On an abnormally warm December night, Bloomington’s Hoops jumps into a set of summery guitar pop at a house show in South Broad Ripple. Fans young and old overflow from one room into the next, making for a crowded situation that’d have any fire marshal cringing. Nevertheless, the band effortlessly glides through their set of shimmering tunes, leaving many in attendance clamoring for more.

In recent months, this air of excitement has continued to follow the band, both at shows and in the press. While opening up for notable touring acts like Diane Coffee, Ducktails and Cullen Omori (of Smith Westerns fame), the band has also grabbed the attention of several notable music publications, including Gorilla vs. Bear, My Old Kentucky Blog and The Fader. Considering all of this recent buzz, however, some might be surprised to learn that Hoops was initially just an ambient noise recording project that singer/guitarist Drew Auscherman started on his own as a junior at Carmel High School.

“It’s all a weird timeline because Hoops has come to represent a bunch of different things in the past,” Auscherman reflects. “But the very initial incarnation of Hoops was ambient music.”

The next installment of Hoops would eventually come about, with Auscherman bringing friends Kevin Krauter and James Allen into the picture to play bass and drums. “We were all really into Real Estate, so he basically wanted to make a surf rock kind of thing out of what he was doing. The three of us got together and started practicing, doing some covers and whatnot, and we played some random shows here and there.” Krauter recalls. It was around this time that Auscherman started to get busy with his garage rock band Winslow (listen to their 2012 album here), which resulted in him putting Hoops on the backburner.

After dedicating a few years to Winslow, Auscherman decided to redirect his attention back to writing lo-fi pop songs. He remembers, “I just started writing songs that didn’t sound like Winslow. They were jangle pop-y and kind of sounded like the Hoops songs I had written a few years before that, so I just decided to call it Hoops again.” Excited about how the new songs sounded, he asked Krauter, Allen and guitarist/longtime friend Keagan Beresford if they’d want to start playing them live with him.

“He texted us and was like, ‘Hey. I want to do Hoops shit again,’” Krauter says. “So we got together, practiced them, played a show in Grand Rapids, and were all just sort of like, ‘This is tight. Let’s keep doing this.’”

This Hoops lineup has remained constant ever since, as the band has gone on to release a couple of tapes. In addition to these releases, all four members of the group have remained busy with other endeavors as well. Allen, for example, releases music under several different solo monikers, with the most successful of these being Jade TV (listen to the latest Jade TV release here). Krauter (listen here) and Beresford (listen here) have also both released solo tracks, with Auscherman playing in the bands Daguerreotype and Gum as well.

On the horizon, the focus for all four musicians would seem to be on Hoops, with several tour dates on the horizon (including an appearance at Bloomington’s Culture Shock). Additionally, the band is in talks with a notable independent record label as well. With all of this being said, the four Hoops members are ultimately just happy to be playing music in a band of close friends.

“The four of us have just always been best buds, and I think that’s the coolest part about it,” Krauter concludes. “Looking forward, it’s like, ‘Whatever shit happens with a label or a tour or whatever, I just get to hang out with my buds, play cool shows and record music.’ And that’s kind of just what it’s always been.”