Hooked Like Helen “Winter”

Ohio-born and based Alt-Pop duo Hooked Like Helen released their cover version of Tori Amos song ‘Winter’ on the 6th of January via Stipp Manor Music, which premiered on CelebMix. The band’s five song EP, Tragedy Of Physics, co-produced alongside Grammy award-winning mixer, engineer and producer Isha Erskine (Ziggy Marley, Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas) saw support from a plethora of tastemaker publications including The Line Of Best Fit, Clash Magazine, and Music Week.

Hooked Like Helen have recently joined the roster of premier boutique booking agency, TKO Booking (The Ataris, Filter) and are currently collaborating with several talented and well-established producers in the Music City including the multi GRAMMY award-winning, platinum-selling Skidd Mills and the brilliant Noah Henson (Pillar, Brantley Gilbert). The duo looks forward to headlining NYE Glow Party at Hotel Elkhart whilst Tour plans for Spring 2023 are currently in the works.

The music video for the angsty-beautiful piano ballad ‘Liar’ premiered on Radio Disney platforms and received a nomination for _**Best Independent Music Video **_from the esteemed Hollywood Music in Media Awards, accumulating 250K Youtube views to date. The song was included in an emotional scene in the motion picture, High Strung: Free Dance and subsequently generated a flood of streams and downloads via the film’s soundtrack. Starring Thomas Doherty (Disney’s Descendants 2 and 3), and Jane Seymour, the film was released on Netflix on May 31st, 2020 and prominently features “Liar” in an emotional, groundbreaking dance sequence choreographed by Tyce Diorio (So You Think You Can Dance, Taylor Swift’s ‘ME!’).

Hooked Like Helen is husband-and-wife duo Nikki and Jonathan Stipp, whose sound embodies a unique vein of alternative music; dark lyrical themes of unresolved trauma and existential pondering providing a refreshingly authentic perspective crafted from their home studio in the woods outside Cleveland. Their combined musical influences include artists such as Queen, Michael Jackson, Twenty One Pilots, Green Day, Tori Amos, Mariah Carey, Nirvana, and Prince whilst Nikki’s powerful vocals bring to mind artists such as Kate Bush and Ellie Goulding.

Hooked Like Helen’s** Tori Amos** cover of Winter is deeply melodic and despite Nikki’s hauntingly powerful vocals, the track has an elegant warmth to it, which allows one to engage with the track from the opening bar to the last. Nikki and Jon tell us about the inspiration behind their cover of ‘Winter’ (Tori Amos Cover),_ “When our friend/fitness instructor asked us to play “Winter” by the incomparable Tori Amos, within minutes of dissecting the first few bars of the song we quite frankly fell in love with it. We realised that it needed to become a more significant part of our musical journey and we decided to record a full-length cover of “Winter” for release to the world”._

Nikki adds, “Winter is about a girl’s relationship with a father figure who believes in her and sees greatness in her that she might not see in herself. Ironically, I did not have anyone in my life who fit that role for me as I was growing up, but I think this might be the very reason the song resonates with me on such a visceral level. Music allows us to escape, to imagine, to build castles in our minds. When I sing and play “Winter”, I am (for 4 minutes and 30 seconds) one of those girls with a dad who loves her”.

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