The Hep Stars

The Hep Stars
Hep Stars, 1967. Left to right, Pettersson, Hedlund, Andersson, Frisk, front Hegland
Background information
Origin
Genres	Beat, psychedelic rock
Years active	1963–1969
Labels	Olga
Website	thehepstars.se
Past members	Janne Frisk Lelle Hegland Christer Pettersson Hans Östlund Svenne Hedlund Benny Andersson

The Hep Stars was a Swedish rock group, formed in 1963 in . During 1965-66 the band was the most successful of contemporary 1960s Swedish pop groups performing in the English language. Outside The Nordic Countries the band is best known as a launching point for the keyboard player and composer Benny Andersson, who went on to enjoy worldwide success with ABBA.

The band was founded by the drummer Christer "Chrille" Pettersson (d.2006) and the bass guitarist Lennart "Lelle" Hegland with the keyboard player Hans Östlund and the guitarist-singer Jan "Janne" Frisk. At the height of their popularity, the line-up consisted of Hegland, Pettersson, Frisk and Sven "Svenne" Hedlund on lead vocals and Benny Andersson on keyboards.

Originally, the band called themselves Quartet Yep. Their repertoire included various styles of music from Latin-dance to rock in order to get as many gigs as possible in varying venues. Influenced mainly by Frisk, their music started to veer towards rock 'n'roll and pop. The band decided a more intriguing name was in order and on Frisk's suggestion Hep Stars was chosen. The idea came from a line in the Bill Haley song "Razzle Dazzle" - "It's the hipster's dance" - with a slight alteration on written form. They started to get support gigs also closing in after the headline act. A typical gig had them playing for around four hours with one set of rock.

Hegland called Hedlund to fill the singer's slot for Frisk who had temporarily joined a tour backing band for some extra money for a new guitar amp. The band quickly noticed Hedlund's abilities as both a singer and a frontman. On Frisk's return, they shared lead vocal for a period of time with Frisk singing the more straightforward rockers and Hedlund handling the ballads.

By summer 1964, they were performing to audiences of 2000. The rock-scene took note of them after one evening in Nalen, the most important rock club in Sweden during the 1960s. The main act failed to appear and the Hep Stars, the support act filled in to great acclaim, especially among rockers (or raggare as they were known in Sweden). Their reputation started to spread through word-of-mouth.

At this point Hegland managed to persuade the music businessman and Olga-record label owner Åke Gerhard to be their manager.

After the group's first single ("Kana Kapila", 1964) the original keyboard player, Hans Östlund, was asked to leave because of relations growing sour especially with Hedlund and founder member Pettersson, who left the band fed up with squabbles. He was asked to rejoin and the band continued as a four piece for a short time in autumn 1964.