![]() “It’s been a very strange time, to say the least. “I had no idea when I started making this album how things would turn out,” Ella says. Jeremy died suddenly after an unexpected cancer diagnosis, and Helen died of cancer two weeks later. The Small Town Temple story took a tragic turn before the album was released, with the passing of Ella’s parents. “They are the reason I make music and why I am who I am,” Ella explains.īut, as the classic song noted, true love travels on a gravel road. It was the first time that Ella had featured her mum and dad on one of her records, and she dedicates the album to Violet Town and her parents, “for all they taught me with their lives and their love of music”. “Violet Town has always been my inspiration,” she says, simply.Īs Ella sings: “It’s there I feel the magic.”Įlla Hooper’s eagerly awaited solo album, Small Town Temple, is a love letter to her hometown – “just a humble little mystery that keeps me going and coming on back” – as well as her family and friends.Įlla wrote the songs at her mum’s home, “a little church on the outskirts of town” – the Small Town Temple, “a place where all feel welcome”.Įlla’s mum, Helen, sings the album’s ‘Intro’, while her dad, Jeremy, closes the record, playing the alto recorder outro on ‘Long Gully Road’. And the town has always been close to Ella’s heart. One of the biggest Australian bands of the 2000s – indeed, they delivered the millennium’s first Australian chart-topper – Killing Heidi put Violet Town on the map. “I hadn’t had a boyfriend all I had to write about was my town and my surroundings, friendship and community.” “When we started the band, what did I have to draw on?” Ella reflects. It was here, in northeast Victoria, that 13-year-old Ella started Killing Heidi with her big brother, Jesse. Violet Town has always been a big part of Ella Hooper’s story. “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T.S.
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