It’s been a long time coming but Killing Heidi have finally re-formed for a proper Australian tour in June 2017. The band will be playing a mix of songs all throughout their career including crowd favourites “Weir” and “Mascara”. We were lucky enough to catch up with vocalist Ella Hopper as she explains why now it feels right again for Killing Heidi to hit the stage.

SCENEzine
Firstly I know you were fairly reluctant but what was it that finally made you decide to play Killing Heidi songs again?

Ella Hooper
Well I just didn’t feel reluctant anymore. It was just a feeling, it’s was the weirdest thing because I’m a classic for saying no, no, no…maybe, maybe, yes. I should really learn to say never say never but I don’t. I just thought  nope I don’t see a time when I’m gunna want to do that. I was surprised when I started to feel differently. I think it’s just called getting older and more mature and realising that there is value in looking back and there is value in celebration and respecting what you’ve done. We had one opportunity to dip our toes in the water with this one festival and I said well I’m going to give that a go and see how it feels. There was no commitment to do anything more and it just felt like the right thing to do. I enjoyed it so much and it just grew from there.

SCENEzine
We caught Killing Heidi playing earlier this year at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. It looked like you were having a blast, how was it for you?

Ella Hooper
Yeah that was probably our favourite show. I’m not just saying that, because that was the one for us where we thought this is incredible that we get to come back at this level. It was a beautiful gig with the sunset on the harbour behind us and the PA sounded so fantastic. Honestly the last time we were gigging hard as Killing Heidi it wasn’t always easy, it wasn’t always good. I think we weren’t even as good musicians as we are now. So we were able to jump at it with this ten years extra experience. Then to see the crowd acting like it was only yesterday, all the enthusiasm and energy was there. It felt so fresh so that was one of the gigs where we thought this is really worth putting together a tour around and seeing what other ways we can enjoy this retrospective moment that’s happening.

SCENEzine
Did it take you guys long to re-learn the songs?

Ella Hooper
It took us a while (laughs). It definitely is something we had to get fit for. For me especially with all the jumping and singing and intensity of Killing Heidi’s delivery. I don’t sing like that anymore, my stuff is mellow, it’s pretty moody.
Whereas Killing Heidi is just go, go, go big chorus little verse big chorus little verse. There’s a few softer folk songs thrown in but not many. It took me a while to get my breath around it.

SCENEzine
I first discovered Killing Heidi through the song “Kettle”. Do you have any memories from how that song came about?

Ella Hooper
Yeah totally that’s one I’ll never forget that was really where it all started. That was ground zero for thinking maybe we can be in a band, maybe there’s something here. People don’t believe us but “kettle” was literally one of the first songs we ever wrote and it just did so well. It had that sort of weird innocent dark thing about it which really shaped part of the theme of the band. That we were going to be not your average happy, sappy pop band and going to sing about love all the time. We are going to sing about weird things, hard things, dark things but then we are going to do it with a bit of edge and grittiness. But “kettle” was the soft folk version of that I remember we were sitting in our mums tiny cottage she was renting in Violet Town. Jesse was strumming away on the guitar and our friend Brian was strumming as well and he literally showed Jesse those two chords the G and the C. I just started singing along, it’s one of those weird songs that literally in as long that it took to sing it the song was written.

 

 

SCENEzine
Was it a similar story with “weir” where a lot of bands will say the hit song came together so quickly?

Ella Hooper
Well no it wasn’t actually. This is the weird thing because I usually believe that I’ve had a lot of those experiences where the good songs that affect people come quickly and easily. But “weir didn’t. I was thinking well this song will never be a hit because everyone knows hit songs come really easily. We couldn’t get the chorus for it we were just like what is the chorus of this song. The verse is so pretty, what is the chorus, it can’t be boring. It needed a jumpy chorus and we tried five different things over a period of three weeks. We kept on trying different things and almost putting it on the shelf. Then I don’t remember the exact moment that Jesse got that riff but I know that it finally clicked and I was like I just have to sing something really extreme over this. I just have to hold the note, make it triumphant and make it contrast the picking delicate verse. Then I know that when we got it our producer walked back into the room and was like damn it that’s it get in the booth.

SCENEzine
Are you surprised with “weir” how that song has really stood the test of time?

Ella Hooper
It’s really funny. I find it hard to judge things like that but people keep saying that to me. They say “weir” is so fresh. I’m like is it really? That’s amazing I can’t believe that.

SCENEzine
Have you had a chance to hear Tonight Alive cover “weir”?

Ella Hooper
Yeah that was incredible I was so flattered and really, really chuffed when they did that.

SCENEzine
Is there a story behind why you guys did two videos for “weir”?

Ella Hooper
Oh my god there’s actually three videos for that song, that plot thickens. It was the song that just couldn’t get a video. It was the song that we felt so excited about so we wanted it to be our big flagship song. The first video we made got completely rejected, it was really crappy. It was way too country and our record company decided it was way too Hicksville. The second one we did is the Australian one that we know and love which we were all pretty happy with.
It had a little bit of the real weir country in it and all this weird modern cool shit with the factory and the wind machine. Which is the modern edgy wannabe Japanese side of Killing Heidi. The third one was the American one that the American record company made us do with the massive budget and absolutely nothing to do with anything. It had a love story woven into it when it’s actually not really about love at all. We had to ride jet skis and I was terrified and I cracked the shits. I remember it being a really tough couple of days actually (laughs).

 

 

SCENEzine
If you could go back and speak to the 1999 version of Ella is there any advice you would give her?

Ella Hooper
If I could but she wouldn’t listen to me because that’s just how she was (laughs). She wouldn’t listen but I would say please try and trust your instincts, please try and stand up for creative decisions that you may not feel like you get to make but guess what you do get to make them. I’d like to try and tell her that she actually is in an instrumental role in the whole thing Which you would think being the lead singer you would know that but you don’t. You actually don’t know that until you grow up a bit and find your power.

SCENEzine
I’ve got memories of seeing Killing Heidi play to thousands of people at Big Day Out with crazy mosh pits happening. The crowd was quite metal and alternative at the time. Is it odd to look back on those times considering that the music of Killing Heidi isn’t super heavy?

Ella Hooper
I know it was a funny thing we definitely had a bit of crunch and a bit of heaviness about us but I think that was the gift of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. We were coming out of Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins we were coming out of heavy music being the cool alternative music. Then we sort of mixed it with pop a little bit which is why I think some people thought that was a terrible idea and other people just loved it. For a whole bunch of young kids it was the first kind of rock pop they had probably really gotten around. Then it became a massive genre in the years to come with rock pop and pop punk kind of bands. But this is really before all of that our influences were White Zombie, Fear Factory, Sepultura all of that stuff we were listening to. Then we were mixing it with folk and pop that we loved like Neil Young and the Spice Girls so it was a very strange mix. I still think it wouldn’t have really worked in any other time and any other place because it’s a pretty weird mix. When you listen back to the recordings you are like what is this? What genre is this? It’s not really anything so I don’t know how we pulled it off but we did.

SCENEzine
Besides being known for your music Killing Heidi were also known for their iconic stage outfits. Do they still exist anywhere?

Ella Hooper
I think there are some in a plastic sealed bag possibly at mums in one of the sheds back in the country. We find things occasionally. We don’t really know what we did with everything but sometimes things just turn up in the back of a cupboard and I’m like oh my god look at that thing it’s tiny (laughs) it looks like dolls clothes.

SCENEzine
I grew up like many Aussie males having a crush on Ella Hooper. A lot of my female friends also saw you as a role model. Is it surreal to think how many people admired you and how inspiring you were to people?

Ella Hooper
At the time I tried not to think about it because I found it a bit overwhelming but in the back of my mind it was a massive honour. It was exciting because in that sense I was providing something different and I really believe in that.
I always have believed in if you can’t see it you can’t be it. If you can’t see different examples of success and different examples of what’s hot or what’s cool then you can question yourself and be really hard on yourself. So I don’t think about it too much but when I do I’m glad and I’m proud it happened. I hope it was a positive for people and I hope I can provide some sort of alternative option of inspiration.

SCENEzine
At the height of Killing Heidi’s fame you were winning Aria awards, being interviewed by Courtney Cox, on magazine covers. Was it hard to live in the moment back then?

Ella Hooper
It was a little bit hard at times to stay grounded to say is this really happening because our reality went from small country town to sitting around Courtney Cox’s swimming pool having margaritas. Hanging out at Universal studios stuff like that, we didn’t do that all the time but we did it a lot. Then we would come back to our little country town where our houses were tiny and our life was incredibly modest as it still is. As it’s gone back to. The contrast was a bit trippy it could make you at times float off a bit and go well what’s real. Am I this one or am I that one or am I just somewhere in between. It’s definitely set me up to be able to move in a lot of different circles. I can work with the government and I can talk the talk with politicians or I can go and do arts projects with kids who have drug and alcohol issues or who have had nothing ever in their lives. It’s all normal to me I don’t care if I’m talking to a Hollywood star or a really hard hitting journalist like Waleed Aly it’s all normal. I think that comes from having a really broad experience.

SCENEzine
Since vinyl has come back in fashion is there any chance Killing Heidi will ever get the vinyl treatment?

Ella Hooper
Yeah we are doing it. We have a gorgeous vinyl coming. We are doing the Reflector looking back limited edition red vinyl. It’s coming.

SCENEzine
One of my all time favourite Killing Heidi songs is “I Am”. Is there much of a story behind how that song came about?

Ella Hooper
That’s really cool. It doesn’t always get remembered with “Weir” and “Mascara” but it’s one of our favourites too because it gave us a second lease of life. When we were overseas recording that album, things were getting pretty interesting by then. We had been through a lot. We had been through a couple of different record companies. We were only up to album three but we felt like we had been around for a long time because life had been so intense.
“I Am” was one of the first tracks we wrote for that album where we felt like we had found a new sound and we were really happy with it. I remember us thanking god that we could still do it. We had a lot of self doubt before “I Am” maybe even like this isn’t working, should we quit, should we give it a break. Present the second album didn’t go so well. Record companies made us feel shit about that but we really just hadn’t tried anything different and we hadn’t grown. So when we did “I Am” it was so different for us because it was written around the bass line and it had loops and electronic beats more than real beats for once. It just set us free we were like man that’s got heaps of vibe we love that it’s awesome.

SCENEzine
Then they ended up using it on the Spiderman soundtrack.

Ella Hooper
Yeah and the lyrics were uncannily perfect. We didn’t know that when we wrote it but if you listen to the lyrics it’s all about mistaken identity and not telling people who you really are. Sonically it goes so well with that concept.

 

 

SCENEzine
I’m sure a lot of people have been asking you do these tours mean new Killing Heidi music. I’m guessing the hard part would be deciding how new Killing Heidi music would sound in 2017?

Ella Hooper
Exactly, we have no idea because would it of gone more rocky or more pop. It’s tricky I think about No Doubt and their new stuff and I feel like I love them but the moment in time has passed for that particular style. I think maybe the same might be true for Killing Heidi if we tried to revive it and write new songs. Which again never say never I don’t know that we won’t do that but we don’t have any plans to. Who knows after all these gigs going so well and having such a great time. Jesse and I might be tempted to write something but production is the trickier question. Production has changed so much their are a lot of female rockers like Courtney Barnett out there doing the garage rock thing but we were always a little bit more produced than that. We were always more polished than that. Really good question I don’t know the answer to (laughs).

SCENEzine
Lastly can you leave us a message for your Aussie fans excited for the tour?

Ella Hooper
Oh my god, get ready it’s all guns blazing. It’s back to the future but better than it ever was.

(Interview by Christian Ross)