A Look Back At Guy Fieri's Friendship With Smash Mouth's Steve Harwell

The music world lost another iconic entertainer today. Steve Harwell, the frontman for the band Smashmouth passed away at his home after battling health issues for the last two years. Mr. Harwell had deep roots in both the musical and culinary worlds and published a cookbook "Recipes from The Road: A Cookbook" in 2013. He was also close friends with Guy Fieri, who contributed recipes for Harwell's cookbook. 

Through the years, there have been rumors that Guy Fieri and Steve Harwell were the same person. Not only do the two look alike, but when they started hanging out over a decade ago they both had spiky bleach-blonde hair, which kickstarted the rumor mill. They dispelled the myth when they started posting pictures of themselves cooking together.

The close friends made several public appearances together to prove that they are in fact two different people, including in 2018 when Fieri joined Harwell on stage at a Smashmouth concert. However, their friendship went deeper than that. They shared a passion for cooking, traveling, and charity work that solidified their bond. In 2019, the two were photographed while grilling out at Fieri's North California Ranch for the weekend, which left fans of both hoping that Fieri would include the incident on an episode of Guy's Ranch Kitchen. 

In 2011, writer Jon Hendren bet Steve Harwell $20 that he couldn't eat 24 eggs at one time. Hendren's online followers quickly started matching the bet. Harwell finally stipulated that if the fans could raise $10,000 for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, he'd accept the challenge. In only a few days the money was raised and the egg-off was on.

On October 10^th, 2011, in Dublin California, Harwell sat down to eat the eggs cooked by none other than his friend, Guy Fieri. Fieri brought an assortment of eggs that included quail and duck. The task was made even more difficult because the scrambled eggs contained a Fieriesque helping of heat from Tabasco sauce and jalapeno peppers. Harwell offered $1,000 to St. Jude's (with Fieri matching) for help from an audience member in finishing the eggs. The man who stepped up said he was donating to the charity event in honor of his daughter, whom he had recently lost. Harwell himself had lost his 6-month-old son Presley to leukemia in 2001, and this emotional news was the exclamation mark to an event that came together because of two close friends.

Harwell and Fieri's bond was born through a love of food and music — two collaborative arts that provide sustenance and joy. Fieri mourned his friend on Instagram with the message, "To my brutha Steve. RIP. Today is a sad day, I will miss my friend."