'It’s So Liberating To Care Less And Less About What People Think Of You'

Ella Hooper’s at the tail end of a cold, but instead of resting she’s busy promoting her first solo album, In Tongues, and preparing for launch gigs. She has a rehearsal with her band later – the first she’s ever been the boss of. “It’s always been a democracy in The Verses and Killing Heidi before that and my other band, StillWife. But this one, it’s like, ‘No, actually I’d like you to hold that note for just three seconds longer,’” Hooper grins. “It’s taken me a long time to really realise and own that I know what’s best for my songs… It feels great!”

There were a few hurdles during the making and independent release of In Tongues; Hooper struggled to find the right sound (“I’ve had a lot of slick productions in my musical history and I’m just over it. I wanna make records that sound quite raw right now,”), and kept losing momentum between gigs and single releases. The insight she gained into the other side of the music industry though her work on TV and radio both scared and empowered her – seeing how harsh the industry could be was a reality check.

"I’ve had a lot of slick productions in my musical history and I’m just over it."

Hooper also experienced penny drop moments in writing In Tongues, an intensely personal album that explores the theme of possession – but not solely in the sense of someone possessing another. “I love that theme because it relates to the personal, the sexual, the metaphysical, the social… it’s such a rich field to plunder. And it was on my mind a lot, because as I get older, it’s so liberating to care less and less about what people think of you!” Hooper laughs.

“I’m actually loving growing up… going into my late 20s, early 30s. It’s a very challenging time because you have to let go of some ideas about yourself and you get to choose what to keep and what to work on. So for me, the possession, it’s definitely a relationship undercurrent. It’s a bit of a break-up record – learning what I deserve, learning what I want and how to ask for it. In the past I’ve been a little bit obsessional with relationships; I get so into them that they take over everything and I actually feel like I’ve got nothing left of me at the end of them. I’m just like, ‘Who am I? Have I been my full self?’ And I often find that no, I haven’t been, because I’ve been obsessed or possessed by this construct of the love or the relationship. I’ve just had huge realisations about that lately and that all comes out on the record.”  

There were times when things got so backlogged Hooper “lost the vibe”, but now that everything she’s worked so hard for in the last two years is coming to fruition, she’s rekindled her romance with the album. “It comes from when I wasn’t feeling so great. It comes from when I was working this stuff out. And now I’m just like ‘I’m on fire! I’m ready to sing it out there!’ It feels like a long time coming.”