The band, made up of four Evergreen High School students, won the MusicFest competition in mid-April, securing an invitation to perform at the Rose Festival’s Waterfront Village in late May and early June.

It’s been a meteoric rise for a band that didn’t exist seven months ago.

D.J. Unlayao, 18, and his brother Christian Unlayao, 16, have written music together for about three years. But little came of it until the brothers invited 18-year-old drummer Mychal Schneider to join their band in late November. A month later, bassist Casey Burgess, 17, was added to the mix. Emerson Hope was formed.

About a week after the quartet got together, it played its first show at a church in Oregon City. Going into the show, Christian Unlayao remembered thinking, “I’m not going to be able to do this. I’m going to mess up.” Whereas most bands need months of rehearsal and practice before performing for audiences, Emerson Hope was on stage in less than a week.

But the band powered through its set. None of the band members interacted with the crowd or moved around the stage. Afterward, D.J. Unlayao said, “I can’t imagine how people thought it rocked. We had no stage presence.”

Emerson Hope refined its sound, which blends pop sensibilities with a harder, guitar-driven punk sound, through twice-a-week practices over the next four months. The group experimented with harmonies and melodies. It added sing-along sections and hand claps to its songs to encourage audience participation.

D.J. Unlayao worked to improve his song-writing skills. His songs touched on topics familiar to high school students — relationships, namely. “This Feeling” describes a girl who likes a guy oblivious to her advances. Another, “Don’t Let Yourself Go,” follows a girl who moves from boyfriend to boyfriend.

Emerson Hope didn’t hone its skills through live shows, though.

Since forming, the group has performed only seven shows together, including a pair of acoustic sets at Fusion Bubble Tea in Vancouver, an Evergreen High School talent show and a concert at Portland’s Hawthorne Theatre.

Despite the relative lack of live show experience, the group felt good going into its mid-April performance at MusicFest. “We came in there with confidence, like ‘We’re going to rock this,’  ” D.J. Unlayao said.

But during the competition, a series of mishaps eroded that confidence. Early in the set, Schneider’s bass drum pedal fell apart, and the drum’s microphone stopped working. During one song, D.J. Unlayao’s voice squeaked. “I think we fooled ourselves, in a way. We didn’t think we gave a good performance,” ­Schneider said.

But it was good enough to beat 11 21-and-younger acts, including three bands and one singer from Clark County. A variety of factors contributed to the win, said MusicFest emcee and Waterfront Village manager Peter Mott. “I think it was the connection they had with the audience, the energy they exuded, the cohesiveness and the passion,” Mott said. “They owned that stage.”

Following the Waterfront Village performance, which will be the group’s biggest to date, D.J. Unlayao and Schneider will graduate from Evergreen High School and enroll at Clark College in the fall. The group hopes to record a demo CD and play local shows throughout the summer.

Through it all, the group expects to grow closer together. “We’re all best friends,” Christian Unlayao said. “We can hang out, and it doesn’t have to be about music.”