One of the bands we’ve had our ears on for a while here at Studio One is the Des Moines quartet Munk Rivers. Their music is expansive and intimate at the same time, and as my colleague Anthony Scanga pointed out, they “pack a ton of feeling into their songs.” Not only do they make great music, Munk Rivers is an easy band to root for.
Despite having only been playing together for a few years, Munk Rivers achieved something pretty major in 2024 when they played at the 80/35 Music Festival at Water Works Park in Des Moines. It was not only a big career milestone, it was a personal one for brother and sister duo Charlotte and Tucker Judkins, who make up the core of Munk Rivers.
“It was a dream come true,” said Charlotte, the band’s lead singer. “I went to my first 80/35 when I was like 17 or something. I really idolized all the local bands, and I still do. So sharing the stage with them was such a beautiful experience.”
For Tucker, who plays lead guitar, the experience of playing the same festival as some major nationally touring acts was pretty overwhelming. “We saw Charli XCX there, and Father John Misty, and like, these huge national names,” said Tucker. “And even going back to festivals that we didn't go to, we would always hear about the 80/35 setlist. I think (of) Death Cab for Cutie and The Flaming Lips. Those are like a few of our absolute favorites, and they played 80/35 and now Munk Rivers has played 80/35.”
“It definitely made me feel like the imposter syndrome kind of wore off at 80/35,” said Charlotte.
“It made me feel like this is a real band, and maybe people are responding to the art that we're putting out, and that was such an affirming feeling.”
Charlotte and Tucker have a shared love of music that goes back as far as either can remember. In fact, it took both of them a minute to remember the first concert they went to together (Counting Crows at Principal Park, for the record). “Charlotte and I have always bonded over the kind of music that we’re into,” said Tucker.
“Our dad plays guitar, and our mom has a huge music knowledge, so we just listened to a lot of vinyl and stuff growing up,” said Charlotte. “I think we started actually writing songs together in high school. We’d skip class and go to the auditorium and try to write songs,” she said with a laugh.
“But some of those songs we’re still playing, so it's paid off,” Charlotte added.
Charlotte and Tucker took the logical next step and started playing open mic nights around Des Moines as a duo, but quickly realized they wanted to do more than they could by themselves. They eventually expanded the duo to a four-piece band, rounded out by Max Green on bass and Izzy Marx on drums. “They just completely exploded our sound,” said Charlotte. “They're so talented, and they've just brought so many dimensions to what was initially a duo project.”
Around this time the band also adopted the name Munk Rivers, which was initially Charlotte’s stage name. The name originates from the name of the Des Moines River, which is French for “river of the monks” (although this has been disputed). Longtime Iowa music fans will no doubt remember another band from Des Moines called The River Monks, which the members of Munk Rivers were unaware of when they came up with their own name.
“This is a formal apology,” Charlotte said with a laugh. “We were not aware of them, we were just being lazy about the name.”
Munk Rivers may have been “lazy” about their name, but they work hard when performing live, and every show is different. During a recent appearance in IPR’s studios, the band remarked several times how Charlotte had changed some lyrics without warning anyone.
“It's like every show, you're going to get like a new lyric,” said Tucker. “And I'm speaking as the bandmate. Like every show, she does something differently, and her ability to improvise is just so cool... It keeps us on our heels, and I think it inspires me and Max and Izzy to kind of follow in her footsteps and experiment with different things at every show. And she's killer at it.”
Charlotte confirmed that the band often surprises her in the same way. “I think it's really fun when we can all share a look on stage, and that look is just ‘chaos twinkle.’ And we’re like ‘There's six people at the show, let's get a little goofy.’ And so yeah, they definitely surprise me a lot. It's awesome.”
Munk Rivers has released one EP, Practice Room, which they dropped last August. However, most of the songs they performed in our studios will be appearing on their next EP, Demise Rumors. And as with many bands, they’re already looking ahead to the next project.
“Our next stuff is our best stuff,” said Tucker. “Over the past year we’ve all been really excited to kinda let (those songs) free and start working on some new stuff, because we're all just bursting at the seams every practice with different riffs and stuff that we want to work on.”
Still, the band stresses the importance of “staying present,” as Charlotte puts it. “Playing shows like this, and just loving those songs before we let them go, and seeing what people respond to will be so cool.”
Munk Rivers are active across social media, including YouTube, and their music is available on streaming services.
