At Stillwater High School, many people have great talents. People use them to do many great things. Recently, some band students have used their talents to start a band of their own.
The band is called IKIGAI (pronounced ee-key-GAH-ee), a midwest emo band from Stillwater.
Its members are current SHS students and one alum. It is composed of Senior Quinn Burt, Senior SanJaya Burton, Senior Sam Parsons and SHS alum Omar Elshahed. Burt plays the bass, Burton is the drummer, Parsons is the vocalist and guitarist, and Elshahed plays the guitar as well.
“I’ve played bass since I was 16, and I’ve played guitar since I was 14, so that helps with things a lot.” Senior Quinn Burt said.
Senior Sanjaya Burton has been playing the drum set on and off since August of last year, but started getting into it in January.
While senior Sam Parsons has been playing guitar for about six years, he said he has been writing and producing my own solo music.
“I’ve only been really singing for like one year,” Senior Sam Parsons said.
The idea started in 2025 when Parsons brought up to the future band that he wanted to be in a midwest emo band.
“It took a few seconds for us to realize, but we literally comprise the instruments needed for a band,” Burton said.
The band has a lot of inspirations, including a lot of different bands that make music from various music artists. They have their personal music inspirations, but they also have some inspirations that they collectively have.
“My personal inspiration for the band is definitely the bands Origami Angel, Mom Jeans and Modern Baseball,” Burton said.
Burt said while they get a lot of inspiration from bands like these, there is a lot of inspiration in town.
“Listening to other local bands also gives us a lot of inspiration,” Burt said.
Parsons said while he can’t speak for his fellow band members, some of his artistic influences include Will Toledo (Car Seat Headrest), Sufjan Stevens, Marietta, Brave Little Abacus, Sigur Rós, Elliott Smith, and Adrianne Lenker, among many others.
The band also has goals they want to achieve, both individually and for the whole band.
“I have a goal of making a complete album at some point next year,” Burton said.
Burt said some goals for the band are to just express its creativity, have fun and play a lot of live shows.
“We have a lot of musical talent in our band and a lot of great ideas, and I can’t wait to keep making music with everyone and put our ideas together,” Burt said.
Parsons has a lot of goals, from his own personal goals, band goals and other goals not just with the band, but other music goals.
“I have a few main goals for our band: to not just stick to one genre or sound (even only a few rehearsals in, we’re already experiencing with midwest emo, post-rock, and indie folk type sounds), to be one of the top bands in our growing Stillwater music scene, and beyond, and to have some of the best live shows of any local band in Oklahoma,” Parsons said.
Parsons added that he wants to put his name out there and make connections as a musician, to travel across Oklahoma and surrounding states to entertain people and to make lifelong friends and amazing memories that he will cherish forever.
“Looking past myself and past the band, I want to inspire the listeners, particularly those who are musicians, to experiment with their songwriting process and to challenge their views on genre and the limitations that come with music categorization. As pretentious as that probably sounds, a majority of my favorite artists have never stuck to one single sound, and have all been a huge inspiration for me. I would love it if we could be one of those bands for an aspiring artist,” Parsons said.
Parsons also wants to encourage other musicians to start their own music projects.
“Either by yourself, with friends, however you may do it, if you start now, you have the chance to be a star in the blooming music scene we have in Stillwater. Along with that, you’ll just have a lot of fun, too.
“And of course, I want us all to grow as artists and as people. The beautiful thing about making music is that personal growth comes easy when you put your all into it. You find so much about yourself when you put your thoughts and feelings to notes, words and rhythms, and music can help heal certain wounds that other methods of helping yourself could never heal. So, I hope, and I’m confident, that our band will help us all grow into ourselves,” he said.
The band posts updates on Instagram about songs and music they are working on, memes and pictures from their rehearsals. You can follow them at @ikigai.stw._
