Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Reflecting On Music And Life With ELLA and JESSE HOOPER From KILLING HEIDI
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Jesse and our hooper here from Killing Heidi. Yeah, we're
- 0:04Speaker 1: pretty stoked. We've getting the band back together. Twenty five
- 0:08Speaker 1: year anniversary of our debut album Reflector this year, and.
- 0:11Speaker 2: Doesn't that make you feel young and old, isn't it? Really?
- 0:14Speaker 2: But we're hit the road.
- 0:15Speaker 1: We tend to mainly do festivals with Killing Heidi over
- 0:18Speaker 1: the last eight years, so we're stepping back into our
- 0:21Speaker 1: own headline shows, which is really exciting for us. So yeah,
- 0:24Speaker 1: we're doing Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and we're going
- 0:29Speaker 1: to play Reflector in full, which we've never done before,
- 0:32Speaker 1: and it's going to be a party.
- 0:35Speaker 3: This is a big deal for us. We're putting on
- 0:38Speaker 3: our big girl pants and doing our own headline tour
- 0:41Speaker 3: with amazing support acts as well. Savane Kotchen from wa
- 0:45Speaker 3: She's tearing it up. She's a bit of a bloody
- 0:47Speaker 3: rock grunge cowgirl. She's amazing. And Hassle from Melbourne who's
- 0:51Speaker 3: actually someone that Jesse has mentored and taught before in
- 0:55Speaker 3: his other side Hustle as a wonderful music educator.
- 0:59Speaker 2: So we've got.
- 1:00Speaker 3: Some some incredible goals opening the show and Killing how
- 1:03Speaker 3: they're going to be doing Reflector in full for the
- 1:06Speaker 3: first time.
- 1:08Speaker 4: Oh so thanks for joining us today. It's supposed to
- 1:10Speaker 4: speak with.
- 1:10Speaker 3: Anyboys, Yeah, ma, thank you.
- 1:13Speaker 4: No, we're only sort.
- 1:14Speaker 5: Of start my line off the top there, Jesse, because
- 1:16Speaker 5: I was going to say that celebrating the twenty fifth
- 1:18Speaker 5: anniversary of the album, you're officially in the Old Musicians Club.
- 1:23Speaker 4: Now you have a twenty fifth anniversary album.
- 1:26Speaker 1: I've got the haircut, so you know, like you know,
- 1:30Speaker 1: oh yeah, I feel I feel like I'm a part
- 1:31Speaker 1: of it. It's been funny, like we've been doing lots
- 1:34Speaker 1: of these festivals, like I mentioned, in the last eight
- 1:35Speaker 1: years in particular since we reformed, and we always feel
- 1:39Speaker 1: like we're a young kid on like a legacy kind
- 1:41Speaker 1: of touring act. Like we've been doing Red Hot Summers
- 1:43Speaker 1: and Good Things. Was amazing to do last year, and
- 1:46Speaker 1: a lot of those bands, you know, like cons and Collectors,
- 1:49Speaker 1: Jimmy Barnes, you know, Ice House, and so.
- 1:53Speaker 2: We're always like the kids in that pecking order, but
- 1:56Speaker 2: when really we're not.
- 1:56Speaker 1: Kids anymore obviously, So yeah, we cannot.
- 2:02Speaker 5: We can pretor we can always I'm still pretended, man,
- 2:04Speaker 5: So you guys can too. Now the album reflected was
- 2:09Speaker 5: groundbreaking for its time, and it connected with disenfranchised youth
- 2:12Speaker 5: all over the world, including myself.
- 2:14Speaker 4: But we know what it means to everyone else. For
- 2:16Speaker 4: what did that album actually mean to you guys?
- 2:20Speaker 3: Thanks dude. That's that's first of all, that's amazing to hear,
- 2:24Speaker 3: because I think my favorite thing about Killing Haidi is
- 2:28Speaker 3: the way that it brought together outsiders and misfits and
- 2:32Speaker 3: and sort of gave them what they were like, is
- 2:34Speaker 3: this bad for us? And I'm like, yes, this bad
- 2:36Speaker 3: is for you. This is like, we were not the
- 2:39Speaker 3: cool kids in school. We were not the popular kids
- 2:41Speaker 3: that we were sort of weird, long haired hippies from
- 2:43Speaker 3: up in the hills, and we were never very good
- 2:45Speaker 3: at the sports and all of that, all of that
- 2:47Speaker 3: stuff that really did still hold a fair bit of
- 2:50Speaker 3: cachet in high school anyway in the nineties. But that's
- 2:55Speaker 3: that's kind of what Killing Haidi means to me and
- 2:57Speaker 3: why I still love the band and love the project
- 3:00Speaker 3: and our fans and the way that it's become a
- 3:03Speaker 3: part of people's journeys, you know, And and funnily enough,
- 3:08Speaker 3: twenty five years later, when you wake up and shit
- 3:11Speaker 3: you're an adult, you still have that teenager inside of you.
- 3:14Speaker 3: You still have that kid that that sometimes feels out
- 3:17Speaker 3: of place or feels frustrated. Your frustrations might be different now,
- 3:21Speaker 3: you might be like fighting with your kids, or your
- 3:24Speaker 3: wife or your husband, or having, you know, a crappy
- 3:26Speaker 3: day at work. So there's still that killing Heidi energy
- 3:30Speaker 3: you can lean on. And just like Arah let it.
- 3:32Speaker 5: Out was like, did you just put together the twelve
- 3:40Speaker 5: songs that you had at the time and put an
- 3:41Speaker 5: album out or was there a deeper thought process to
- 3:43Speaker 5: it than that it was.
- 3:45Speaker 2: It was a bit of a long journey.
- 3:47Speaker 1: I mean everyone saw it popped out of nowhere kind
- 3:51Speaker 1: of I mean Mascarletts. So we was out for almost
- 3:53Speaker 1: a year before the album came out, so there was
- 3:54Speaker 1: like a lead time in one sense, and we did
- 3:56Speaker 1: have the triple J on Earth song in ninety six,
- 3:59Speaker 1: so there was like some awareness of it, but as
- 4:02Speaker 1: far as that song's coming together. As soon as we
- 4:05Speaker 1: had On Earth's success in ninety six, it attracted a
- 4:09Speaker 1: few collaborators that we worked with and end up signing
- 4:12Speaker 1: with that would have helped us develop the sound because
- 4:14Speaker 1: we were just like an acoustic duo and we wanted
- 4:15Speaker 1: to be a band, and we had some people that
- 4:17Speaker 1: we played with, but so I reckon.
- 4:18Speaker 2: We wrote for about three years.
- 4:20Speaker 1: It would have been ninety six, ninety seven, ninety eight
- 4:21Speaker 1: o nine, maybe even before, and yeah, we had some
- 4:27Speaker 1: The producer was always like working with us with the
- 4:29Speaker 1: songs and helping select songs that we thought would be good,
- 4:31Speaker 1: and we always had a vision for them becoming more
- 4:33Speaker 1: than acoustic duo songs. As the album certainly sounds pretty bombastic,
- 4:36Speaker 1: there's only really one or two stripped back songs in there, so.
- 4:41Speaker 2: Ah, look, I think there was probably a lot that
- 4:42Speaker 2: didn't make the cut.
- 4:43Speaker 1: I can't remember from exactly how many, but I think
- 4:47Speaker 1: we probably only recorded one or two that didn't make it.
- 4:50Speaker 1: I feel like the vetting of the songs happened in
- 4:52Speaker 1: the songwriting process, and only the ones that were kind
- 4:54Speaker 1: of selected were the ones that got produced. In fact,
- 4:56Speaker 1: I don't think there was any that were fully produced
- 4:58Speaker 1: that didn't make the cut from me, but it was then.
- 5:02Speaker 2: The recording process was long too.
- 5:04Speaker 1: We were both doing high school still, so we were
- 5:05Speaker 1: doing weekends going to Melbourne, and it kind of felt
- 5:08Speaker 1: like a bit of a thing of this is this
- 5:10Speaker 1: ever going to be finished? And then when it was finished,
- 5:12Speaker 1: we still had like a year before anything came out.
- 5:14Speaker 2: Is this ever going to is anyone going to hear this?
- 5:17Speaker 2: Like we still have this doubt.
- 5:20Speaker 3: It was like torturous torture for kids, you know how
- 5:22Speaker 3: like time is even longer when you're young. Every year
- 5:25Speaker 3: it was like three years. I was like, I think
- 5:27Speaker 3: we're getting punk. I think this is not I think
- 5:30Speaker 3: we apparently signed some contract and we've made some album,
- 5:33Speaker 3: but it took three years in teenage time just felt
- 5:36Speaker 3: like fourever. But there must have been some rhyme to
- 5:42Speaker 3: rhyme and reason to all of that time spent, because
- 5:45Speaker 3: bloody hell, when you know, when it did start coming out,
- 5:47Speaker 3: we knew it was different in a good way.
- 5:53Speaker 5: Songs were personally both for different reasons. But which one
- 5:56Speaker 5: on the album was the most personal for U l
- 5:59Speaker 5: R And then.
- 5:59Speaker 3: For you h That's a good question. I haven't prepared
- 6:04Speaker 3: for that one. But I actually think it would be
- 6:09Speaker 3: one of the softest songs. It might even be black Sheep,
- 6:16Speaker 3: even though that's not your very typical killing Heidi song musically, Lyrically,
- 6:22Speaker 3: I feel like I'm not even I couldn't tell you
- 6:25Speaker 3: hand on heart if it is, but I think it's
- 6:28Speaker 3: about our sort of parents breaking up, which happened when
- 6:31Speaker 3: we were just pretty teenagers or preteens or twins or whatever.
- 6:35Speaker 3: And I never really sang about that much or talked
- 6:37Speaker 3: about that much. But now when I listen back to it,
- 6:40Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I think that's about that. So it's
- 6:43Speaker 3: quite meaningful and it's also a nice break from screaming.
- 6:51Speaker 4: About you, Jess.
- 6:53Speaker 1: Look, I mean, my connection with the songs is not
- 6:57Speaker 1: necessarily the lyrical content and the story of the song,
- 7:00Speaker 1: because I leave that to Ala and most of the
- 7:01Speaker 1: time I just zoned out and focus on the music
- 7:03Speaker 1: of it.
- 7:04Speaker 2: So if I'm talking about like my own.
- 7:05Speaker 1: Personal connection to my part of it, which is this
- 7:09Speaker 1: the harmonic, the music, the chord, that kind of style
- 7:12Speaker 1: of it.
- 7:14Speaker 2: Ah. So there's a song called Real People, which I
- 7:18Speaker 2: just love playing that song. I still love playing it,
- 7:20Speaker 2: I still love hearing it. So I think rhythmically and
- 7:24Speaker 2: sonically that's the one I sort of just love. You know. Yes,
- 7:27Speaker 2: it's quite a heavy kind of riff one.
- 7:29Speaker 1: It's not nothing too fancy, but I just feel like
- 7:31Speaker 1: it was It's got a real authenticity to the to
- 7:35Speaker 1: the power of it.
- 7:36Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be my second choice too, That would
- 7:39Speaker 3: be my number too.
- 7:40Speaker 4: You can't have it as his.
- 7:45Speaker 5: So what would you say that the success of Reflector
- 7:48Speaker 5: took you by surprise or we're finally confident that what
- 7:51Speaker 5: you what you had was was worstul.
- 7:54Speaker 2: No, No, we were. We were.
- 7:55Speaker 1: We were so unsure right up until the point where
- 7:58Speaker 1: it was like it was on a radio station and
- 8:01Speaker 1: every TV thing. It was kind of like I think
- 8:03Speaker 1: most artists and musicians and creatives are still quite insecure
- 8:06Speaker 1: and unsure as to like, you know, what they're doing.
- 8:08Speaker 1: But yeah, it was. We were just so excited, like
- 8:12Speaker 1: everything was just one more opportunity, one more thing. It's
- 8:14Speaker 1: only now when you look back and you look at
- 8:15Speaker 1: the whole volume of successes and like everything that happened,
- 8:18Speaker 1: it was like, oh my god, like that was insane.
- 8:20Speaker 1: But when you're just doing one thing at a time,
- 8:23Speaker 1: it kind of doesn't feel necessarily.
- 8:25Speaker 2: Like oh my god, this is amazing. You know, we're
- 8:27Speaker 2: just like, oh, this is cool, this is cool. So, no,
- 8:29Speaker 2: we had no idea it was.
- 8:30Speaker 1: Going to go berserk like that, and you know, it
- 8:34Speaker 1: really felt like we've created something we loved and we
- 8:37Speaker 1: were super into and we were really proud of But
- 8:39Speaker 1: the connection that's had with people is not us, Like,
- 8:42Speaker 1: that is just a special connection that people have got
- 8:44Speaker 1: to the music, and we just go, aren't we lucky?
- 8:46Speaker 1: You know that we can be we have created that,
- 8:50Speaker 1: but we're not like I don't think we assume that
- 8:52Speaker 1: it's our magical it's our I guess we don't own
- 8:57Speaker 1: the success of it the way it's connected with people.
- 8:59Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we sort of. I think it's probably
- 9:02Speaker 3: a good way to look at it too, Like you
- 9:04Speaker 3: deliver this thing, you can deliver this cultural moment or
- 9:08Speaker 3: this some bunch of songs that means a lot to people,
- 9:11Speaker 3: but and you're just you're so lucky to be the
- 9:15Speaker 3: delivery person. Yeah, I like that, Jess. I think that's
- 9:18Speaker 3: kind of a good way to look at it.
- 9:20Speaker 2: Definitely.
- 9:21Speaker 4: And you're pretty young still at the time.
- 9:23Speaker 5: So do you think the successful album cource you grow
- 9:26Speaker 5: up quicker than what you might have otherwise.
- 9:31Speaker 2: Oh, yes and no.
- 9:33Speaker 3: Yes, So in some ways being a rocker, like definitely
- 9:38Speaker 3: is a license to be a child for way longer
- 9:40Speaker 3: than way longer than what they would recommend.
- 9:44Speaker 4: But on the other hand, Yeah, you do.
- 9:46Speaker 3: You do have to grow up and deal with some
- 9:49Speaker 3: things that you know other people never never have to
- 9:51Speaker 3: deal with, like being known or being recognized, or having
- 9:54Speaker 3: your personal stuff spoken about, or your image critique. I mean, yeah,
- 10:00Speaker 3: of lots of normal people do go through that as well,
- 10:02Speaker 3: I'm sure, but.
- 10:04Speaker 2: So bit of both.
- 10:05Speaker 3: I think. I think having a passion keeps you young
- 10:10Speaker 3: and keeps you plugged into life, you know, life force energy,
- 10:16Speaker 3: And whenever we play a show, you've got to quit.
- 10:19Speaker 3: If you're getting on that stage and you're not feeling
- 10:21Speaker 3: the life force energy of a live show, it's time
- 10:24Speaker 3: to stop. Whereas I don't think we've ever we've ever
- 10:26Speaker 3: hit that point. You know, there's been times where we've
- 10:29Speaker 3: wanted to do other things and been a bit sick
- 10:32Speaker 3: of being rockers, and so we've done other things and
- 10:35Speaker 3: then whenever we're ready, we come back to it. So
- 10:37Speaker 3: it still feels pretty sort of vital, probably a.
- 10:44Speaker 5: Little bit deep, guys, But looking back, how do you
- 10:46Speaker 5: think that album and those songs shaped you and shape
- 10:49Speaker 5: the people you are today?
- 10:53Speaker 3: Big time?
- 10:54Speaker 2: Yeah, big time.
- 10:55Speaker 1: I mean I think from a professional perspective, it has
- 10:59Speaker 1: defined my whole.
- 11:00Speaker 2: Life for sure.
- 11:01Speaker 1: So everything I've done since has been with that history
- 11:05Speaker 1: of success. So it's very fortunate that everywhere I go
- 11:08Speaker 1: I can say, oh, well they got from Gillingardi and
- 11:10Speaker 1: all of a sudden it opens doors. So we're so
- 11:12Speaker 1: lucky to have had that, and all has probably got
- 11:14Speaker 1: her equivalence in media and solo career and all this
- 11:16Speaker 1: stuff that falls off the back of it. So yeah,
- 11:20Speaker 1: it's been life changing. And yeah, there's always flip sides
- 11:24Speaker 1: to it. There's been lots of you know, weird, dark,
- 11:27Speaker 1: scary stuff that happens. Maybe that's just you know being
- 11:30Speaker 1: in the music industry, entertainment industry, or.
- 11:33Speaker 2: You know, being on the road. There's lots of you know,
- 11:36Speaker 2: hard moments.
- 11:37Speaker 1: But but really when when when you look at the holistically,
- 11:41Speaker 1: it's been an amazing platform for us to do lots of.
- 11:45Speaker 2: Music mentoring, music education.
- 11:48Speaker 1: You know, it gives me the credibility to go, well,
- 11:50Speaker 1: I know what I'm talking about when I'm trying to
- 11:51Speaker 1: impart knowledge on young people that want to be in bands,
- 11:53Speaker 1: because I've been doing it since.
- 11:54Speaker 2: I was sixteen.
- 11:56Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think it's shaped me too, because in
- 12:02Speaker 3: terms of like having a sort of weirdly like being
- 12:06Speaker 3: a teenage role model, which I didn't really think about
- 12:09Speaker 3: at the time.
- 12:10Speaker 2: I mean I didn't.
- 12:11Speaker 3: I didn't set out to be a role model or
- 12:14Speaker 3: a you know, like a woman in music or a
- 12:16Speaker 3: female front person. That was just like obviously not what
- 12:19Speaker 3: I was thinking of when we started the band. It
- 12:21Speaker 3: just happened to be a fat Therefore that sort of
- 12:23Speaker 3: got put on me. But I've like, excuse me, like
- 12:27Speaker 3: I've kind of chosen to live in that or live
- 12:30Speaker 3: up to that, because that is an important thing I
- 12:33Speaker 3: realize now, and I don't really know who or what
- 12:38Speaker 3: I was looking at or looking up to. And to
- 12:41Speaker 3: have the kind of the hudspa to be a teenage
- 12:44Speaker 3: female rock and roll front person, I'm kind of like, oh,
- 12:49Speaker 3: that was that was something. And now I see a
- 12:52Speaker 3: lot more of that around me, and I see the
- 12:54Speaker 3: culture has changed and come so far, and there's so
- 12:57Speaker 3: many amazing female rock bands and female artists in even
- 13:00Speaker 3: just in our hometown Melbourne alone. Just kicking us all
- 13:04Speaker 3: over the world makes me proud. And if I can
- 13:06Speaker 3: sort of think of myself as somebody who maybe like
- 13:10Speaker 3: broke those waves a little, well, that's awesome.
- 13:15Speaker 5: Now I mentioned earlier, you're going to begin hitting the
- 13:17Speaker 5: road to celebrate this twenty fifth that aniversary. So the
- 13:20Speaker 5: shows are starting an adelaide of the twentieth June, then
- 13:22Speaker 5: you hit Earth, Brisbane and Sydney, finishing.
- 13:25Speaker 4: At Melbourne the twenty eighth June. So what the lights
- 13:28Speaker 4: have you got in store for us in those shows, guys.
- 13:32Speaker 6: Well, we're going to try for the thing that we
- 13:36Speaker 6: have actually never done, and it's going to be interesting
- 13:39Speaker 6: playing Reflector from song one to song twelve.
- 13:43Speaker 3: It is like because as Jess said, we tried to
- 13:45Speaker 3: do it at Good Things, we have a few technical
- 13:47Speaker 3: issues that kind of cut our set down a little bit,
- 13:50Speaker 3: so we had to drop We had to drop a
- 13:51Speaker 3: few and it's hard to play a whole album you
- 13:55Speaker 3: know in the sequence that it is for a listening
- 13:59Speaker 3: pleasure on a CD or record. It's very different than live.
- 14:02Speaker 3: But we're going to do it anyway, very nice.
- 14:06Speaker 5: It goes well, I've got one thing to get through
- 14:08Speaker 5: before I let you go. I've got a new segment
- 14:10Speaker 5: I've started called photo Bomb. So basically, before I chat
- 14:13Speaker 5: with you, guys, I've told through your social media and
- 14:16Speaker 5: I've talked up with a few photos.
- 14:17Speaker 4: I want to know some more about so I've found this.
- 14:20Speaker 4: One of you guys.
- 14:24Speaker 3: Said, don't we just look just the same.
- 14:28Speaker 2: Oh my god, I reckon, that would have been I'm
- 14:30Speaker 2: going to try and do so how old will we?
- 14:31Speaker 6: Then?
- 14:32Speaker 2: I reckon, it looks like I'm in grade five? So
- 14:36Speaker 2: what would it be ten or eleven? And al would
- 14:39Speaker 2: be eight or seven? I had to guess.
- 14:42Speaker 4: Yeah, and that.
- 14:43Speaker 1: Is And that is sitting at the back of our
- 14:49Speaker 1: family house up in the Strasburg U Rangers, which we
- 14:51Speaker 1: miss dearly and dream about often, probably sitting around with
- 14:56Speaker 1: no video games, no internet, no mobile phones, being forced
- 15:00Speaker 1: to be creative, which actually sounds amazing.
- 15:03Speaker 3: The very special our upbringing is like a big, big
- 15:10Speaker 3: part of our secrets to success. So shout out our
- 15:13Speaker 3: beautiful mom and dad, who are no longer with us.
- 15:15Speaker 3: But like I mean, if that it looks idyllic, and
- 15:18Speaker 3: look at that's just shitty haircuts, hand me down. It
- 15:23Speaker 3: was nothing fancy and it was amazing, amazing.
- 15:28Speaker 5: Alright, there's one, we'll get three quickly. I found this
- 15:31Speaker 5: photo of you guys on who wants to be a millionaire.
- 15:34Speaker 5: But I'm guessing you didn't actually win a million dollars
- 15:37Speaker 5: because you're still how do you doing what you're doing?
- 15:41Speaker 2: Yeah, look, thanks thanks for bringing that up. I managed
- 15:45Speaker 2: to forget about that.
- 15:45Speaker 1: We managed to screw up a question that insight was like, yeah, anyway.
- 15:54Speaker 3: I think I feel like I've got really quite good
- 15:57Speaker 3: trivia skills and I just uped up a really easy one,
- 16:01Speaker 3: damn it.
- 16:03Speaker 1: Admittedly it would have been for charity, so I mean,
- 16:05Speaker 1: you know, like it we've been retired. But the question
- 16:08Speaker 1: was the Yukon is the Yukon in it? Was it
- 16:11Speaker 1: the US Canada or there's two other ones? And we
- 16:13Speaker 1: said the US and it was the Canada. And I
- 16:15Speaker 1: think I think if my dad had we've done the
- 16:19Speaker 1: phone phone a friend, we would have won. But we
- 16:21Speaker 1: just went in hot. Anyway, God, thanks for bringing that up, pain,
- 16:26Speaker 1: but we.
- 16:27Speaker 5: Looked alone sorried about that. All right, guys, I letting
- 16:31Speaker 5: you go because you got something else one it please.
- 16:33Speaker 5: You're speaking with both of you as a tour starts
- 16:35Speaker 5: during the twentieth check it out. There's a new album
- 16:37Speaker 5: coming out too, with some fast Ree mixes and stuff
- 16:40Speaker 5: on it as well. So I'll see you guys into
- 16:41Speaker 5: Brisbane show