After the preliminary success of their debut single, “Walkin’ On The Solar,” Smash Mouth returned to the studio to file the follow-up to 1997’s Fush You Mang at their new residence on the most important label Interscope. Throughout the band, tensions have been excessive because the worry of being a one-hit surprise loomed above them. “Walkin’ On The Solar” had been a divisive hit, luring in droves of recent followers intrigued by its quirky, Farfisa-driven beach-blanket sound. On the identical time, nevertheless, it alienated most of the band’s longstanding followers, who recognized with the tougher, ska-punk songs that comprised many of the album. However by the point Fush You Mang’s follow-up, Astro Lounge, hit the cabinets, Smash Mouth would have totally embraced a poppier sound, epitomized by their juggernaut single “All Star.”
“Smash Mouth was form of in between pop and punk”
Smash Mouth enlisted producer Eric Valentine (Good Charlotte, Queens Of The Stone Age, Third Eye Blind) to provide the tracks for what would ultimately grow to be their second album, Astro Lounge. For the periods, the band transformed an previous home right into a recording studio in Los Gatos, south of the band’s hometown of San Jose.
On the onset, a call was made to eschew their earlier punk leanings to concentrate on a extra commercially viable pop sound, main drummer Kevin Coleman to half methods with the band after the recording periods. Having written “Walkin’ On The Solar” earlier than even becoming a member of the band, Smash Mouth guitarist Greg Camp was promoted to move songwriter.
Valentine and Camp labored collectively to create a imaginative and prescient for Astro Lounge with some enter from Interscope. Camp introduced a wistful, 60s surf-lounge aesthetic to the music whereas Valentine introduced the pragmatism of trade expertise. By the top of the periods, the band had 13 songs’ price of potential pop-rock gold.
Hold drilling
Believing the album was within the can, Robert Hayes, the band’s supervisor, delivered it to Interscope. Regardless of Smash Mouth’s concentrate on writing poppier songs, Jimmy Iovine and Tom Whalley, then working within the label’s A&R group, felt the gathering lacked a robust single. They ordered Hayes and the band to maintain drilling till they hit business oil.
After months of back-and-forth, both sides expressing frustration, Hayes sat Camp down with a replica of Billboard journal. Collectively they went by means of the High 50 and dissected the songs right down to their profitable components. Camp was then charged with writing some songs together with all these parts. A couple of days later, the guitarist returned with the soon-to-be hits “Then the Morning Comes” and “All Star.”
“I got down to write an anthem for them”
“Smash Mouth was form of in between pop and punk at the moment,” Camp instructed Rolling Stone in a current interview.
“These have been children that weren’t actually sporting a uniform in any sure approach. They weren’t mods, they weren’t punks, they weren’t jocks, they weren’t sport-os. They have been simply these children that enjoyed music, saying that they bought picked on loads. I form of verbally got down to write an anthem for them. That’s the way it began.”
Valentine had introduced in session drummer Michael Urbano, who performed the tune twice earlier than nailing it; he rapidly forgot concerning the session till listening to “All Star” on the radio in the future. “I had solely heard it thrice, after which I heard it three million occasions inside two weeks,” mentioned Urbano in the identical interview.
“All Star” was first launched as a single on Might 4, 1999, adopted by Astro Lounge on June 8. By August, the one peaked at No.4 on the Billboard Scorching 100. Following the album’s launch, the band set out on a relentless two-year tour.
“You couldn’t activate the TV with out listening to ‘All Star’”
Throughout this time, “All Star” saturated the airwaves. “One of many issues with ‘All Star,’ it was very licensable, I licensed the crap outta that tune,” remembers Hayes. “You could possibly not stroll right into a grocery retailer or activate the TV with out listening to ‘All Star.’”
Even to this present day, licensing requests for the tune nonetheless come up a number of occasions per week, Camp defined to The Ringer in a current interview. “I imply, even this morning I used to be getting requested by our publishing firm if it was OK to make use of it in two various things. Most requests are authorised, until they need to change the lyrics one thing like, ‘Hey now, you’re a hamburger man.’”
The tune additionally featured prominently within the movies Thriller Males (1999), Inspector Gadget (1999) Digimon: The Film (2000), and Rat Race (2001). It obtained a Grammy nomination for Greatest Pop Efficiency on the 1999 awards, however ultimately misplaced out to Santana.
Hollywood comes calling
Then, in 2001, director Vicki Jenson was on the helm of an animated household movie for DreamWorks a couple of curmudgeonly inexperienced ogre referred to as Shrek. Jenson was on the lookout for one thing totally different for the film, particularly when it got here to the soundtrack. Once they initially approached Smash Mouth to ask if they might use “All Star,” the band turned the request down. Following a non-public screening of the movie, nevertheless, the group acknowledged how profitable it was going to be.
Shrek went on to gross over half a billion {dollars} on the US field workplace, and, for a complete era of youngsters, “All Star” grew to become a comforting anthem of braveness and self-acceptance. For Smash Mouth, it was the top of economic success – with all of the spoils they might think about.
If that wasn’t sufficient of a fairy-tale ending, by the late 00s the tune discovered an ironic afterlife being memefied, parodied, and mashed-up in tons of, if not hundreds of movies on YouTube. Over twenty years since its launch, “All Star” nonetheless glitters like gold.
Hearken to the most effective of Smash Mouth on Apple Music and Spotify.