A new era of Smash Mouth is upon us and we promise you’re not getting rickrolled.
LISTEN NOW: Smash Mouth debuts new lead singer on Audacy's KROQ
Paul De Lisle of Smash Mouth joined Audacy’s Kevan Kenney along with a mysterious (until later in this story) guest who also happens to be the band’s new lead singer. “Everything is positive and the future looks very bright,” De Lisle said to open their conversation.
Before he opened up about the band’s future plans, De Lisle had to give a bit of a backstory so fans know how they arrived at their current situation. Former singer Steve Harwell retired back in October due to health issues that made it impossible to continue on with the group. “We kind of saw it coming,” De Lisle said. “It’s a shame about Steve, but it’s been happening for a few years.”
The band knew they wanted to continue on together and began the search for a new lead singer. They ultimately arrived on a new vocal talent they’re extremely excited about and made the exclusive announcement on KROQ. And the new lead singer of Smash Mouth is… cue the drumroll please.
Zach Goode!
Goode introduced himself and explained how he ended up as Smash Mouth’s new singer. He knew the band was looking for a new singer and initially decided to write them an email as a “goof.”
“They’re not going to ever respond to this email,” he recalled his initial thoughts when reaching out to the band. “[I] didn’t put too much thought, well, maybe I put a little bit of thought into it. It was like, ‘hey do you want a guy with some bad ‘90s tattoos and a dad bod?’”
Goode didn’t think the band would respond, but was surprised when they did. They went back and forth with Goode trying out different songs. “I was sort of a casual fan,” Goode said of Smash Mouth. “I knew the hits, I didn’t really know the deep cuts. After listening to the songs and seeing how good they were - what a great songwriter Greg [Camp] was and is and getting a new respect for Steve’s voice too… how iconic that sound was - it really drew me in. I was like, ‘wow this band is really more dimensional than they get credit for.’”
To mark Goode’s debut with the band, Smash Mouth dove in head first and released a cover of one of the most notorious songs in history. No, you’re not getting rickrolled, they really did cover Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
“One of our managers kept pushing for us to do this song,” De Lisle said. “We kind of resisted, like it’s not really our thing.” That is, until one of the band members wrote a punk rock-esque arrangement to it that caught their attention.
“That was one of the first songs they sent to me during the audition process,” Goode said. “It’s so pitch perfect, yet out of leftfield at the same time.”
“Zach’s voice just sat in there perfectly,” De Lisle added.
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