Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexa Burkin
Hi Alexa, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
As a young girl I lived in a small village in a very undeveloped area. Every day I had to walk half a mile to get water for the day. One day on the way home an old man was playing a guitar on the street but he was falling in and out of sleep as he did so. Eventually he completely passed out and I don’t know what came over me but I ended up taking the guitar to sell it for food.
When I got home I listed it on the local marketplace online. But curiosity got the best of me and I started fiddling with the thing. Eventually I realized, I actually like playing this instrument. So I decided to keep it.
That’s how I started playing guitar.
Then one day, the entire village was relocated by local government. My family decided to flee to Florida. I grew up from the age of 12 there. I dropped out of highschool at 16 to pursue music. I wanted to make a band but didn’t know anyone who was interested in music. Until, one day, I went to a camp retreat for therapeutic reasons. There I met Gus and Nahuel who were roommates at the time and both applied for the retreat to help with the grief of their roommate William.
At first I was slightly intimidated by them because their presence was so strong and borderline violent. The way they ate, the way they walked and spoke was so aggressive and primal. I soon found out that was due to the harsh environment they grew up in together(Liberty City).
One night while we were in the tent after some marshmallows, Gus brought up how he can’t wait to get home and play his drum set. After that, the entire plan of Do Not Air began. I didn’t realize I was in a tent with 2 other passionate musicians!!
We tried to leave early so we could get started as soon as possible but the retreat still had 3 weeks to go. It might’ve been a silly idea but we decided to get kicked out so we could go home early. In hindsight, we could’ve just insisted we go home but we were young kids. We thought we were trapped there. So we started a tent fire and within hours we were on a bus back to Miami.
1 month later we played our first show.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Biggest challenge I can think of was actually making it to a city like Miami as a transgender identifying person. In my previous home village my ideologies were not accepted as fact. I was called “crazy” for believing in my true identity. I would’ve never expected to end up living a life like this after growing up in what was basically a third world which was sorely uneducated in gender identity. I also was gang-stalked in 2023 for about 7 months and had people performing street theater on me in order to raise my stress levels. I was also being targeted with color coordination in cars. Every day I would be bombarded by visitations of red, blue, and white cars. It was quite the awful experience but eventually it ended around the same time I found out about my true gender identity.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
As far as my personal life goes, I’m currently enrolled in pilot school and on track to get my pilots license in about a year or so.
Any big plans?
Future plans are releasing our ambient harsh noise album. It’s a huge shift in our usual direction but we’re gonna make it happen.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://Instagram.com/donotair
Image Credits
All pictures by me
