The Hep Stars are a Swedish rock band formed in Stockholm in 1963. During 1965–1966 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 (3 November 1942 – 27 August 2006) and the bass guitarist Lennart "Lelle" Hegland (9 January 1943 – 13 April 2022) with the keyboard player Hans Östlund and the guitarist-singer Jan "Janne" Frisk (29 November 1943). At the height of their popularity, the line-up consisted of Hegland, Pettersson, Frisk, Sven Ove "Svenne" Hedlund on lead vocals (10 March 1945, Solna – 3 December 2022) 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 in written form. They started to get support gigs also closing after the headline act. A typical gig had them playing for around four hours with one set of rock.

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