Joy Burkland & Her Band Release Songbouquet LP and Amplify Trans Visibility with Powerful Songs

joy burkland & her band is a trans singer-songwriter and great talent that you need to be listening to, especially on Trans Day of Visibility! Joy Burkland shares a deeply personal journey through music, transition, and community. She began songwriting as a teenager, influenced by theater and quirky, character-driven songs. After a long hiatus, she returned to songwriting alongside her transition, channeling the emotions of that experience into her debut album Songbouquet, which is now out.

This song is a love song for my sisters in trans femininity. It’s a love song for someone who’s been around while you’re going thru a bad or weird time, and has known what to say. And it’s a love song for how you might be that person to someone else someday. – Joy Burklund

She met her friend Amber Jane through the dating app, OKCupid, and their bond became a source of musical inspiration and shared trans joy. Social media has helped to connect the queer and trans community.

Her song Hell in a Handbag, recorded with her band, is a transgender anthem that needs to be heard. An indie rock ballad featuring electric guitars and smooth vocals, it tells an important story about trans experience. At a time when trans visibility needs to be amplified, this song highlights the life and perspective of a trans woman, adding to the broader conversation about identity, resilience, and community.

One of her other songs, a tribute to trans femininity and mutual support, was inspired by a pivotal night in early 2022 when Amber helped her navigate the early days of her transition. Their connection, both personal and musical, is captured in the song’s recording, where Amber’s voice surrounds listeners in warmth just as she did for Joy in that moment.

In early winter 2022, a knock came to my front door and it was Amber Jane. We had met online and became peripheral internet people to each other. I had just moved to a new city. I wasn’t sure what name to use when I introduced myself. I had agreed to sing with her at a performance she was to give opening for Trust Your Moves queer community choir who was featuring one of her songs. I was starting to transition. She was going to teach me a duet she wrote. I didn’t know what was next. I noticed her amazing tattoos of the moon phases on her knuckles as she played my keyboard. I was starting to sing again. We talked about all of it. She knew what to say. It helped.

I sing about that night in this song, alongside (poeticized) accounts of mutual support in two other friendships.

When it came time to record this song last year, I knew I wanted to sing it with Amber. Her ethereal, angelic voice (doubled and panned left and right in the recording) surrounds the listener in her warmth, like I had felt that December night.

Listen to Hell in a Handbag on Spotify now:

Rock the Pigeon had the privilege of interviewing Joy Burkland! Read below:

RTP: When did you begin songwriting?

JB: When I was 14 or 15 I was lucky enough to have a weird gaggle of friends who were musically inclined. We’d make little bands over the course of a weekend at one of our parents’ houses and write nonsense songs. We loved the Moldy Peaches. There were a lot of songs about made up characters. Most of us were theater nerds.

Has transitioning affected the genre of your music or the lyrical content?

Well, I kind of took (*finger math*) fifteen years?? off from songwriting? At least in a formal sense. Even though singing has always been a home for me, I made my creative life in the New York/Brooklyn theater and performance world during my twenties. So actually, my return to songwriting and my transition came to me somewhat simultaneously in my early thirties. You could say “Songbouquet” (the album I’m about to release) is about transition. But more accurately, it’s about feeling the ways transitioning made me feel. It’s about feeling open, honest, hot, vulnerable, strong, sad, weird, and confident- all in ways unknown to me before I transitioned.

Did you meet Amber on social media? What is the importance of social media in connecting the queer community?

Amber and I famously met on OK Cupid (famous because now it’s on this blog ). I remember thinking gosh this girl deserves a Nobel literature prize for this profile bio! I felt like we already knew each other when we actually did meet. And yeah, that connection led to our friendship which I sing about in Hell in a Handbag. I believe there is good to be done in social media spaces, and I love to meet rad queers from far and wide. That’s how I met you, Ryan! That said, I’m really wary of how those platforms addict us and degrade our minds. Taking long breaks is really important for me. Call me old fashioned, but I like to imagine a world where we really don’t need it anymore.

Do you think music is important to the trans revolution and why?

I like being trans as in transcend. I love feeling my identity as expansive and fluid. I like doing a little witchy voice when I feed my cats. And I love being a hot housewife taking out the garbage cans. That’s how I want to exist- with lots of versions of self available to me. Music is a rich space where we can morph and play. Everyone deserves the right to explore their identity and gender and sexuality freely, and that’s one of the things the fascists want to take from us. We may not see the change we deserve within our lifetimes. So let’s give ourselves permission to imagine widely in the meantime.

What is your favorite part of being a trans musician?

Making friends! Friendships change the world for the better! Seriously. Ok anyone can make friends not just trans people lol. I guess I am saying this because I’ve made so many incredible trans friends making music.

What is your advice to upcoming musicians who are trying to make a name for themselves in their local scenes?

I’m actually fairly new at doing music like this! I only began playing shows with my band really a year and a half ago. So like, who am I to give advice? But I’ll say, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to get attention, or appeal to everyone. Sometimes I do a brain experiment and I say to myself “Hey joy, what if it’s actually better to be unpopular? And unserious? you ever thought of that, you silly girl?” And then after a while of that, my head hurts, and usually I have to take a bath or go for a walk… was that good advice?

What are your favorite venues and which cities are they in?

I love playing house shows most! It just feels like a big honor to be let into someone’s actual dwelling place and meet their cat.

Name 10 other trans artists that you love!

Beverly Glenn Copeland, ANOHNI, Ezra Furman, T0SKA, Moondrifts, American Trappist, Lizdelise, EKKO ASTRAL, Pillow Princess, Samantha Rise

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