Reconciling with the past is hard when there are reminders scattered all around you. Nobody knows this better than Australian musician Ella Hooper. To a generation of fans, she will forever be the spirited young girl who rose to fame in the late ’90s as the lead singer of rock band Killing Heidi.

By 2000, at just 17, she’d already made the cover of Rolling Stone Australia. It was an era when bands could get noticed on community radio stations and go on to become certified rock stars. For Killing Heidi, it culminated in their debut album, Reflector, soaring to the top of the ARIA charts.

That meteoric rise coincided with a legendary spot on the Big Day Out festival line-up, also in 2000, where headliners the Red Hot Chili Peppers famously declared to their sweaty, adoring fans that they wanted to meet Ella Hooper backstage. Little did they know she was in the mosh pit with her friends.

Hooper shot to fame alongside her brother Jesse, two years her senior. That brief period has defined the rest of their lives, and it’s taken Hooper many years to make peace with it. The dreadlocks, bandeau top and tight pants she sported in the early 2000s create less internal cringe these days as she’s learnt to look more kindly on those images of her past.

Now 43, Hooper has traded rock posturing for rootsy Americana and is considering relocating to Nashville to give her boot-scooting passion a rightful crack. “The bombshell is I was never a rocker,” says Hooper, “so returning to country music makes absolute sense. I’ve listened to country since I was about 15.”

Now, following the death of both her parents, Hooper has allowed herself space to grieve and is leaving no stone unturned in a mission to land where she feels most at home.

She has no regrets about the 2000s either. “I absolutely loved being in a rock band. It shaped me, but song-wise it’s never been a genre I gravitate towards. I’m not claiming to be the world’s most authentic Americana singer, but it’s a genre that fits like a glove for me.”

Indeed, it was the songs of American “highway women” such as Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams that inspired her to sing in the first place.

Born and raised in regional Victoria’s Violet Town, population 950, Hooper went from a quiet country life to stardom rather quickly thanks to a song, Kettle, she wrote in the mid-’90s. It was noticed by Triple J, which in turn led to a major label deal. (Her life at Benalla High School is forever marked by the day she was taking the school bus home when Killing Heidi’s hit song Weir came on the radio, to much applause.)

Her father, Jeremy, loved English literature and listened to Bob Dylan and Neil Young, igniting a love of language. He also owned a huge vinyl collection that laid the foundations of his daughter’s tastes, while mum Helen’s record collection was filled with Buffy Sainte-Marie and Eva Cassidy.

“The music that had the biggest impact on me was American singer-songwriter Iris DeMent,” says Hooper of those formative years. “Every song of hers is etched in my soul. She is the most underrated writer in the world – I put her up there with Bob Dylan.”

But starting Killing Heidi with brother Jesse, and the almost instant stardom that came with it, meant hitting pause on her dream of being a country music artist. “I often really struggled with the fame that came my way,” she admits. “I didn’t even have my periods when the band started. I was literally a child. The music was of its time – a sound that was a cultural moment. It was never meant to be an ongoing legacy, musically speaking, but it became that.”

When Killing Heidi came to an end in 2006, Hooper needed to take a step back. When she released her debut solo album, In Tongues, in 2014, it was the first time she’d written songs without her brother. But it was still essentially a rock record. Hooper’s watershed moment came during a wellness retreat in Lombok with her mother in 2017.

“I was at a point in my career where I wasn’t really doing anything and didn’t have much money,” she says. “I was trying to get into hosting work on radio and TV, but chose the worst back-up career – it was just as dicey. There are a lot of tightly held positions in Australian media and not many openings. I wasn’t exactly having an easy time in my career, but I had this itch to do something.

“Mum and I booked a yoga retreat and did lots of meditation, but while I was walking along the beach, a copy of Rolling Stone magazine washed up. Dubbed the ‘Nashville Special Edition’, it was a real smack-you-in-the-face moment. I grabbed it. The magazine was still readable and I hugged it and thought, ‘Why not? This is what I am meant to be doing.’”

A trip to the US followed, with all highways leading to Nashville. A subsequent performance spot at Americanafest confirmed to Hooper that she was at her happiest among other country music lovers, and she returned to its stages on and off as often as she could until COVID-19 hit.

I got through it by working non-stop. I am not very good at stopping and feeling all of my emotions.Ella Hooper

Then came Hooper’s second solo album, Small Town Temple, written in Violet Town in 2020-21. It featured her parents on some tracks and gave her a chance to push against the grain and settle into the haystack. After its release in 2023, the album was nominated for an Australian Music Prize and also made it to No. 1 on the local country music charts.

Sadly, however, that came after the “worst year” of Hooper’s life; she lost her mother to breast cancer in early January 2022 and her father had died just a couple of weeks earlier. “Losing my parents was hard, is still hard,” she says. “Mum got sick, then Dad got sick.

“I hate to admit it, but I got through it by working non-stop. I am not very good at stopping and feeling all of my emotions. I’m a workaholic. I haven’t gone to drink or drugs, but I went into overdrive with work to keep me on track.”

She also realised it was what she had to do. “If I want this next chapter of my career to work, I have to give it my all. I feel blessed that I had my parents always behind me on this journey.”

Her new album, Overnight Success, made in Nashville last year, features a who’s who of the city’s players, including Sheryl Crow’s drummer Fred Eltringham and Linda Ronstadt’s pedal steel player Dan Dugmore.

“This may sound self-involved or a little callous, but I’ve never actually done what I want to do until now,” she says. “I’ve always taken the long way around to make people feel comfortable, from managers and record companies to, I hate to say it, band and family members. I was always doing what they wanted, and now I am going for it.”

After moving between rentals six times around North Melbourne, she has finally found home in Kensington. Back in Violet Town, the childhood home is up for sale but her bond with brother Jesse remains her anchor. “Jesse is one of my best friends, my rock. We don’t always see eye to eye, but growing up in the country meant we bonded over isolation – we were the last house on a dirt road. Jesse’s a father, a nurturer, and we still have Killing Heidi on the back burner for the occasional trip down memory lane.”

Emerging from a long-term relationship has also spurred a shift in Hooper as she’s come to realise how much she counts on her female friends to help her through hard times. “I didn’t get to university because I was so busy with Killing Heidi, but I am lucky to have this sorority around me. I had a pretty major break-up in the last two years and girlfriends – you need them. I always attribute solid friendships and community to the reason I’m semi-sane on a good day.”

As for the mood of her new single, I Got Eyes (On You), Hooper is definitely heartbroken but walking out with her head high. “I had a bit of a problem with people-pleasing and needing to be liked by everybody for a great chunk of my life,” she reflects. “Writing this album has been a huge relief for me on so many levels. I was always apologising for my success and opportunities and I caught myself being a bit of a shrinker – the sort of person who always said, ‘Oh no, you go first.’ I had a mantra: ‘I couldn’t possibly take another opportunity because I’ve had so many.’

“Then I realised that’s not right either. It’s not about going slower or being smaller to make sure you’re not getting in anyone’s way. It’s about playing your natural game. Anything that doesn’t fit that matrix, I’ve rejigged. And in some cases, relationships have ended.”

Overnight Success is out October 2. Ella Hooper will be touring in October.

**Styling: Nadene Duncan. Hair and make-up: Mikele Simone. Fashion assistants: Gee Gee Ferguson; Sofie Pye. Stockists: Route 66; Shona Joy; Zara. **