ALLSTAR WEEKEND Not Your Birthday
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April 13, 2011
Filed under Announcements, Arts & Entertainment, Featured
“We like to have fun. At all times. That’s our mission statement,” Cameron Quiseng, the bassist for Allstar Weekend. Fortunately, that also happens to be the unofficial declaration of our intent for the hordes of fans who turn every Allstar Weekend show into a de facto dance- and scream-fest, and whose requests have driven the barely-twentysomething rock & roll band to the No. 1 spot on Radio Disney. When the group’s devoteesget their hands on Suddenly Yours–Allstar Weekend’s first full-length album, following an ecstatically received introductory EP–they may catch their breath just long enough to say: Mission accomplished.
But the fun doesn’t completely mask the quarter’s work ethic and serious commitment to working toward power-pop greatness. One clear standout in their growing catalog is “Catching Up,” a call to action-themed track that became a fan favorite after the band performed it in the set of their Suddenly headline tour in the summer of 2010. It appears on the new album, and these particular lyrics definitely have the ring of “mission statement” about them, too. “I’m done hanging out/Talking ’bout what I want/No fun sitting here/Thinking maybe next year,” sings lead vocalist Zach Porter. “I don’t wanna be/Looking back at 23/Saying to myself: Got a lot of catching up to do.”
Older listeners accustomed to pondering what they might regret in middle age or on their deathbeds might laugh to think of Porter imagining the regrets he could end up harboring at age 23–which for him, like the other members of Allstar Weekend, is still three years down the line. But the band members were conscious about keeping the threshold for possible disappointment and remorse that young.
“That was a lyric that we were actually discussing: Should it be ‘I don’t want to be looking back at 23,’ or 33, or 43? But we kept it young, at 23. Because I’ve seen so many of my friends now–after high school, after we set what we wanted to do with our lives and we went to our colleges and whatnot–that are just kind of doing nothing.. Either they lost their sense of direction or were maybe too scared to actually go after something in their life that they really desire. ‘Catching Up’ is a wake up call to people to step out of that comfort zone, take a risk, and go for what you really want.”
If youth is often said to be wasted on the young, it’s definitely not being wasted on Allstar Weekend, who have somehow managed to be both determined and carefree in going for the gold. They started the band while attending the same San Diego high school–though some of the close friendships date back to middle school–and happened into a series of lucky breaks, making their own luck all the while.
Break number one, in their minds, was landing their managers, Stefanie and Richard Reines, while they were still in high school. This carries both practical and symbolic importance, since these managers also happened to be founders of the group’s favorite indie record label, Drive-Thru Records, a Los Angeles-based imprint that had signed a good number of the band members’ favorite local pop-punk groups. At the same time, Allstar Weekend knew that striving after indie cred was not the path for them, when, however had they might rock, their hooks were so unabashedly pop and their instincts so unabashedly commercial.
Break number two came when they made a fateful decision to drive up to L.A. from San Diego, on a whim. “Every time we’d walk out of one of those venues in San Diego, there’d always be people handing out free CDs and flyers. So we started handing out at various shows,” says Quiseng. “We ended up handing a flyer to a casting director at Disney, who gave it to someone from Radio Disney. And then overnight we got this email saying: ‘We checked out you stuff online and enjoyed it. I have this competition, and I need one more band. Do you want to come into the studios and join the contest?’ We went in and we were super-nervous, talking over each other. But hearing our song blasting on the radio in Zach’s car was such an experience, I can’t even explain how much we were freaking out.”
And then, Quiseng hastens to add, “We actually ended up losing the competition”–but, as Chris Daughtry, Adam Lambert, Jennifer Hudson, Miranda Lambert, and other famous contest losers would tell you, that’s not always such a fatal thing. The Radio Disney exposure led to a series of showcases for major labels, and going with Hollywood Records, “where we wanted to be from the beginning,” was big break number three.
Allstar Weekend have continued to be embraced by Radio Disney in a huge way. The station’s studio is “practically out home away from home,” says Quiseng. But, of course, the group differs from a great deal of the other fare heard there, first of all by beingt a band, not a solo artist, and then by not being attached to any TV or movie property. Their level of musical accomplishment at the mutual age of 20 is so great that it may be hard for some observers to believe they really are a self-made outfit, and not something put together by some mad, brilliant Svengali. But, as far as they’ve come, they’re not that far removed from their parents’ garages, in years or in spirit.
And before they were a garage band, they were a bedroom band. Because before Allstar Weekend even formed, singer Porter and guitarist Nathan Darmody had joined forces just to become songwriters. The fact that writing was first love, and remains an ongoing one, may account for the ultimate underlying strength of Allstar Weekend as a song- and not image-based band. It also gives Allstar Weekend the gift of longevity as a band that will long outlast their beginnings at Disney.
“I think some people forming bands go out wanting to make a statement, or become a character, or embody some kind of image,” says Porter. “But we were never trying to be a grunge band, not trying to be a metal band, not trying to be an indie-rock band. Before we were even a band, Nathan and I wanted to be songwriters, and we’re still trying to write catchy songs that people can relate to, and just be who we are.
Among the four of them they agree that guitarist Darmody and drummer Michael Martinez are the most natural, long-standing, and accomplished musicians of the group. Bassist Quiseng admits: “I had dabbled in guitar, but I had never picked up a bass. I just really wanted to be in the band with these guys because they were close friends. So Nathan taught me everything I know, or at least showed me the basics of playing bass, and I just practiced and practiced until I was ready to join them.” Porter had done a similar amount of work to excel as the band’s frontman. “I wasn’t born a singer,” he says. “I remember for years, my parents told me, ‘Zach, this is a pipe dream. You need something to fall back on.’ But I kept at it. It’s a matter of drive and determination and passion.”
Those are all qualities that show up in spades in the 11 songs on Suddenly Yours–along with, of course, the aforementioned fun. The album’s first single, “Come Down With Love,” is one of Allstar Weekend’s hardest-rocking tracks yet, and one–befitting the virus metaphor–with a distinctive ear-worm quality. “I think it’s a more powerful song than we’ve ever written before,” says Porter, “and will definitely be a big step in how people view us,” That song, which the band recently sang to Demi Lovato on the Disney Channel’s hit sitcome Sonny With a Chance, is one of four never-before-heard songs that didn’t appear on the previous EP.
The other newbie tracks are “Catching Up,” the love-struck “Can’t Sleep Tonight,” and “Here With You.” The last number, whih Allstar Weekend have been known to break out acoustically in radio visits and other more intimate settings, is a sincere-sounding but slightly tongue-in-cheek ode to a Masxim pin-upgirl that Porter had on his wall in high school. (“As soon as I moved out, my brother stold the poster,” the singer points out.)
Other songs here are already familiar to diehard fans, like “Dance Forever,” a hit digital download from its initial release on Suddenly EP last summer. It’s a no-brainer to guess that that breakout song is, well, danceable, but the influence of their childhood heroes, blink-182, is more impossible as becoming superheroes. In the tune, addressing his own innate modesty in the face of these no-so-fantastical fantasies, Porter sings, “I’m only five-foot-eight…” But, he jokes, not only have they achieved most of the other goals in the song, but “I’m five-foot-eight and a half now. I’ve stepped up my game!”
The album’s closer, “The Weekend,” may seem like a simple party-pleaser of a rocker, but the band’s seize-the-day philosophy is embedded even in a song that initially sounds like it’s only about seizing a Saturday. “The general theme, besides the weekend, is that whether or not you like what you’re doing in school or like you job, there are always going to be times where you can be yourself,” says Porter. “And it may not be in you job, but there will be moments in life where you can shine as the person you really are. I think people maybe forget that or don’t even know that.”
Allstar Weekend’s ultimate aspiration is to be unforgettable, themselves. For the time being, they stay after every concert to meet every last fan who can stick around–a process that can last as long as four or five hours. These epic meet-’n'-greets are a ritual they won’t be able to do forever, but “it’s really important to do it now,” says Porter. “Because every night on this headlining tour that we’ve been doing, our goal above everything is to make it a night that everyone there can remember the rest of their lives. And having that face-to-face interaction is vital to that, so we take it really seriously.”
“We’re so busy now and we have such little interaction with our old friends or even our family while we’re on the road, the fans are the ones that can almost relate to us the easiest, or understand us the most, at this point. They’re the ones who see us the most! So it’s a really great relationship.” Right now, to a fan base that has emerged almost instantaneously, Allstar Weekend are “suddenly yours,” but they’re counting on that developing into “forever yours.”
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