watched the crew set up. I said, 'Dude, I have this idea. What if you took a hip-hop beat and played folk music over it?' And he said, 'That's what Beck does.' And I said, 'Kind of like Beck, but more...Come on - I'll show ya.' So we went to the bus, where Greg has all his gear set up, and just laid down the track. He gave me a hip-hop beat and I came up with the bass line and he played guitar. Everyone was laughing at us, but Greg wrote the melody and words, and that was that - we had a great song. It was just boredom in Peoria."
On Life as a Rock Star: "I'm super rich and super famous. I live in a condo at the beach with a super-hot blonde wife and just party all the time. Everything's great - my world rocks. Really, though, every day I walk out my front door and go down to the beach. I sit there for like half an hour and just reflect. And you know what? I get on my knees and thank God. I say, 'Thank you - this is good.' And then I go home."
Kevin
On His Rock and Roll Legacy: "My uncle did the lights for Bill Graham back in the days when The Doors and everybody were playing The Fillmore."
On Wanting to Play Drums: "The first time I ever saw anyone do it - in some garage band - I just couldn't believe it was legal to bang something that loud. It blew me away. It was an earth-moving experience."
On Getting to Play Drums: "I pulled this scam - I'm a career criminal - and managed to finagle a drum kit. I had this one teacher who was really pissy and uptight and just wanted me to do rudiments. But I wanted to play Led Zeppelin and AC/DC and Pink Floyd. So I went to this other teacher and his place smelled like marijuana. I really vibed off him and we just jammed. So I've had some formal training and some more street-level training, which is good because I think you have to meet in the middle somewhere."
On Playing in a Garage Band With Steve: "We had a few originals, and Steve would imitate Elvis and Mick Jagger. He really had a presence, even when he was 13. He was a total bull in the china shop. These guys we were playing with would practice all the time, and Steve would come in and be better than everyone with no practice at all. He had the charisma from day one."
On Smash Mouth's Musical Dichotomy: "I've been playing at clubs and parties since I was 17 but I've never considered myself a real seasoned player. Steve and I are like the street punks and Greg and Paul are the more polished musicians. The combination of Steve and my street-level con-artist thing with Greg and Paul's musical expertise is an unstoppable combination as far as I'm concerned."
On Refusing to Be Pigeonholed: "I don't want to adhere to any genre. We're cavalier and maverick enough to decide what's cool for a song, no matter what it sounds like. In terms of not limiting ourselves to any particular kind of music, I'd rather go down as the ballsiest band in the world or the stupidest. Most band's want to fit into a category. They're scared of what might happen if they move away from what they're "supposed" to be. We're not scared. We don't want to fit into any category. We're doing it our way, which is to play a wide variety of styles with a punk attitude."
On the Difference Between Fush Yu Mang and Astro Lounge: "The first record was essentially an independent release put out by a major label. We recorded it on a shoestring budget with money we borrowed from our manager. It was basically like what Nirvana did with Bleach. Astro Lounge is a much more mature record and a much better record. I think it's one of the best records made in the last ten years - no ifs ands or buts."
On His Favorite Astro Lounge songs: "Waste" and "Then the Morning Comes": "The whole record is fucking solid from start to finish - they're all fantastic songs. But if you're going to talk about the songs that have that magical, intangible thing that makes your hair stand up on the back of your neck, it's "Waste" and "Morning." Both of those grab your soul - you can't deny it."
On Playing Astro Lounge live: "Instead of relying on distortion and volume and us just going out there and acting crazy, we're going to put more of a show together, create a mood and really go for that space vibe."
On the Audience: "We have the weirdest fan base I've ever seen. I look at the crowd and I see all the moshers up front and all the parents who come with their kids to hear us do 'Walkin' on the Sun' and everyone in between. And they're all singing along and having a great time. It's a trip."
