By Alan Ho-- Chief Head, Chief Editor/Publisher
Fast rising pop/rock foursome Allstar Weekend has had a banner year in 2010 thus far. Their rise from self promoting themselves at Jonas Brothers and Honor Society shows and in their native San Diego to playing in front of large crowds while opening for acts like Days Difference and Emily Osment has to be one of the fastest and amazing rises we have seen in music today. And they will back that up with amazing stagecraft, catchy songwriting and beats and musical talent to boot! Chief head and chief editor Alan Ho got to spend a little time with the talented pop/rock foursome backstage at the Petrillo Band Shell at the world famous Taste of Chicago festival before their opening performance!
Alan: Hello, this is Alan Ho from Musiqtone.com and I am here with the guys from Allstar Weekend. Introduce yourselves to our readers and tell us a little bit about yourselves.
Cameron: How’s it going! I’m Cameron and I play bass in the band
Nathan: What’s up I’m Nathan and I play guitar
Zach: Hey guys I’m Zach and I’m the singer
Michael: Hey it’s Michael and I play drums
AH: First question is how did you guys come together?
Zach: Well, we grew up together in a town near San Diego. A lot of us went to school together, as far back as Middle School. We grew up loving music and in High School we formed a band. We’ve been playing ever since.
AH: The original name for your band was called AllStar and we understand that it was changed to Allstar Weekend not too long ago…
Cameron: There are allstar everywhere, allstar is a very common name. There’s allstar glass, allstar plumbing, allstar hats, allstar you-name-it
Zach:
Basically for legal reasons we had to add a second bar to our name but we wanted to keep it because we started growing a fan base with it and still wanted them to relate to us. We just added a different word to it
AH: Any significance to the “Weekend”?
Zach: Yeah we were trying to include something that everyone loves, and everyone loves the weekend.
AH: You guys have risen so fast. In just about a year you went from promoting outside Jonas Brothers shows to playing on some of the biggest stages around the country. How did Hollywood Records and Radio Disney come about?
Zach: We just got really lucky. We were passing out flyers outside of the Jonas Brothers’ 3D movie and actually followed their tour passing out flyers and playing acoustic outside of the arenas they were playing. One day, in Hollywood, we passed out a flyer to a Disney casting director. She saw us and put us in a Radio Disney competition and we played in a showcase for Hollywood. Everything happened from then!
Cameron: We were on Radio Disney’s MVT, we were the last band in the competition. They were really looking for a new band so they got our flyer and a couple of days later we were going into the studio on an interview. Since then we started showcasing for different labels but Hollywood wanted us and now we’re signed to them.
AH: Your first tour was with School Boy Humor and Days Difference. How was that experience?
Cameron: Well, it was the first time we really left home so it was a different experience for us. We were all still going to school and we all still had jobs. We weren’t ready for that! We were driving in a 15-seater van with a trailer.
Zach: It was really good playing those shows. It was good getting the experience of playing every night. We were playing the local clubs in San Diego before sporadically. Playing every night and in different states was a great experience.
AH: Your first music video was purely funded from out-of-pocket with not much promotion and now you guys have a music video on the Disney Chanel.
Zach: It’s a huge difference and you get to see what a big company that is. You can reach so many more people when you’re on it. It has really helped increase our fan base. You can see the video everyday so it’s really awesome.
AH: I understand that you guys got to play for the Walmart Soundcheck. How was that experience and how did Walmart find you guys?
Zach: That was really great. It’s just getting sorted out so we don’t know how it’s going to turn out exactly but this was our first time recording live for TV. That was really exciting. That pushed us to another level as musicians. It was great.
Michael: Hollywood set that up. We’re the first ever small band to ever do the Walmart Soundcheck. People who usually do it are artists like Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato. But when we did the Soundcheck our album wasn’t even out, we just had our single. So it was great to have that opportunity.
AH: When you guys first heard yourselves in the radio, how was that feeling? Was it an oh-my-god we made it moment?
Cameron: It was more of an oh-my-god that’s us on the radio. I remember we were driving on Zach’s car home from Radio Disney. It was weird; it took us a moment to register that that was our song.
Michael: We were screaming like little girls in the car.
I grew up listening to a lot of artists on the radio so listening to ourselves on it, and the songs we wrote, it was amazing.
Zach: It’s a weird mix of excitement and awkwardness. I mean you’re super excited because you’re on the radio but at the same time it’s like listening to yourself talk and thinking “do I really sound like that?” But it was really cool.
Michael: The same thing too when we saw ourselves on TV. It was like, that’s us, that’s weird.
AH: Tell our readers a little bit about your album that just came out; the recording process, what was the aim music wise?
Zach: Well there’s a good amount of variety on this first release and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we recorded it over such a long period of time. Some fo the songs were written years ago before we were signed and were still making demos in San Diego and some songs were written in the months building up to the release of our first single. There’s a lot of versatility in the songs but it still has out sound on it. It’s a fun record that can definitely appeal to a lot of people.
AH: Final question, what does the future hold for Allstar Weekend and what are your goals five, ten, even twenty years from now?
Zach: I never expected to be where we are now, it’s a total dream come true and it’s just amazing. We have no real expectations, we’re just taking it one day at a time and working as hard as we possibly can. We’re trying to get our name out there and get people to hear our album and see us live. We’re just working hard.
Nathan: As far as the future goes, we’re starting to tour for our album that just came out. We’ll be touring all summer. In August, we’re going to do some stuff for Disney and we’re also doing Good Morning America.
AH: That’s cool
That’s extremely cool
It’s scary
AH: You guys are officially off the hot seat, thank you!
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