I still have mixed feelings about the passing of Smash Mouth’s lead singer.
I don’t feel like he should be blamed for his liver disease, even if his alcoholism did cause or contribute to it, even if it had anything to do with his eventual demise. But I do have problems with the fact that he insisted on having concerts during the worst of the pandemic knowing that it was during the worst of the pandemic, eventually going so far as to give people Nazi salutes. If this was on the part of some kind of neural degeneration, I feel like his band members should have intervened as things started to get bad, and apparently they never did. Personally, I find it the easiest just not to talk about Smash Mouth (Smashmouth? Smash Mouth?) any more, even if I did listen to their music growing up. Conversations about what he did or did not have control over just tend to get confusing after awhile, and I don’t feel like having debates or discussions about him beyond what’s already been said, with most of it having been said on Facebook.