Serotone wants to change how College Park parties

With just a turntable and a saxophone, four students at the University of Maryland aim to uplift College Park’s social scene and bring dance-minded people together through the high-concept parties and events of their recently formed DJ collective, Serotone.

“‘Serotone’ the name comes from serotonin, the feel good hormone, and we added tone because of music, but I also wanted to think about tone like skin tone, where everyone is coming together for the love of music,” said junior marketing and French major and one of Serotone’s founders Arden Lawson.

Three students founded the group in UMD’s entrepreneurship and collaboration space Startup Shell last fall to host spontaneous, energetic house parties in College Park after its creators felt musically unfulfilled and less than satisfied with the bar-centric options in the area.

“Everyone’s used to the bars and stuff, and they’re amazing, but we want to bring this other vibe that people can enjoy,” said Ritvik Sawhney, a sophomore computer science major.

Along with being one of the founding DJs of the group, Sawhney plays the saxophone and improvises new melody lines to accompany the upbeat dance tracks spun by Serotone’s two other DJs, Lawson and second year doctoral student in education policy Dean Haynes.

Haynes’ DJ career began two years ago when he first learned to transition between tracks during a set. Following initial rounds of “brutal feedback” from his first DJ group, Haynes quickly got the hang of playing a set and now enjoys teaching others the trade. Lawson and Sawhney, on the other hand, only learned to play sets in the past few months.

In themed outings such as Afrofusion After Dark and 2016 Party, Serotone’s DJs play every kind of dance music. Whether it be jazz house, afrobeats, pop artists like PinkPantheress or older groups like ABBA, the group emphasizes the creation of unique listening experiences tailored to the audience but remaining true to the artistry of the DJ.

“I’ll never forget, I went to this party in New York, and the DJ was like, ‘I’m playing what I want to hear and you need to hear,’ and I was like ‘Okay, that’s sick,’” Lawson said.

Senior immersive media design major Gabrielle Hester joined the Serotone team after noticing elements of the 2016 party’s social media presence that she could improve upon.

Serotone’s third event on March 7, a collaboration with Coffee Club hosted in Startup Shell called Club Café, marked Serotone’s first time hosting an event on campus as well as their first event outside the boundaries of a traditional house party.

While Coffee Club brewed matcha lattes and served up bacon, eggs and pancakes fresh off the griddle, Lawson and Haynes each played curated house music sets to steer the energy of the room and keep the vibes high. Hester set up cameras around the room to capture the action for social media.

In their latest event on May 2, Serotone joined Cultoure Magazine, a campus publication centered around Black arts and fashion, for their end of year party. It’s just one collaboration out of many planned for the future, according to Haynes.

When they’re not staging elaborate events and catering to the needs of the College Park social crowd, Serotone also hosts “DJ tours” where they record sets in places around campus, something Hester said she felt comfortable staging now that the group has a loyal following.

At the end of the day, Serotone says they just want to bring people together to enjoy music, whether that be in College Park, the wider DMV area or beyond.

“Serotone the name comes from serotonin, the feel good hormone, and we added tone because of music, but I also wanted to think about tone like skin tone, where everyone is coming together for the love of music,” Lawson said.

“We’re just passionate people who love music and want to bring [it] to as many people as possible,” Lawson said.