Three years since reforming Killing Heidi after a decade-long hiatus, Ella Hooper's musical reunion with brother Jesse has been "really, truly wonderful".
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"Much, much better than when we left off, if you know what I mean, we really needed a break," she said.
"Now we're just kind of loving it again, appreciating every opportunity for what it is and remembering to smell the roses."
Started in 1996 by the teenage Hoopers growing up in Violet Town, Killing Heidi will join Hunters & Collectors and a host of Australian bands for the Red Hot Summer Tour in Wodonga next March.
Hooper said fans could be sure of hearing their favourite hits.
"That is totally what we're about, delivering the songs that they know and love and doing them the best they've ever heard them," she said.
"We're better at what we do now, we are better musicians, we never stopped playing music.
"We've got that advantage of 10 more years' experience and 10 more years of singing and performing, so it feels like a very polished, fun, rock show."
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Only 13 years old when the band formed, Hooper remained grateful her parents supported their children's musical dreams.
"I'm just so glad it paid off and I got to prove them right for everybody else who might have been looking at them and going, 'Are you crazy letting your kids go to America at 13 and 15' or whatever," she said with a laugh.
"At least they get to go, 'Ha, ha, told you so'. I think it was a bit different to most people's adolescence but it was the one I wanted."
In 2000 Killing Heidi released debut album Reflector, which included successful singles like Weir and Mascara and won the band four ARIA awards.
"That was the peak year for us, that was the year when everything really clicked and happened," Hooper said.
The 2020 Red Hot Summer Tour will be part of the band's 20th anniversary celebrations of that special time.
Although the Hooper siblings worked well together, the pressures of band life began to build.
"(It was) totally consuming, unhealthily so, which is pretty much half the reason we gave it away," the singer said.
Given her solo career and media commitments, Hooper did not think Killing Heidi's reunion would necessarily be full-time and forever.
"It's still got a feeling like, catch it while you can," she said.
- Tickets for Red Hot Summer Tour go on sale Thursday, August 8, from 9am
