Smash Mouth Plots Comeback With New Singer, a Rick-Roll Cover and Love for ‘Shrek’ Fans
variety.comA.D. Amorosi Smash Mouth became a beloved band for all ages thanks to its anthemic 1999 hit “All Star,” subsequently used in DreamWorks Animation’s ubiquitous 2001 film “Shrek.” The song had a long tail, racking up radio play and streams years past its shelf date.
So when founding vocalist Steve Harwell retired from the band due to health problems — following an onstage “episode” in 2021 where he reportedly “slurred his words, threatened the audience and gave some crude gestures to the crowd” — co-founding bassist Paul De Lisle had huge shoes to fill.“Literally,” affirms De Lisle, the last original member of the band still performing as Smash Mouth. “Steve is a big guy, nearly 6-feet-tall and 200-plus pounds, with a big voice.” Enter Zach Goode, an actor, songwriter and equally tall and large-voiced man, who joined Smash Mouth in time for one of its largest-ever gigs in May 2022. “A Guadalajara stadium filled with 50,000 people as your first show,” says Goode. “No pressure.”Last Friday, the new Goode-fronted Smash Mouth released its first single and video, a cover of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up,” through UMe, marking a return to Universal Music Group, which is also home to Interscope, which signed the band in 1997.
The new single comes weeks after Republic Records released an electro-pop version of “All Star (the Owl City Remix).”In addition to its Rick-rolling, Smash Mouth is offering a new original, “4th of July,” dropping right before the band embarks on a summer tour that begins on July 3 in Mason, Ohio.Even before Harwell’s departure, De Lisle had persevered through major losses in the Smash Mouth camp, including when co-founding guitarist and principal songwriter Greg Camp left the band in 2008.“I was.
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