Rowan band Burning Oakwood released their EP ‘MOONLIGHT’ on April 5, 2025. The band consists of three students and one alumnus. Jake Bunting, Michael Medina, Tahir Zaman, and Sara Thames. The name Burning Oakwood actually came from a nod to the video game Minecraft.

“I started thinking about different kinds of wood—like, I don’t know if you’ve played Minecraft, but I’m a big fan of spruce wood in that game. I just like how it looks, and I don’t like oak wood in the game or real life either. and I was like, ‘oak wood pisses me off,” said lead guitarist Jake Bunting. 

“And then Sarah worked with our old singer at the time, and they were at work one day, and they were talking about it, and she was like, ‘Why don’t we just call the band Burning Oak Wood,’” said Bunting. 

The band’s sound is a fusion of various rock sub genres, ranging from classic rock and pop punk to emo, metal, and metalcore. Influences like My Chemical Romance, Avenged Sevenfold, and early grunge all play a role in shaping their style. 

“I would say it’s a mix of a lot of different genres of rock and then some lighter versions of metal. We all love, obviously, the classic rock stuff, but also pop punk, some emo stuff, some metal stuff, and metalcore bands like My Chemical Romance or Avenged Sevenfold. You’ve got grunge bands— all that kind of stuff—kind of enveloped into some kind of musical thing,” said lead singer Michael Medina. 

The EP is the band’s capstone project, and producing the EP was both a technical and emotional challenge for the band, with much of the work being done in-house at Rowan University’s studios. From technical setbacks to health issues, the road to the finished product was far from neat and perfect. 

“Yeah, I produced the EP—we used the Rowan studio, I ran the sessions, and I mixed everything except the first song, which Mike did. The hardest part was getting the recordings done,” said Bunting.  It took weeks to get drums and bass, and we kept having to redo things. We’d listen back and realize, Shit, we have to fix that.”

Bunting also went on to explain that lead singer Mike Medina had been sick for a few months while creating the project. 

“Mike’s been sick for a while, but he still tracked vocals. I had to make them work because we’re on a release schedule, and honestly, he did a great job considering,” said Bunting. 

For the band, the most rewarding parts came from hearing feedback from people who didn’t even expect to listen to the project. 

“I would say, like, it’s just so cool, you know—people you haven’t talked to in a while, or people you didn’t know were into music, or, like, new to this, that, and the other thing—like, sometimes they’ll text me about certain details they noticed. Like, that’s so cool, because I never knew you were even into this, let alone liked something that I’ve done,” said Medina. “It just makes it, you know—there’s something to be said about how hard it is to get people to pay attention to art you’re making, especially music. So when someone points out a detail, that really shows that they’re paying attention and care, which is really nice to me.” 

When asked to sum up the EP in just three words, the band went with “short and sweet.” While that might sound simple, they explained there’s a lot more behind it.

“I would say short and sweet is very general—it doesn’t get down to it—but it is a very good description. I mean, we put a lot of time into it, and we made sure it’s as tight as we could make it, given the circumstances,” said Bunting.  “And it’s tied into my capstone project as a senior, so we’ve kind of had some constraints on the release. But for all the amount of time that goes in, I think short and sweet does cover it.” 

The band also recently performed in Battle Of The Bands, and are currently. Reflecting on their experiences playing live shows, the band shared that every performance brings something different, depending on the other artists involved.

“I think experience really varies from band to band. Some are really good, really sweet, and just a pleasure to be around. Others are less nice,” said Bunting. “There’s a camaraderie that comes with playing live shows, and you can tell who’s in it for the music and who’s in it more for personal gain.”

The ultimate goal for the band is simple: to hear even one person in the crowd sing the lyrics back to them.

“I started writing music around the time I was, like, 12 or 13, and I’ve always kind of had this dream of just being able to play a show where people are familiar enough with the music to maybe sing along to a couple of lines or, you know, anticipate what’s going to happen. If we could play a show where even one person knows the words, I’d be over the moon,” said Bunting. 

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