Last year, the Spice Girls sucked every last penny out of their Pepsi jingle "Move On" by slapping it on Spiceworld just in time for the Christmas rush. Following that lead -- times two -- Smash Mouth plan to include their Baby Gap ditty "Come On" as well as "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" from the Can't Hardly Wait soundtrack on their sophomore album. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, Smash Mouth hope to have it released before the holidays. |

"It was a hit, so we should probably stick it on the record," says Smash Mouth guitarist/songwriter Greg Camp, about including "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" on the new album. Smash Mouth are currently in a Redwood City, Calif., studio where the band is working on their follow-up to 1997's platinum album, Fush Yu Mang, with producer Eric Valentine.

Following the success of "Walkin' on the Sun," the band's Sixties keyboard-infused breakthrough hit, Smash Mouth plan to pave the tentatively titled Rudy Road (named after the street where their practice studio's located) with their staple sound, drenched in SoCal surf pop, ska, punk and psychedelia. However, Camp and lead singer Steve Harwell also throw props to their rap roots by incorporating a trifle of hip-hop into the new songs as well.

Camp hopes to snag Coolio for "Swank Ride," a song about the band's obsession with classic Sixties cars. The band's asked the rapper to lay down vocals on the song, which combines a theme-from-Dragnet sound with a hip-hop loop laid out on a big brass musical bed.

Smash Mouth have also enlisted Sugar Ray's DJ Homicide to scratch on "Swank Ride" as well as a few other songs. The band has completed five tracks and is now working on another five.

Inspiration for many of the songs came from the yearlong tour Smash Mouth undertook following the release of Fush Yu Mang. The anticipated first single, "Diggin' Your Scene," pokes fun at teenagers' need to be in sex-even-without-love relationships. He describes the sound as "burlesque music, a little sped up with fuzzed-out guitars, crazy organs and that crazy Smash Mouth Sixties crap."

For the eerie, fascination-with-space-aliens song "Who's There," Camp is attempting to learn the theremin in order to add a spacey, spooky edge to the band's trademark pop sound.

Question is will anyone care about experimentation if Smash Mouth doesn't deliver the hits? "I initially had writer's block when I'd think about it, but then realized I had to outdo 'Walkin on the Sun'," Camp admits. "[But] when Eric heard this batch of songs, he was so excited, he didn't know what to start with. That put me at ease." And having those two certifiably commercial tunes in the can probably doesn't hurt, either.

ARI BENDERSKY(September 18, 1998)