FRANKLIN
With six other bands on the stage at Shaka’s Live, the four bandmates of Franklin’s Same Time Tomorrow almost came to tears when the cheer came up from the crowd, as the emcee put his hand over their heads. The group that compares itself to Paramore and Fall Out Boy was declared the winner of the Battle of the Bands in Virginia Beach.

All realized they had come a long way.

About two years ago, the same foursome stepped on the stage for the first time at Franklin High School as Sketch 7. The crowd was looking at the rock musicians like they had two heads. They were nervous and the freshmen in high school were only playing one song. This time, any tears were not because of joy.

“My dad was like, ‘You guys sucked bad,’” said bassist Chance McCoy, 16.

“And I went up on crutches,” drummer Auston Reichert, 17, said.

“Yeah, we noticed he wasn’t at school and were like, ‘Where’s Auston?’” McCoy said. “When we called him, he had just gotten out of the operating room. He broke his leg, and it was on his kick foot no less.”

“We were singing original songs that no one knew to a non-rock audience,” added vocalist Kali Fillhart, 17, bringing the discussion back on track. “You can imagine how it went.”

“We lost. We lost so hard,” Reichert concluded, not leaving it to the imagination.

That’s not to say nerves did not come around when they stepped on the stage at Shaka’s, but it was a little different. They had been invited, and that process got started when McCoy reached out to the local radio stations to try and get them to play the song “Conversationalist.”

Timothy Kreider, the band’s leader, guitarist and secondary vocalist, had laughed when McCoy had asked him about sending songs to radio stations.

“OK, let’s do it, but it’ll never happen,” Kreider said.

“Yeah, I also thought it probably would not work, but, YOLO,” McCoy said, referring to the phrase, you only live once.

In February they got a bite from 96X, a Norfolk station that can only be heard in Franklin when the cosmos align perfectly. But it still gave them a wider audience in Hampton Roads, and Krieder got a message from one of the Battle of the Bands organizers.

It didn’t take long to accept the invite to the May 3 event, even though they’d also be playing a Relay For Life show in Chesapeake, where Reichert has since moved.

Fillhart said they were the only minors there. They were a group of high school juniors going up against six bands with more experience — the second youngest group being in their mid 20s.

“Battle of the Bands was really a lot better than that talent show,” Kreider said. “People actually wanted to see the band and to watch us play.”

The Battle of the Bands isn’t over, though. Same Time Tomorrow will compete against the other winners — 10 bands — in the finals on Sunday at 4 p.m. in Shaka’s Live at 2014 Atlantic Ave., Virginia Beach. Tickets are $15 at the door, but $10 if you buy them in advance. Time is ticking, but if you want advance tickets, Krieder said to just message them on their Facebook page, Same Time Tomorrow.

“We want to see everyone in Franklin come out,” said Krieder.

“And only cheer for Same Time Tomorrow!” added Fillhart.

They’ll also be selling T-shirts for $10, their old album for $1, and the remastered album for $5.

The album was part of their evolution, as Kreider decided in the early part of the school year that it was the best way to get more exposure and line up shows. After doing some research, he decided that he could release a small EP, “Another Late Night.”

Releasing it independently, the band recorded it and mastered the audio in the dining room of Kreider’s mother’s house.

“Timothy and Kali really made the album,” McCoy admitted, and that same duo also writes the songs.

Kreider also remastered it later, improving the sound and adding some new songs.

“He’s going to make it, even if the band doesn’t work out,” McCoy said. “He recorded and mixed an album in his dining room! That kid has a future in music somewhere.”

“What do you mean if it doesn’t work out?” Kreider said. “When people ask us if we have a chance to make it, I say, ‘Yes, we do have a Chance, and he plays bass.’”

Same Time Tomorrow got its start in the early part of freshman year. Kreider was really into playing guitar, and he approached Reichert.

“I did not know Timothy really well, but he knew I was in the marching band,” Reichert said. “He asked me if I wanted to come over and jam. After we jammed, I thought that Timothy was good, and that we really made a good sound. We were so excited about it that we went on a longboard ride on his street.”

“That’s how we make all of our decisions — on the longboard rides,” McCoy added.

“We knew that Kali could sing, so we called her,” Reichert said. “And Timothy called his friend Jacob [Geary].”

Fillhart, who now attends Appomattox Regional Governor’s School, said she was confused when she got that call.

“I was like, ‘OK,’ but I was also really scared,” she said. “My voice was quiet and soft, so I didn’t think it was what they would want it to be.

“And it wasn’t. They kicked me out of the band.”

The “come back to the band call” was something that Fillhart said she’d remember forever. She had continued to work on her voice over the year, and admitted she had improved.

“I just started laughing loudly,” Fillhart said. “I was watching an emotional movie, ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,’ and I was almost to tears when they called. I thought I was done with it, so I told them I’d think about it.”

Kreider said he apologized again and again, and eventually she did come back to the band.

“I was young and stupid and didn’t know how to run a band,” he admitted.

McCoy was brought in later that year when Geary’s family moved to Tennessee. He was also partly how they got their name. They had played around with Sketch 7 and Fighting Fair! before coming to Same Time Tomorrow.

“In eighth grade, Chance and I were BFFs, and that’s not to say that we are still not BFFs, but yeah,” Fillhart said. “At the bus, when we’d part ways, we’d always yell, ‘Same time tomorrow!’”

So the band had its name, and Reichert, Fillhart and McCoy all said they started to take it seriously when they played the Franklin-Southampton County Fair in 2014.

They won $25, which helped them buy some pizza, and the bandmates also had people coming up to them that they didn’t know telling them how good they were.

For Kreider, he knew a lot earlier. He and Fillhart had written their first song, each using their strengths to fill in gaps on the chords, lyrics and harmony. Once “Nightmares” was complete, the band got together and played it.

“It was the first time we had put something together that was ours,” Kreider said. “Right after we finished, we all looked at each other, got really excited and ran outside. It sounded good.”

Fillhart remembered it. “It was really awesome. We walked around Timothy’s neighborhood, I guess just basking in our glory.

“It was really emotional,” she continued. “We felt like a band for the first time.

“We felt like we were part of something.”