Latest news with #JesseHooper
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Ella Hooper doesn't look like this anymore! Killing Heidi vocalist shocks with transformation in rare television appearance
She was the deadlocked songstress who enjoyed massive chart success in the early noughties with her band Killing Heidi. And Ella Hooper cut a very different figure when she appeared alongside bandmate and brother Jesse on Today Extra this week The pair were chatting to hosts David Campbell and Sylvia Jeffreys about Killing Heidi returning to the stage to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album Reflector. Ella looked a far cry from the heady days of Weir and Mascara dominating the charts, with the singer now sporting a much more refined look. Gone were the colourful dreadlocks and striking make-up palates and piercings Ella was known for, in favour of a classic brown shoulder length do that was augmented by bleach blonde tips. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. Brother Jesse had also swapped his once trademark bright red dreadlocks for a freshly shorn look which he kept hidden under a black fedora-style hat. Jesse admitted, however, that he's not yet ready to say goodbye to his former look just yet. 'I've got two dreadlocks left hidden away somewhere. It's not enough to make a whole wig,' he said. 'I could do one as a moustache and then the other one is a top knot.' Elsewhere in the interview, Ella admitted in the interview that working with her brother again still holds its charms. 'We love it,' she said. Jesse and I have got a creative connection and we're really good friends and I think we work really well together. 'We're a bit yin and yang - I'm the scruffy, unorganised one still, and Jesse is the organised timekeeper. It comes after Ella revealed the real meaning of her band's name during an appearance on The Project. '25 years on, who is Heidi and how is she still alive?' co-host Rove McManus asked. 'We don't talk about her!' Ella joked and then Jesse jumped in with: 'There was no particular Heidi we had in mind. We just loved that juxtaposition of words.' 'But poor old Heidi's out there. Nothing personal to Heidi, we love you all!' Ella added the band name had caused some conflict when she was at high school. There were some Heidi's who were like, "Are you talking about me?" No, no, no, it's just a name!' she said. The siblings added they would be embarking on an upcoming Australian tour in celebration of the 25th anniversary of their number one album Reflector. 'We are hitting the road to play the whole album and a few other fan favourites,' Jesse said. Ella added the tour would be very exciting because they would be performing the entire album in its track list order: 'We have never done that before!' The siblings will kick off their anniversary tour on Friday, June 20 at The Gov in Adelaide. They will then head to Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. In 1999, Killing Heidi - made up of Ella, her brother Jesse and their friends Aaron Hart on drums and Rowen Murphy on bass - stormed the Australian music charts with their hit song Mascara from their debut album Reflector. The band continued to rack up more hits with their follow up songs Superman/Supergirl and Weir, and won four ARIA Awards in 2000, including Album of the Year and Best Group.
The Guardian
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Killing Heidi are back, 25 years on: ‘Growing up in rock'n'roll gives you a shitload of grit'
In 2022, Ella and Jesse Hooper, siblings and bandmates in Australian rock band Killing Heidi, lost both of their parents in the space of two weeks. Their father, Jeremy, died first after a shock cancer diagnosis and a quick decline; a fortnight later, their mother, Helen, passed away after a long struggle with breast cancer. The grieving siblings took the weekend off, then went straight back out on to the road. 'It did remind me a bit of the early days: we would work through everything and anything,' Ella says. 'It gives you a shitload of grit: growing up in rock'n'roll and having a band to shepherd through success and post-success and trauma, then success again.' Life, in all its surprise and sorrow, has happened to the siblings from Violet Town, Victoria in the decades since they took Australian music by storm at the turn of the millennium. Gone are the dreadlocks – Jesse, now 44, removes his cap to reveal a bald head when asked if the controversial hairstyle will ever return – but their youthful spirit remains. This month, they will hit the road to play their chart-topping debut album, Reflector, in full, marking its 25th anniversary. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning For many Australians, Killing Heidi is the sound of growing up. 'It's like sunscreen, cut grass, those things that have a time recall … Are we one of those? Are we sunscreen?' Ella, 42, quips. The Hoopers were teenagers when they won Triple J's Unearthed competition in 1996. Radio veteran Myf Warhurst met them a few years later when she was starting out at the station, and immediately noticed their 'magic dust'. 'I just remember how gorgeous and delightful they were, these little country kids who were clearly bursting with talent and charisma,' Warhurst says. 'I don't know if we knew they were going to go as big as they did at that point, but you could certainly tell they were going to make something happen.' And they did. When Reflector was released in March 2000, it became the fastest-selling Australian album in history at the time. Its major singles, Weir and Mascara, were inescapable. As a preteen, I was struck by the sight of a girl not much older than me – Ella was 17 then – rocking colourful hair, piercings and a don't-care attitude. Killing Heidi was a perfect crossover act: friendly enough for mainstream radio, with an edge that appealed to the alternative crowd. For the siblings, it was all a whirlwind. 'I remember performing at the Big Day Out for the first time … When you see it in people's faces in the crowd, the sea of people going, 'this is the set we've been waiting for' – I was deeply complimented by that,' Ella recalls. 'There were other things that happened [that festival], like the Red Hot Chili Peppers mentioning us on stage … That really blew my mind. It still does, that we did that on our first album.' The nature of local success has changed since, as streaming and social media has homogenised music consumption worldwide. 'I don't know if anyone [in Australia] can be successful in quite the same way as we were – I don't often see those white-hot moments where it's just everywhere,' Ella says. 'I can't think of any that have gone through that since [the likes of] Silverchair and Jet … It was different.' Over the next few years, the Hoopers and their bandmates – drummer Adam Pedretti and bassist Warren Jenkin – released records and toured relentlessly. 'We were always looking to the next thing,' Jesse says. Then, in 2006, they suddenly disappeared. Ella and Jesse both laugh when I ask what actually happened. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion 'My thinking was, I don't actually even want any attention on this breakup, so we'll just stop and see if anyone notices – which worked remarkably well,' Ella says. 'I can't believe we got away with that.' 'We wanted it to be a quiet little break,' Jesse says. 'We'd been doing it since we were 15.' It was technically an indefinite hiatus – but, Jesse says, 'We never really spoke about when, or if, we were going to put Killing Heidi back together.' The Hoopers stayed busy in those years. They formed a new acoustic duo, The Verses. Ella began her solo music career, appeared on TV shows like Spicks and Specks and hosted radio programs. Jesse started working in music education and mentoring. In 2013, Ella proclaimed that Killing Heidi would never get back together: 'I don't think I could sing such youthful and youth-based songs convincingly any more,' she said at the time. So what's changed? 'Our stories were so teenage, so young and so connected to a version of me … When I said that in 2013 I was still probably trying to distance myself,' Ella says. 'I needed to mature, to be able to go back and put my hand on 15-year-old Ella's shoulder … I don't think you can do that just a few years out from being that age. It takes a little longer to become an adult that can hold different phases of yourself.' Killing Heidi started performing again in 2016, when they were invited to headline the Queenscliff music festival, and have played festivals almost every summer since – with no plans to record new music. Pedretti is still behind the kit, and Clio Renner (keys) and Phoebe Neilson (bass and backing vocals) add 'a lot more feminine power', Jesse says. The band was billed to play Reflector in full at Good Things festival last year, but due to technical difficulties they never got through the whole set. The upcoming tour will be the first time the record has ever been performed in its entirety. 'I had to put on the CD to remember,' Ella jokes. Playing this music together is particularly meaningful for the siblings these days – as Ella points out, they are each other's only remaining immediate family. '[The music] tells the story of our teenage times, which connects us to who we were when our family was different,' she says. 'It's very special.' The 25 Years of Reflector tour is in Adelaide 20 June, Perth 21 June, Brisbane 26 June, Sydney 27 June and Melbourne 28 June
