Allstar Weekend was founded by Cameron Michael Quiseng and Zachary David Porter, both high school friends born in San Diego, though Porter moved around frequently due to his father being in the Navy. After adding guitarist Nathan Darmody, their eventual lineup was multicultural: drummer Michael Martinez is Chinese, Mexican and Filipino, bassist Cameron Quiseng is Mexican, Hawaiian, Filipino, and white, and singer Zach Porter is Irish, Polish, and Scottish.
In 2009, Allstar Weekend went to L.A. seeking their big break, handing out flyers outside movie theaters screening the Jonas Brothers concert movie. A Disney exec took their flyer and subsequently booked them on Disney Radio’s Next Big Thing competition.
Their pop-synth album Suddenly Yours was released in October 2010, on the Disney label Hollywood Records. They racked up 2.5 million MySpace plays and 50,000 YouTube plays for their video of “Journey to the End of My Life.” By summer, their song “A Different Side of Me” had sold more than 100,000 copies and topped Radio Disney’s top-30 countdown.
A subsequent tour found them opening for tween stars Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. The boys travelled to the UK for the first time in July 2010, where they performed with UK boy band The Wanted at the finale of the Disney Channel talent contest My Camp Rock, held in London with teenagers aged between 14 and 16 competing in singing and dancing competitions.
Lead guitarist Nathan Darmody was “on hiatus” for their 2011 tour with Disney star Selena Gomez, during which a video for their single “Blame It on September” was shot in Toronto. Their song “Not Your Birthday” landed on the soundtrack for the Disney movie Prom, and their album All the Way was released in September 2011.
A national tour with Cute Is What We Aim For, Tiffany Alvord, and Beneath the Sun kicked off January 26, 2013, in Denver, CO.