INTERVIEW | ELLA HOOPER| 14.04.17.

Killing Heidi- Embracing Creative Continuum 

“Will you make it till the end, through all the twists and bends? Will you fulfil your dreams? It's not as easy as it seems.” Killing Heidi, ‘Weir’.

In the midst of Killing Heidi’s 20th anniversary tour, Ella Hooper sits down to chat with Amanda Van Elk about re-visiting teenage angst and witnessing the intersection of her past, present and future creative selves.

A: As siblings, you and Jesse still seem to have a whole lot of fun on stage together. With Killing Heidi now touring to celebrate your 20 year anniversary, have you noticed that dynamic shift in the band as you’ve grown both personally and musically? 

E: They dynamic has definitely shifted around over the years. It’s gone up down and sideways but it’s currently in a really good spot. I think that’s due to having a break and due to letting each other grow as individuals. It’s also about learning new skills that we can bring back to the band. It feels like we’re enriching each other again you know, we’re always a good team Jessie and I and we build good teams around us. But you sometimes need to separate to learn more, to bring more back to the team and that’s how it feels right now. 

A: On launching the Killing Heidi celebration tour you’ve joked a bit about embracing the teen angst in your writing from 20 years ago. Has your songwriting inspiration changed much over the years? Is angst still a relevant catalyst for your songwriting?

E: Yes. It’s very, very much still relevant to me. I don’t know whether I find angst or it finds me. I mean I don’t even feel that angsty. I don’t think I embody it as my general vibe but it certainly comes out in my writing. Maybe that’s why I’m quite cheery and relaxed generally; because my artistic works are quite full of energy. Not always angst… but yes, a fair bit of it. 

A: Speaking of teen angst, can you tell us about a teen anthem you loved 20 years ago that still resonates just as much for you today?

E: Oh my god everything by Smashing Pumpkins. Well you know ‘Siamese Dream’ is probably my favourite Smashing Pumpkins record but it’s not the most angsty. I think ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ is the ultimate angst bible, I got so much out of it. And of course Bullet with Butterfly Wings is incredibly angsty but I love the song Bodies, which is probably a bit more sad than angsty but just the brassy tone of Billy Corgan alone screams angst. 

A: Have there been any particularly special moments over the past 20 years where you’ve realised you were living out one of your own aspirational teenage dreams? Moments where you caught yourself and thought “Wow, I wanted to do embody this and I now I AM that.” ?

E: Yeah I have been lucky enough to have a few of those moments but they’re probably not the ones you would expect. It’s not playing to the huge crowd or y’know, being on the cover of any certain magazine and although those things are to be respected, they are to be appreciated, the moments that really resonate for me are when you meet certain people who you really respect and you see the respect in their eyes. That is just the teenager in me….it’s often not the most famous people either, it’s just people that I know wrote so- and- so song, or I might have listened to their song on the bus growing up and thought “What if I ever got to meet them?” So many times I have got to meet those exact people and I look back now and it’s almost like I having a conversation with 13 year old Ella. I say “Hey! Look! You were right! Isn’t that weird!” Or you were wondering “Imagine if I ever got to meet Dan Warner from the Warner brothers who wrote all these beautiful songs that I grew up listening to?” And then he becomes a friend! 15, 20 years later, he’s a mate! 

A: It must be quite an emotional process revising, touring and embracing an album you wrote 20 years ago. Do you think this will be a continuous cycle in your creative life? I mean touring aside, when you’re 60 do you think you’ll one day revisit and reflect upon the music you’re writing now in your 30’s as a kind of way of coming to terms with the different creative chapters of growth in your life?

E: That’s a really interesting question, nobody’s asked it and I haven’t even thought about that before. But I think that would be a cool thing. It’s kind of now that I’ve done it once, embracing a past cycle and looking at what it means, 20 years or 15 years on, I think it would be tempting to do that again with different material, to look at it through the lens of so much time passing. And I’ve been thinking a lot about future, past, present and where they all converge and how much they are all related. They’re so much more related than we perhaps think. They’re not so separate, everything’s on a continuum, everything's touching right now, so I’d love to do it again when I’m 60. 

A: I’m sensing a lot of excitement from the locals around your upcoming tour to Hobart at the Goods Shed on May 6th- it’s promising to be a big one! Are you putting together a little bucket list of things you’d like to do in Tassie?

E: I always do and I would like to very much like to hit the Salamanca Market- it’s been ages. I’ll be catching up with friends because I have a few dear friends in Tassie…it’s a really nice chance to see them and catch up. Another friend who’s moved to the mainland is coming back too and she’s gonna give me her own little guided tour. I was also just planning on getting as much good quality Tassie cheese, wine and butter in to me as I can.

Killing Heidi play Hobart’s The Goods Shed on May 6th, supported by The Paper Souls and The Surreal Estate Agents. Tickets from moshtix.com.au.

-Amanda Laver