Killing Heidi Biography

Killing Heidi are a rock band from Violet Town, Victoria, Australia.

The nucleus of Killing Heidi is singer/songwriter Ella Hooper and her older brother guitarist Jesse Hooper. They grew up in Violet Town, a small Victorian country town, with a population of approximately 2,000 where their parents worked as music and drama teachers.

They started jamming together at home, she started to sing while he played guitar, they played an acoustic gig together at the Violet Town Arts Festival in 1996 including a couple of songs written by Ella who was then aged 13.
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A local record studio owner offered the two some time in a studio with a couple of schoolmates as the rhythm section. They submitted these recordings in the Triple J Unearthed in 1996 and their track Kettle won the competition for their area of rural Victoria.

The name "Killing Heidi" came from the band members generating two lists; one filled with "soft" words, one with "harsh" words. Killing was chosen as the harsh, Heidi the soft.

Producer Paul Kosky who had worked with Crowded House, Rage against the machine, Kate Ceberano, and The Clouds (Australian band) was looking for a band to manage, sign to his new recording label Wah Wah Music P/L and publishing company Wah Wah Music LTD. He decided to check out a very basic live performance by Killing Heidi. He developed the band from the ground up for the next 2 years working on song writing, song structure and overall direction of the music. He became the manager of the band and arranged a contract with Roadshow Music(who had a contract with Savage Garden) for his label Wah Wah Music P/L, Killing Heidi had also acquired a new rhythm section (which Kosky sourced and introduced to Killing Heidi)with Adam Pedretti on drums and Warren Jenkin on bass. They recorded the rest of the first album in 1999.

The first single "Weir" was released in August 1999 and went top 5 at the end of 1999. The second single "Mascara" was released in December 1999 and reached the top of the Australian charts in January 2000 - it stayed at the top of the charts for four weeks. The album Reflector was released in early 2000 and debuted at #1. The third single "Superman Supergirl" also went top ten.

Reflector eventually sold 300,000 albums in Australia earning 5x platinum status and Killing Heidi won four ARIA awards in October 2000. However, the momentum halted when a cyst was found on Hooper's vocal cords and she underwent an operation in 2001. Her voice was slow to recover.

The band recorded its second album Present despite Hooper's continuing problems with her vocal cords. The second album Present wasn't as successful only going gold with 50,000 sold and failing to make the top ten of the Australian album charts. It spawned two singles - "Heavensent" which reached the top 30 in early 2002 and "Outside of Me" which reached a peak of #12 later in 2002.

Kosky left the band (not the other way around as previously published) as a result of ongoing friction about the bands new direction and behaviour. The band signed up with Chris Robinson (kosky's old financial business partner).

The band went over to Los Angeles in late 2003 to record a comeback album and rented a house in the San Fernando Valley while the album was recorded with producer John Travis. The songs were written both in Violet Town and in Los Angeles. The third self-titled album was released in late August 2004. The first single "I Am" was released on July 12, 2004 and debuted at #16 on the Australian singles charts. The song also features on the Australian version of the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack. The album was released in late 2004 and made it to #7 on the charts but fell out fast only reaching gold like the album before, a second single called "Calm Down" was released but failed to make impact. 'I am' was the only really strong song on the album.

The band are currently working on a 4th album.

KILLING HEIDI PICTURES

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KILLING HEIDI BIOGRAPHY