HEADING FOR THE SUN | BEING HERE | CREATING AN IMAGE | COVERING PEARL JAM
CREATING AN IMAGE
"Everyday I wake up I'm afraid I'm going to find out that I've been dreaming," says Camp, 30, who, as the band's songwriter, is its worrier and social conscience.
Camp, De Lisle, 34, Harwell, 30, and Coleman, 29, are packed into De Lisle's gray-blue Ford Escort wagon speeding up 101 to San Francisco, where they must inspect 80 rolls of negatives from a photo shoot and agree on the best five or six band images that Interscope can put in the Smash Mouth press packet.
Why? Because reviewers are asking.
Destination: the hip, SoMa District studio of Jay Blakesberg, who list Rolling Stone on his credits and decorates his studio with black and white photographs of pop culture posers like Jerry Garcia, Timothy Leary, John Lee Hooker and Primus.
Smash Mouth mugged for Blakesberg last year, standing in front of gritty buildings in San Francisco and San Jose or staring into a distorting wide-angled lens in an effort to create that surreal, screw-conformity look that is rock-photo chic. The shoot was for San Francisco's BAM magazine. No one dreamed then that the band's career would take off so suddenly that this would be the sum total of images for the album and tour promotions.
"We don't have time to shoot anything else," says Camp, employing a freeway driving style that involves using every lane to achieve maximum average speed.
The guys have the radio on, but it's not tuned to San Jose's alternative rock station KOME, the first station to play their music, or Live 105, which does too. As the name Smash Mouth suggests (it's a term used to describe hard-hitting football or hockey action), the guys like sports (well, except for Camp, the sensitive one). The game of the day is the Giants at Houston, on KNBR-AM as they pass the exit to the park formerly known as Candlestick.
"How many times did you get chills right here...," Harwell begins,
"Going to see Van Halen," Camp interjects.
"...on the way to the Cow Palace," Harwell finishes the sentence. These guys must be used to collaborating.
At the photo studio, Blakesberg stands them in front of light tables with stacks of negatives and pens for marking the ones they like. They spend an hour peering through magnifying loupes before realizing that making a decision could take the rest of the day. They need to be in San Jose for practice.
"It's all the same to me," De Lisle says. "I've got a beer gut and a bad haircut."
Blakesberg suggests sending the photos to Interscope, where professionals can decide. It's the guys' first realization that the days in which they handled the grunt work like booking clubs, putting up fliers to get an audience, and all of the other things that got them to where they are considering publicity stills for their press packet--their press packet!--are over.
The band can simply approve the final selection of photos, Blakesberg says.
"Cool," Camp says.