Still Blank's Self-Titled Debut Album Is Just Quite Right
- Josh Kitchen
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
By: Josh Kitchen / November 21, 2025
When Jordy and Ben met in Liverpool in 2022, neither of them expected they’d end up starting a band together—let alone write and record a full-length album and have it out on a major label within a couple of years. But sometimes the alchemy is just right and the stars really do align. Jordy, who hails from Hawaii, was studying at University in Liverpool when she met Ben, who’s from Manchester. She’d been playing a few gigs opening for his band, and the two hit it off immediately, trading musical ideas and bonding over a shared love of ’80s and ’90s alternative—PJ Harvey, Nick Cave—and modern dream-alt staples like Warpaint.
Earlier this year they released their first single, “What About Jane,” under the name Still Blank. Inspired by a photo of a Jane Birkin bag, the track is an effortlessly cool debut—confident, layered in driving distortion, and lifted by Jordy’s beautifully textured vocals. Under the Radar called it “a band who already seem to know exactly who they are and what they want to say,” which is exactly right. They followed it with “Ain’t Quite Right,” a track that caught the ear of legendary producer Flood (U2, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Nine Inch Nails), who even put his own spin on it—making it more brooding and pulling apart the song's sonic elements. “Ain’t Quite Right” feels like something you’ve heard before in some deep corner of your mind, a song that’s been waiting to reemerge at the right time.
Today, Still Blank release their debut record of the same name. Both singles appear on it, along with their new single “Dead & Gone." Still Blank is a fully formed introduction to an incredibly exciting new duo who sound like they’ve been doing this for years. I caught up with Jordy and Ben to talk about their unlikely meeting, writing songs in the Welsh countryside, having a track remixed by Flood, and what they hope listeners take away from their debut album.
Congrats on your debut album! your self-titled debut album. It’s awesome. I love it. I’ve listened to it for a long time. I mean, I want to start off by asking: talk to me about how you guys met. How did you become a band?
Jordy
Very unintentionally. I was going to school in Liverpool for university, and yeah, we both met over there during my second year. Then third year, he didn’t go to that school but was from Manchester.
Ben
I’m from Manchester originally, so my band was playing a show over in Liverpool, and it just so happened that that night, Jordy opened up the gig we were playing. And then, yeah, we got to talking and found out that you're from Hawaii. And I was like, “Why are you in Liverpool?” And then, yeah — that was it.
When did you realize you should play music together?
Jordy
It was kind of a little ways down the road.
Ben
We were both musicians, so we'd dabble with each other's projects. I had my band stuff going on, and Jordy would sing on a few bits, and I would play some guitars on her solo stuff. But it didn’t really happen straight away.
Jordy
Yeah, maybe like six months or so down the road.
Ben
Then it was Halloween night. We decided we were gonna go to a party, and we decided not to, and we just sat in Jordy’s basement flat and made “Rainman,” which is the last track on the album.
Spooky!
Ben
Some Halloween vibes, yeah. But yeah, it became this cool outlet for us to play other music that we weren’t necessarily playing in our bands or in our projects. It was a really fun exploration of taste.
Jordy
I think both of our stuff we were doing at the time was so different. Ben being in a band — there are so many different opinions, and even if you start out with an idea, sometimes it ends up in a different place. And with my project, I felt like… I don’t know, I’m too self-critical. So it was super nice to be able to create with somebody else, and I really, really liked the stuff we were making. It felt like the most genuine and authentic — for sure. And then we didn’t really have any plans to release anything. We were just making music for the fun of it.
But a few demos got out to a friend of mine, who then passed them along to some people. And we ended up going into the studio and from there wrote a bunch more tunes. Even halfway through making the record, we didn’t know what this project was. We didn’t have a name or anything. We weren’t sure if it was going to be a new project for the two of us or if it was going to be for my project with Ben as a writer or something. It all evolved really naturally and randomly and serendipitously.
This music feels like this is always where it was going to go — very self-assured. And honestly, I’ll admit: the first time I heard “Ain’t Quite Right,” I was like, where have I heard this? I felt like I already knew the band — like it sounded like a song from a band on their fourth album. It’s such a cool track. I couldn’t believe you only had two songs out at the time.
Jordy
Thank you. Yeah. I feel like we needed to meet, you know?
Talk to me about getting together with Flood — I mean, he's a legend who's engineered and produced some incredible albums like U2's The Joshua Tree, From Her To Eternity by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. He produced an alternate version of "Ain't Quite Right."
Ben
Yeah, that was pretty crazy. Our management connected with Flood — they know him— and they texted into the group chat one day and were like, “Oh, by the way, Flood’s heard ‘Ain’t Quite Right’ and loves it.” And we were just like…so that's crazy. They asked if we'd be interested in Flood looking at a mix of it and bringing out an alternate version. And we just thought that was the coolest idea ever.
Jordy
Yeah. I mean, so many of the records we referenced and were inspired by making this record — Flood has made. There’s so much PJ Harvey and Smashing Pumpkins and Warpaint in it.
It has to feel very surreal — on your first record — having someone of that caliber dabble with your work.
Ben
We went to meet him at our management office. And yeah, it was crazy.
Jordy
He’s such a funny guy.
Ben
You can tell he’s where he is today because of his brain. It’s just—
Jordy
—moving a million miles an hour.
Ben
Hearing him talk about how he wanted it to sound in the room — he was tearing stuff up and down, and we were just like, wow.
Talk to me about “Dead & Gone" as the new single.
Jordy
We kind of wrote that one really, really randomly. For part of writing the record, we went to a cabin in Wales for a week or so because we just wanted to get out of the city — clear our heads, go to the countryside where there was nothing around, and just see what could come of it. It was a cabin in very rural Wales and we would go on walks among the sheep and drink whiskey and write by the fireplace. “Dead and Gone” was one of the songs we wrote during that week. Ben strumming some chords on the guitar.
Ben
It’s a really simple song. It just kind of fell out. You know how some songs do — they just kind of write themselves.
Jordy
Then I had a poem in my notes that I took from a while ago, and I think I added maybe two lyrics to it, and that was the song. It was pretty much already done. And the vocals on the record are just the demo vocals we recorded.
What do you want people to take away from your debut?
Jordy
There’s something to be said about not forcing anything. What’s happened in our case is: make what you want to make, do your thing, and stuff will come from that. You’ll meet like-minded people, build relationships that help you, help you find avenues.
Ben
It’s been a very lucky process — finding people who are great. Everything’s happened so crazily that it almost feels like maybe it was meant to happen. That’s not always the case for everyone. But if you make something authentic, it can work out for you.
Sometimes the alchemy is just right — the stars align. And I hear this record, and it sounds like a record where the stars aligned.
Ben
Yeah. I’ve been doing stuff in bands for years and years — almost getting a little somewhere and then not. It’s easy to get disheartened. So it’s really cool to have met Jordy and to be doing this stuff now, because if you love making music and you just carry on making it, stuff can happen.
Still Blank is out now and you can listen to it below. Follow Still Blank here.
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