Video by Hani Yang / 209Vibe.

Few local bands have had a debut like that of We’re Not Friends Anymore. Most hustle to make friends on MySpace and play small shows before breaking up to form other projects or enter the real world.

We’re Not Friends Anymore’s public unveiling, meanwhile, was met with a sold-out show and 3,000 MySpace plays — all in a single day.

That was earlier this year. The Stockton-Oakley group has since built on its strong debut, and Saturday took home the $1,000 first prize in the OneEightyMusic/209Vibe Battle of the Bands in Lodi.

It’s set to perform at breast cancer awareness benefit concert set for 6 p.m. today at The Rock, 1630 Mono Drive, Modesto. Catherine also is on the bill along with several other bands. Cover is $8.

We’re Not Friends Anymore will next be in Stockton on Aug. 9 for the Cal First Battle of the Bands. The group said its victory in the OneEightyMusic battle came as a surprise.

“My friends picked me up and threw me on stage. They’re just like, ‘What do you guys have to say?’ We’re like, ‘Uhhhhhh,’” said guitarist Dom Sacco, 17.

“We were speechless,” added guitarist Alex Casillas, 20. The crowd at the battle was anything but silent — it chanted “One more song!” at the end of We’re Not Friends Anymore’s set. Fans continue to be drawn to the band’s upbeat brand of screamo and hardcore, which is grounded in pop sensibilities.

The sound begins with Casillas and Sacco, whose focus on melody brings a pop-punk feel to tracks like “Abandonment” and “Revised.” Their work is enough to make We’re Not Friends Anymore one of the few screamo acts ready for mainstream radio.

But don’t expect the band to be playing “... Baby One More Time” any time soon. Drummer Anthony Hampton, 19, and bassist Ethan Layton, 18, add fierce hardcore breakdowns to the group’s music, while the soaring vocals of interim singer Jake Burns, 19, play off the guttural growl of Mike Cast, 20, providing complexity.

The band announced Thursday that original singer Mariano Lopez will be returning to the lineup in the near future.

It’s a sound that has been developed over several years, despite the relative youth of the band’s members. Cast, Casillas and Sacco spent four years as part of My Unsaid Everything, a Bay Area pop-rock act that performed a Warped Tour show in 2007.

They formed We’re Not Friends Anymore as a side project. When My Unsaid Everything broke up, the side project took center stage.

“For something that started off as a side project, we were amazed” that the band’s first song on MySpace received 3,000 plays in a day, Cast said.

We’re Not Friends Anymore is planning to use its $1,000 prize to record an EP, which it hopes to release in the fall. The band also is working on organizing a tour.

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