Jackson Free Press

From the ample amounts of soul and rock-and-roll that Seratones of Shreveport, La., pours into its sound, some listeners may be surprised that punk music is the group's foundation.

Vocalist A.J. Haynes, drummer Jesse Gabriel and the Davis brothers, guitarist Connor and bassist Adam, became friends as high-school students through attending local punk shows and playing together in various punk bands before starting Seratones in 2013.

"They're the most ridiculous people I know, so I decided it would probably be a good idea to play in a band with them," Haynes jokes.

One of the biggest draws for the band is Haynes' classic southern soul vocals, which manage to both stand out and fit right in with the distorted tones and raucous atmosphere of Seratones' debut album, "Get Gone," which the band recorded at Dial Back Sound in Water Valley, Miss., and released in May on Fat Possum Records. It's nothing the band has ever had to force, though, she says.

"You know, a song wants what a song wants," she says. "And I love performing. I really do. It's a lot of fun, and it's something that I think I was supposed to do. I don't think I had a choice in the matter. My grandmother set me on that path from a pretty early age. Whenever we had company or family reunions, she would always ask me—she would pay me—to sing to people. She'd give me two dollars and a peppermint or whatever to sing to my uncles, my aunts or cousins. But it wasn't like, 'Hey, will you do this?' It was, 'Hey, you're going to do this.' If there's anything I learned early in life, I learned hustle from my grandma and the women in my family. Tough women, seriously."

Haynes says she's often surprised to see how people at live shows light up and get excited about Seratones, even if they don't quite know how to categorize what they're hearing. For her, categories are beside the point. It's about two questions, she says: "Did you have a good time?" and "Did you experience what that you came for?"

Since the release of "Get Gone," several major entertainment outlets have featured articles on Seratones, including Pitchfork, NPR, Paste Magazine and NME, and the band has expanded its tours to reach audiences around the world. Only a few days after Seratones performs in Jackson on Oct. 29, the group will head out of the country for performances in Iceland, Scotland, England, the Netherlands and France.

But after their globetrotting tour and a long string of shows at venues across the United States, the musicians have decided to stay based in their hometown of Shreveport. There are the pragmatic reasons—"You've got to be able to pay your bills and sh*t," Haynes says—but there is also a genuine love of their city, as well as the friends and family who live there.

"Coming home to a place like Shreveport is, on one hand, very rewarding because it doesn't cost a ton to live there; you can afford to have a decent quality of life, and we have a really great support group and people that really do take care of us and are rooting for us," she says. "And then, there is the frustration of, 'Well, it's not a bigger city, so I don't have XYZ or things that a big city has.' But it's just a give and a take. I don't spend an hour in traffic to get my groceries, but there's also not a Whole Foods. Whatever. I love my city, so I'm the only person who can talk sh*t about it."

Seratones performs at 8 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 29, at Duling Hall (622 Duling Ave., 877-987-6487). The Burning Peppermints also perform. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15 at the door or $10 in advance at ardenland.net. For more information, visit seratones.band.