Former Break Mouth lead singer Steve Harwell, whose unique rasp will also be heard at the ska/punk-pop classics “Walkin’ at the Solar,” “All Megastar,” “Then the Morning Comes,” and “I’m a Believer,” has died, following an extended struggle with quite a lot of well being problems that pressured him to retire from tune in 2021. He used to be 56 years outdated. On Sunday, it have been introduced via Break Mouth supervisor Robert Hayes that Harwell had entered in hospice maintain final-stage continual liver failure, used to be being taken care of via his fiancée, and that he had “just a week or so that you could reside.”
Hayes mentioned in a remark that Harwell “handed peacefully and conveniently” on Monday morning at his house in Boise, Idaho, “surrounded via friends and family,” including: “Steve has been retired from Break Mouth for 2 years now, and the band continues to excursion with new vocalist Zach Goode. That mentioned, Steve’s legacy will continue to exist during the tune. With Steve, Break Mouth has offered over 10 million albums international and crowned the charts with two No. 1 hit singles, 5 most sensible 40 singles, 3 Sizzling 100 singles, 4 Billboard 200 albums and a Grammy nomination to not point out the masses of movie and tv placements and naturally the ones musical options in Shrek.
“Steve’s iconic voice is likely one of the maximum recognizable voices from his era. He liked the fanatics and liked to accomplish,” Hayes persisted. “Steve Harwell used to be a real American unique. A bigger-than-life personality who shot up into the sky like a Roman candle. Steve must be remembered for his unwavering focal point and impassioned decision to achieve the heights of father stardom. And the truth that he completed this near-impossible function with very restricted musical revel in makes his accomplishments the entire extra outstanding. His most effective equipment had been his irrepressible allure and aura, his fearlessly reckless ambition, and his king-size cajones. Steve lived a 100% full-throttle existence. Burning brightly around the universe prior to burning out.”
Steven Scott Harwell used to be born Jan. 9, 1967 in Santa Clara, Calif., and after fronting a rap staff known as F.O.S. (Freedom of Speech) within the early ‘90s, he shaped Break Mouth in San Jose with drummer Kevin Coleman, guitarist Greg Camp, and bassist Paul De Lisle in 1994. After Break Mouth (previously stylized as Smashmouth) signed to Interscope Information in 1997, they unlock their debut album Fush Yu Mang, which used to be buoyed via the fuzzy-funk groove of the spy-movie/beach-blanket romp “Walkin’ at the Solar” and a bouncy, earnest quilt of Battle’s “Why Cannot We Be Buddies.”
“Walkin’ at the Solar” went to No. 1 on Billboard’s Selection Airplay chart and Fush Yu Mang offered 2 million copies, however Break Mouth’s 1999 sophomore album, Astro Front room, used to be much more a hit, going triple-platinum and yielding an excellent larger hit unmarried, “All Megastar.” The sunny stadium anthem peaked at No. 4 at the Billboard Sizzling 100 and won a Grammy nomination for Very best Pop Efficiency via a Duo or Team with Vocals. Twenty years later, “All Megastar” took on a complete new sudden existence as an web meme, turning into one among most-streamed rock songs within the U.S. between 2017 and 2021.
“I check out now not to concentrate on social media very a lot. I check out to not for my part learn and have a look at all that shit. However I feel it’s cool that ‘All Megastar’ has made this type of resurgence” Harwell instructed Stereogum in 2017.
Over the path in their profession, Break Mouth offered greater than 10 million albums and charted 10 general Billboard hits. In conjunction with their originals, they had been recognized for his or her spirited covers, together with “Why Cannot We Be Buddies,” the Neil Diamond-penned Monkees vintage “I’m a Believer,” Easy Minds’ “Do not You (Fail to remember About Me),” and Query Mark & the Mysterians’ “Cannot Get Sufficient of You Child.”
In conjunction with “I’m a Believer” for 2001’s Shrek and “Why Cannot We Be Buddies” for 1998’s Wild Issues, Break Mouth recorded different film songs, like a canopy of the Beatles’ “Getting Higher” for The Cat within the Hat and a brand new model of “I Wan’na Be Like You” for The Jungle Ebook 2, each in 2003. Harwell and Break Mouth additionally composed two unique songs, “Beside Myself” and “The whole thing Simply Loopy,” for the 2013 South Korean animated movie Pororo, the Racing Journey. In 2001, the gang seemed as themselves within the Jerry Zucker comedy flick Rat Race. Harwell additionally famously seemed as himself at the small display in 2006, at the 6th season of VH1’s “celebreality” display The Surreal Lifestyles, along roommates Alexis Arquette, Sherman Hemsley, and Tawny Kitaen (all of whom have since died) and Poison guitarist C.C. DeVille.
In 2013, Harwell used to be identified with cardiomyopathy (a type of center illness that reasons the guts muscle turns into enlarged and susceptible), an acute neurological situation known as Wernicke encephalopathy, and center failure. He additionally struggled with alcohol abuse for a lot of his existence. In August 2016, whilst acting on the Urbana Sweetcorn Competition in Urbana, Unwell., he collapsed onstage and used to be taken via ambulance to the sanatorium, whilst De Lisle stuffed in on lead vocals for the rest of Break Mouth’s set. In 2017, the band postponed a number of live shows whilst Harwell underwent remedy for his center issues. A alternative singer used to be introduced in to take over for some gigs, unexpected many attendees who to start with didn’t realize the transfer.
Harwell in the end returned to reside acting, however in October 2021, he made a abnormal look on the Giant Sip beer and wine pageant at Hudson Valley’s Bethel Woods Middle for the Arts, all through which he appeared intoxicated — slurring his phrases, threatening the target market, or even giving what gave the look to be a Nazi salute. Following that debacle, which had long past viral by way of TikTok, Harwell formally introduced his retirement because of his “longstanding clinical problems.” A Break Mouth consultant defined at the moment that the singer had forgotten “the place he used to be [and] his personal lyrics” at Bethel Woods and had “restricted figuring out of his surroundings because of one among his episodes.”
Break Mouth’s rep then published that Harwell had “suffered profusely through the years with various kinds of dependancy,” which had “a great deal impacted his motor purposes together with speech and impaired reminiscence. … Regardless of Steve’s perfect efforts to paintings thru those diseases, he’s heartbroken to proportion that it has change into not possible for him to proceed doing what he loves maximum, acting in entrance of the band’s thousands and thousands of fanatics world wide.”
“Ever since I used to be a child, I dreamed of being a rock big name acting in entrance of sold-out arenas and feature been so lucky to reside out that dream,” Harwell mentioned in a 2021 remark upon his retirement. “To my bandmates, it’s been an honor acting with you these types of years and I will’t call to mind any person else I’d have somewhat long past in this wild adventure with. To our dependable and wonderful fanatics, thanks, all of this used to be conceivable on account of you. I’ve attempted so exhausting to energy thru my bodily and psychological well being problems, and to play in entrance of you one final time, however I simply wasn’t in a position to.”
With Harwell’s improve, his Break Mouth bandmates (De Lisle being the only real ultimate member from the unique ‘90s lineup) then sought out a brand new everlasting frontman, in the end hiring Zach Goode in January 2022. “I’m so thankful to every one among you who has helped Break Mouth promote over 10 million albums international, put us on most sensible of radio charts, and people who have stored ‘All Megastar’ related as one of the crucial most sensible memes on the net nowadays,” Harwell mentioned. “I can’t wait to peer what Break Mouth accomplishes subsequent and am taking a look ahead to counting myself as one of the crucial band’s latest fanatics.”
This isn’t the primary time that the Harwell circle of relatives has skilled a well being tragedy. In 2001, the Break Mouth frontman’s 8-month-old son with then-wife Michelle Laroque, Presley Scott Harwell, died of headaches from acute lymphatic leukemia after being sick with the illness for only some weeks. The singer later created the Presley Scott Analysis Basis for Leukemia in his son’s honor.
