Ella Hooper builds a Small Town Temple to Violet Town and her late parents

Not only is the record a love letter to Hooper's childhood growing up in Violet Town in northern Victoria, her parents bookend the album.

Her mother Helen Keighery sung the opening Intro (VT Lullaby) taken from a home recording, while her father Jeremy Hooper played recorder on the closing track Long Gully Road.

Sadly the creation of Small Town Temple was marred by family tragedy. In February last year Jeremy died suddenly following a cancer diagnosis, and a fortnight later Helen succumbed after a long battle with cancer.

"It's definitely deepened," Hooper says of Small Town Temple's meaning in the aftermath of her parents' passing. "It's just so crazy how it all went down.

"I didn't know what was going to happen so I'm very grateful that whatever inner voice was telling me to write a record that's a love letter to home and them and my upbringing and my origin story.

"It very much involves my parents, of course, and the timing of them and it being the last thing they saw me do and helped me. Having them feature of the album themselves is so special.

"Mum literally opens the record with her singing and Dad closes it with him playing the recorder on Long Gully Road and that just feels like a very special and deep connection that I'll always have to this record.

"I plan on making a ton more records in my life but this one will definitely stand out because of their passing and also because of their contributions."

The nucleus of Small Town Temple began in 2019 when Hooper left Melbourne and returned to Violet Town to live with her mother.

It proved a timely move for the Killing Heidi frontwoman. When Melbourne's COVID lockdowns began in March 2020, Hooper enjoyed the extra freedom and space of the countryside.

"I was able to go for bushwalks," she says. "That town is always quiet so it's not much of a difference when everyone really slowed down. I used my time off the road to write and hone my craft."

Writing about her hometown isn't anything new for Hooper. Killing Heidi's first hit, Weir, was inspired by a swimming spot just outside Violet Town.

Hooper, who turns 40 this month, was 13 when she and her brother Jesse formed Killing Heidi in 1996. By 1999 the pop-rock band were national stars following the breakthrough success of Weir and the No.1 single Mascara.

Touring constantly took Hooper around Australia and overseas, so Violet Town became a quiet sanctuary to escape the madness of Killing Heidi's success.

"It was more love and impatience, than love and hate," she says of Violet Town. "Maybe because I had such an interesting life and such a busy outgoing career from such a young age, I was always happy to come home and rest because my life was getting full with trips to LA, New York and touring all over Australia 10 times over.

"The craving to come home is probably stronger in me because of that."

Since the initial split of Killing Heidi in 2006, Hooper has dabbled in a variety of projects. First she and Jesse formed folk band The Verses, before she released a solo debut, In Tongues in 2014, the EP New Magic in 2016 and a stand-alone single, To The Bone, in 2018.

While the aforementioned solo projects have explored indie and pop territory, Small Town Temple is planted firmly in the world of Americana.

Hooper has long been a fan of '70s singer-songwriter titans like Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Raitt and has also been influenced by contemporary Appalachian artist Valerie June.

"There's so much happening in that scene and I've been wanting to get back there for a while and make music that sounds like that, since The Verses really," Hooper says.

Small Town Temple, full of its warm acoustic melodies, is the strongest album Hooper's made since Killing Heidi. Despite 2022 being a year of turmoil for Hooper, she's feeling confident heading into 2023.

"I do think currently I'm feeling the most in my skin, the most comfortable in my skin and most confident in my music, but of course, it's in the context of a year [2022] that I wouldn't wish on anybody else in other ways," she says.

"So it's weird that I feel so good within myself whilst I'm also going through a really hard time. Maybe that's how it's designed."

Small Town Temple is out January 20. Ella Hooper plays Lizotte's, Newcastle (February 2); Brass Monkey, Cronulla (February 4), Archies Creek Hotel (February 12) and Brunswick Heads Picture House (February 16).