All Star Weekend on college and the beginnings of making it.
Kelsey Chitwood
-Staff Writer-
The guys in the band Allstar Weekend started off just like all other college students –
young, driven, and striving to achieve their dreams. On August 29, 2009, the young men
signed their life away when they were picked up and signed to Hollywood Records and
now are the opening band for Disney star Selena Gomez.
“We weren’t put together. We’re real kids that came from a real school, who did real
things together, and we’re real friends,” lead singer of Allstar Weekend, Zachary Porter
said.
The band started off young and followed the Jonas Brothers tour. They also, promoted
themselves outside of the Jonas shows; all while attending college. They were able to
show other musicians the possibility of maintaining good grades and attending school.
Porter said he managed to maintain a 3.5 GPA while he traveled the country promoting
the band’s music.
“We didn’t have any money. We just had to spend all the money we had to go out on a
van and tour,” drummer of Allstar Weekend, Michael Martinez said.
Living off of a college student’s income was not a problem for the guys. They managed
to find alternate ways to get the materials they needed to travel.
“One day we actually had to play a show at our school. It was one of the scariest days
of my life,” lead singer Porter said.
In the beginning, Porter claimed he was shy to perform their music at his college. Once
the band finally did branch out and perform at their college, bassist of Allstar Weekend
Cameron Quiseng said that the band looked cool and Porter chimed in it made it all okay.
Now they are traveling the country and are seen all over TV on the Disney Channel.
“People think that because we’re on Disney we feel we’re being held back, but it’s just
a lot of not doing and saying unnecessary things,” said drummer of Allstar Weekend,
Michael Martinez.
Since all the guys are college aged students, people naturally assume Hollywood
Records held them back. Their new album “All the Way,” premiering September 27,
shows a step-up in their maturity and growth as artists.
“We said things in this record that we wouldn’t have said before because we were too
scared to,” said Porter.
In this album, the guys are working to show a mature sound and voice that was not
portrayed in their last album “Suddenly Yours.”
“The title track, ‘All the Way,’ [best represents the album],” said Quiseng, “It’s pretty
sexy,” Martinez said, with a smile.
The guys are young and have a great future ahead of them with much more still to
achieve.
“It’s been amazing. Everything happened so quickly that it’s surreal. I walked right in to
the middle of what felt like a storm for the band. I wanted to bring forth all the positivity,
love, and sincerity to the situation that I could,” said current guitarist of Allstar Weekend,
Eric Nicolau.
Nicolau is currently filling in for guitarist Nathon Darmody who is on a personal break
from the band right in the midst of a new album dropping and the biggest tour of the
band’s career. Nicolau is not new to the music scene having played role of a guitarist on
the hit TV show, “Glee.”
Nicolau said getting to perform live and connect to thousands of fans in front of him,
instead of filming ahead of time and having millions of people watch his performance has
been fun and he has felt welcomed and embraced back by the Allstar Weekend fans in the
same direct way he showed love to them.
“I really want this record to reach a whole new audience,” said Porter, “I want people
to hear this record that maybe wouldn’t have given us a chance before and maybe they
wouldn’t have stereotyped us. I want them to appreciate it. I think that’s what we’re
going to go for. I want to keep building the story of Allstar Weekend.”
