Killing Heidi, Photograph by Kim Tonelli
Killing Heidi released their debut album, Reflector, 25 years ago.
Siblings Ella and Jesse Hooper formed the band in their early teens. The pair started playing shows in their hometown, the small Victorian outpost of Violet Town, when Ella was 13 and Jesse 15.
One of their first-ever compositions, the combustible acoustic number “Kettle,” won triple j’s Unearthed competition for the Goulburn Valley region in 1996. Triple j added the song to high rotation and included it as the opening track on the compilation Triple J Unearthed 4.
A couple of years later, producer Paul Kosky signed the band to his Wah Wah Music label, and Killing Heidi began work on their debut LP. The band’s personnel grew to include drummer Adam Pedretti, of Perth metal band Non-Intentional Lifeform, and session bass player Warren Jenkin.
Together, they expanded on the Hoopers’ acoustic singer-songwriter beginnings, adding alt-rock guitars and anthemic hooks, resulting in a sound that Ella describes as “cyber goth rock pop.”
Reflector came out in March 2000 and went to number one on the ARIA albums chart. The singles “Weir” and “Live Without It” charted in the top ten, and the band had their first number one single with “Mascara.” Reflector went on to achieve quadruple-platinum accreditation and Killing Heidi collected four trophies at the 2000 ARIA Awards, including Album of the Year.
Killing Heidi are celebrating the album’s 25th anniversary with a national tour this month. Ella and Jesse spoke to Check Check about their beginnings, their rise to fame, and how it feels to revisit songs they wrote when they were teenagers.
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Growing up in Violet Town
Ella Hooper: We had creative parents and they were really supportive of us playing with creativity. We grew up really isolated, so what’s free, what’s fun, what’s something we can do together? Create, write songs, play guitar, dream up worlds. And lucky mum and dad had really good taste.
Our parents were basically pseudo-intellectual cool hippie types with great books, great music, great taste. And then they moved to the bush and they raised these two little hippie kids in the middle of nowhere. But with all of this good, high-quality shit in terms of art and fashion and literature. And big picture thinking – the world is a big place and it’s yours.
Listening to grunge and 90s alt-rock
Jesse Hooper: Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton for me were the guitar gods. But as I started to play myself, I couldn’t really replicate that and I didn’t have access to teachers that would teach me that kind of style or technical stuff. So then it was Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream was the album that defined my teenage music taste.
When I started jamming with my mates, we were playing Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day Dookie, No Doubt and Alanis Morissette. Killing Heidi’s first performance was Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana songs and two original songs. And one of those was “Kettle.”
“Kettle” winning triple j Unearthed
Jesse: The guy who mixed that little set for us at the Violet Town Arts Festival offered to record it and send it off to triple j. It was just so serendipitous.
The “Kettle” thing gave us a sense of confidence. Up until that point, it was a fantasy. Like, “Is music something that we can do, beyond a hobby?” And then to have “Kettle” played on triple j for a year and a half, it was like, “This is a sign that it can happen, it can cut through.”
Recording Reflector
Jesse: When it came into Reflector, we did have some confidence there. It had been two or three years since that “Kettle” thing, we’d had national exposure, we played a few shows. We were still super green, but we had confidence in our songwriting. Obviously we were still so young, but it gave us a feeling of like, “We know what our songs are, they’re authentic to us.”
They were very simple, acoustic songs, but we were open to all the production and the guidance from the producers and more experienced bandmates without feeling like the kids in the room. Like, we were [the kids in the room,] and we still had a bit of that, but we also felt confident that our ideas mattered. Our opinions were worthy and we’d earned our way into those creative situations.
Working with Pedro and Woz, we had a beautiful fusion of collaborators, but the songs kind of always started from that acoustic place.
Becoming famous
Ella: Even though there had been a fair few years of development, suddenly we had big crowds. So, it was like, you know how they say when you’re in the savanna and some animals are coming for you, make a big shape? It was like, just be big, take up space.
My frontwoman persona just had to develop and it had to meet this sonic craziness. Fake it till you make it was a huge part of what I had to employ because no one taught me how to be a frontperson in a rock band. I had people that I admired, but back when we came up – in 98, 99, 2000 – there was bugger all women.
If there was a woman, it was Adalita or someone who was holding a guitar. There wasn’t just solo female rock vocalists. You’ve got your Sarah McLeod’s and your Adalita’s, but they’ve got guitars and it’s just rock. It’s not, like, rock pop or cyber goth rock pop, whatever we were.
So I moved around a lot. I still move around a lot, but I’ve refined it now. I am so proud and excited to say that because of Killing Heidi and all of the crazy ups and downs and touring and albums, I think I’m a pretty solid front woman now. I can front the shit out of a rock band.
Performing Reflector 25 years later
Ella: The relationship with the songs is almost like a relationship with a person or a friend or a school chum that I used to know. There’s some years where we’ve lost touch, and there’s years like this year where there’s a reunion on and we’re really, really tight again. I’ve felt really connected to the songs and to the person that I was at that time – you know, to 15-, 16-, 17-year-old me.
At the risk of sounding really wanky, there’s some healing in it. There’s some information now that I understand differently when I look at the lyrics intellectually and then sing them and feel them energetically and emotionally. I’m like, oh, I sorted that out. Like, don’t worry about that anymore.
Jesse: We’re not judging the simplicity or the naivety. It’s very much just like, this is how it was. The musicianship has evolved a lot in 25 years. While the lyrics are still the same and the melodies are generally the same, the musicality and the intensity and the dynamics that we can deliver are much more mature and refined. So it feels like we can bring some adultness, but we honour the teenage innocence at the same time.
Ella: One of Killing Heidi’s superpowers is that it was such a highly charged, emotional band, and it still has to be. We still have to deliver it like that because that’s the crux of that angsty intense music, and it’s also the beauty of it.
Killing Heidi – 25 years of Reflector tour
Friday 20 Jun – The Gov, Adelaide SA
Saturday 21 Jun – Magnet House, Perth WA
Thursday 26 Jun – The Tivoli, Brisbane QLD
Friday 27 Jun – Liberty Hall, Sydney NSW
Saturday 28 Jun – Northcote Theatre, Melbourne VIC
Tickets here
