Judith Holofernes

A German musician, guitarist, and lyricist, Judith Holofernes is best known as the lead singer of the alt-pop band Wir Sind Helden (We Are Heroes). Holofernes was born November 12, 1976 in Berlin, where she lived until she was six, moving with her mother to Freiburg in Southern Germany, where she got her first taste of performing as a street musician. She returned to Berlin to study at Universitat de Kunste, majoring in communications, but left without graduating. She released a solo album, Kamikazefliege, in 1999, but it sold poorly. Recruiting keyboardist Jean-Michel Tourette, drummer Pola Roy (Holofernes and Roy eventually married), and bassist Mark Tavassol, she formed the band Wir Sind Helden. The band recorded and self-released a five-song EP, Guten Tag, in 2002, and when the title tune became a left-field German radio hit, the group signed to EMI's Labels subsidiary, issuing a full-length debut, Die Reklamation, in 2003. Its 2005 follow-up, Von Hier an Blind, entered the German and Austrian charts at number one, generating the hits "Gekommen um zu Bleiben" and "Nur ein Wort." Soundso, which reached number two in the German pop charts, appeared in 2007, with a fourth album, Bring Mich Nach Hause, showing up in 2010. Holofernes released a second solo album, Ein Leichtes Schwert, in 2014.