A Santa Monica band born out of the city's public school music program will take the Main Street stage this weekend as part of the Summer SOULstice festival — this time with a debut album in hand.
This Whole Time, a funk-soul-rock-jazz quartet whose members met through the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District music program, will perform Saturday from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on the Strand Stage at the annual festival, which runs noon to 7 p.m. along the mile-long stretch of Main Street between Strand Street and Pier Avenue.
The festival, organized by the Main Street Business Improvement Association and free to attend, has been a community tradition for more than 25 years. This year's edition carries a Route 66 centennial theme, with a Roadhouse Beer Garden and tribute act Petty Theft headlining the Pier Stage from 5 to 7 p.m.
For This Whole Time — composed of Christian Tomita, Spencer Danielson, Michael Finch and Aziz Yehia — the performance marks a homecoming with new stakes.
"What's different this time around for us is that now we have an album," said Christian Tomita, the band's vocalist. "We can now point people to, 'Hey, you are the product of this community. Check out our album. This is for you all.'"
The band released its self-titled debut, "This Whole Time," on May 1. The record draws on themes of love, friendship and the passage of time — a reflection, Tomita said, of friendships stretching back to elementary school.
"Now that we're in the stage of adulthood, it's really quite something to be able to say, hey, we've been bound together forever by this piece of art that we've now produced together," he said. "It's a beautiful thing."
The four members played together in orchestras and bands throughout their SMMUSD years before reuniting after college and forming the band in 2019. The name itself is a direct reference to the group's shared history.
"The whole reason why our band is called This Whole Time is because we've been friends together the whole time," Tomita said. "We've been a part of each other's lives the entire time."
Though the album's songs contain no direct references to Santa Monica, Tomita said the city's influence is woven into everything the band has become — including the fact that it exists at all.
"I wouldn't have made these friends, I wouldn't have met my bandmates, had it not been for the SMMUSD music program," he said. "Having forged these lifelong friendships — that's priceless to me."
Tomita also connected the band's story to a broader conversation about arts funding in the district. Santa Monica-Malibu Unified has faced scrutiny over arts program funding in recent months. Tamita said he hopes This Whole Time offers one example of what sustained arts investment can produce.
"I'm not going to say that our band is going to be, 'Oh, like, this is the reason why you should keep arts alive,'" he said. "But I think this is one small example of the broader story — look what music within the schools can mean. It can mean lifelong friendships. It can mean continuing the journey of seeing art as a passion."
Sunday's performance will be far from the band's first on Main Street — Tomita estimates they have played the corridor five or six times — and the set will lean heavily on the new album, with some covers mixed in.
"It's kicking off the summer after all," he said. "We're going to be playing songs that are really going to get the people going."
The band's goal, Tomita said, extends beyond any single performance: to serve as a musical extension of the community that produced them.
"We want to be the soundtrack to the city," he said. "We are the product of this community. Let's now go and be a part of it and share the music together."
This Whole Time's music is available on Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming platforms. The band can be found on Instagram.
The 2026 Summer SOULstice runs Saturday, June 20, from noon to 7 p.m. on Main Street. The event is free and open to all ages.