Indie pop-rock band Homemade Haircuts teamed up with Indah Coffee on Feb. 11th to release a drink inspired by their latest single.
“The Jasmine,” named after their latest song, is an iced and shaken matcha with jasmine-honey syrup, vanilla and oat milk. The band, composed of recent USC graduates, said the drink “perfectly captures the sweet and summery feeling of our new tune” in an Instagram post.
“It's kind of about a double meaning between a girl named Jasmine and jasmine tea,” said co-frontman Bob Magee.
After Magee and other co-frontman Evan Delp graduated in May 2021, they moved to Charleston to focus on their music with fellow USC May 2020 graduate Blake Hunter. “Jasmine” was first written while hanging out near a creek in their friend's backyard in the summer of 2021.
“We were just thinking about a summer song — kind of nostalgia for summers of youth,” Magee said. “I had really been wanting to write a song about tea, honestly, because I'm a big boba tea guy.”
The songwriting process shifted deeper into the nostalgic feelings inspired by guy-girl best friends from Disney and Nickelodeon tv shows, according to Magee.
“Our song 'Jasmine' explores what happens when two friends do get romantic and then it doesn't work out,” Magee said. “How do you pick up the pieces from something like that? Is it possible to save a relationship? When your best friend, the person who was your best friend is now your ex, and where do you go from there?”
Magee had connections at Indah from his time as a student at USC. The band played at the next-door NoMa warehouse during their time as students. Nick Hauser, founder and owner of Indah, met Magee and the rest of Homemade Haircuts through barista Matthew Cao.
The collaboration between the band and Indah was a natural fit after Magee reached out to Hauser. Indah participated in the Indie Grits Festival, the Cottontown Art Crawl and hosts bands in the shop.
“If you hear a song and then you hear the artists talk about, ‘I wrote the song because of,'" Hauser said. "The depth of the experience is just that much richer,”
To best capture the sweet, summery vibes of the song, Hauser invited Homemade Haircuts to taste and develop the drink. He likened the process of developing the drink to the "depth of experience" provided by hearing the story behind a song.
The final creation utilizes a Jasmine tea syrup to impart the floral notes of its namesake, with a traditional oat milk matcha latte, according to barista Anna Hauser.
"It's a really strong Jasmine (flavor)," Anna Hauser said. "The matcha is a little less (strong) but it mixes really well."
According to the owner, the drink may stick around on Indah's menu if it does well. The single "Jasmine" comes from Homemade Haircuts's first full-length album, which is set to be released this summer.
“The themes are just memories and stories from our lives and also just stories we tell,” Magee said. “There's a wide range of sounds and emotions in it, so not everything is going to be as upbeat as 'Jasmine.'”
The Homemade Haircuts takes influence from groups like Cage the Elephant, Hippocampus and Susto. The Homemade Haircuts performed at the New Brookland Tavern on Saturday before heading to play at the Sanford Porchfest music festival in Florida.