Helium was an American indie rock band formed in Boston, Massachusetts during the summer of 1992 and disbanded in 1998.

Under the original moniker of Chupa, the band’s founding members were Mary Lou Lord (vocals, guitar), Juliana Hatfield’s brother Jason (guitar), Shawn King Devlin (drums) and Brian Dunton (bass, vocals). Devlin and Dunton were both also in the band Dumptruck before Chupa formed in 1991.

In 1992 Jason Hatfield pulled in Mary Timony (formerly of the band Autoclave) who had recently moved from Washington DC to Boston. Timony replaced Mary Lou Lord on vocals and guitar (later she also played piano/keyboards) , as Lord wanted to follow her acoustic roots and was reluctant to use electric instrumentation.

Hatfield jumped ship himself and moved to Portland, where he met up with some of the locals who eventually took the shape of Star Hustler. Following Lord’s and Hatfield’s departure, the remaining members changed the band’s name to Helium and recorded their first single, “The American Jean” in 1992.

In 1994/95, Brian Dunton left the band and Polvo guitarist Ash Bowie, boyfriend of Mary Timony at the time, joined on bass.

In 1996, Kendall Jane Meade played keyboards on Helium’s UK tour.

In early 1998, ‘Helium’ toured the United States and disbanded shortly thereafter.