If Judy Blank would tell you she grew up in a beach town in Southern California, you’d probably believe her. But nothing could be further from the truth. Hailing from Utrecht, The Netherlands, the blue-eyed indie folk sensation has been known for an eclectic sound. Her music lands somewhere in the realm of ‘60s girl group meets indie/garage rock, never losing the intimacy of a singer-songwriter. Whether she’s grooving with her band in a dark bar in Los Angeles, or in a quiet theater with nothing but a guitar, she’s certain to draw you in with her whimsical tunes, magnetic stage presence & painfully relatable lyrics.
As a kid, she spent every night of the week watching classic American movies with her dad. Inspired by their storytelling and captivating soundtracks, she always dreamed of crossing the Atlantic to embark on her own heroine's journey: pursuing her career as an artist in the United States. When she was nineteen, she bought a cheap plane ticket to New Orleans, where she started playing her first shows in local bars & coffee houses. Shortly after, she made her way to Nashville, where she recorded her 70’s inspired coming-of-age LP ‘Morning Sun’. From the green-eyed soul of her hit single ‘Mary Jane’ to the jagged-edged ballad ‘Tangled Up in You’, which currently has over twelve million streams on Spotify and received a Gold Award in The Netherlands in 2023, her album checked all the boxes. Lead single ‘1995’ was even called a favorite by none other than one of her favorite artists: Sir Elton John. The release of ‘Morning Sun’ not only put her on the map in Europe, where she sold out clubs as a headliner and got to open for artists like Langhorne Slim, The Wood Brothers and SUSTO, but also in the States. She officially debuted at SXSW in Austin in 2019 and was the first Dutch artist to ever play AmericanaFest in Nashville that same year. Things were going great.
But in every heroine’s journey, the protagonist needs to experience internal conflict in order to grow. Her most recent EP, ‘Saddies’, has added a whole new layer of vulnerability to her artistry; she produced it herself after experiencing an unexpected mental breakdown that shook up her entire life. Each song describes a relatable struggle and encapsulates it in its own universe, with a hint of self-mockery and plenty of party favors.