After 12 years together as a band and nearly 10 years after emerging on the national scene with their first number- one hit, Walkin’ on the Sun, all three co-founding members – Steve Harwell, Greg Camp, and Paul DeLisle – are as tight today as they were the day they first jammed together in their hometown of San Jose.

“That’s probably the thing I’m most proud of,” says DeLisle. “We’re brothers. We’re all very close, especially Steve and Greg and I ’cause we’ve been together for so long, but also (keyboardist Michael) Hippy (Klooster) and (percussionist) Mark (Cervantes) and let’s not forget our new drummer Jason (Sutter).”

“No matter what happens, we all just want to make music and hang out with each other,” adds Camp. “We get together and all of a sudden we just have such a blast.”

Collectively, the band has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide.

A quick listen to their music and you realize the multi-platinum Smash Mouth is a ’60s-influenced garage band with a keen pop sensibility that maintains a timeless quality…a style they have created and that is all their own.

Having long since established itself as the ultimate true-to-life California party-band, the vibe surrounding the Long Beach natives is indeed – at its core – about having fun.

“When we play it’s a nonstop party,” Harwell said.

With the release of their fifth studio album – Summer Girl – the guys decided to part ways with their longtime label, Interscope, in order to form their own company, Beautiful Bomb Records, and put forth the lessons they’ve learned by self-releasing the new material with the help of Red Distribution (Sony/BMG). By releasing Summer Girl on their own, the band is making good on a decade-long promise of doing things its own way.

“Now we’re on a mission,” implores Harwell, “to make this kick ass. We learned a lot by being spoiled on a major label, but I told the guys that if we do this we’re gonna have to work harder than we’ve ever worked in our career…and, now, we’re looking forward to hitting it hard.”