Inferno debut gig at The Eskilstunas music festival 1974		 History. Heartbreak was born in 1974 for a free festival in our hometown of Eskilstuna. We called ourself Inferno then. The band was influenced by The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed (The solo stuff). Inferno had a few line-ups but disbanded. And a new start was sparked by the debut album by four misfits from New York, The Ramones. We wanted to write short fast och rocking songs, so we formed Heartbreak Hotel, and rehersed like madmen, we also did one or two odd gigs, at one gig we performed in black garbage bags. In 1977 we met an Englishman, Danny Malone at a Lou Reed concert, Danny asked us if we were rockstars...and we answered - Of course!
He became our manager and got us a contract with Swedens biggest independent record company.
Ola Håkansson (famous in Sweden, and parts of the world, as a member of Secret Service and Ola & the Janglers) was our producer on our first single "Ride in the city"/"Hallo Baby" which was realesed in late 1978. The single also made it to the top of the European Radio chart (in early -79). The songs from the single were also included on a compilation album called Swedish Tracks -79 with other swedish new wave acts like, Hangover, Madhouse and Snowstorm.

We were supposed to cut an album (Musik för brustna hjärtan/Music for broken hearts) for Sonet (the record company) but Ola Håkansson wanted us to start writing Swedish lyrics for our new songs. So we re-wrote some of the old songs and a few new ones, but nothing happened. And we kinda lost the spark...
In the summer of -79 our lead guitarist Jan O´Boogie left the band. As a repacement Micke Byström stepped in. We also brought back Micke Börstell on keybords, Micke was a regular guest musician in our Inferno days. We secured a new record deal with Wave, a new formed label. Our first single Stand-In, became "record of the week" in the two biggest newspapers here in Sweden.

The debut album was released in march of 1980 (I hetaste laget/ Some like it hot) and was followed, a couple of month later, by a brand new(!) summer single Jag är inte kär/I am not in love. We toured the whole summer in the Swedish Folkparks... this was the heydays of The Swedish POPGROUPS! (NOTE: You have to remember that Per Gessle of the Roxette fame had the popgroup Gyllene Tider at that time, and they were HUGE, so there was this wave of Swedish popgroups sweeping through the country)
Take a look at the Pictures it displays a lot of pictures from that summer tour, many of them taken by our roadie Mats Lantz.

Later that year we made our first TV appearances in the weekly "Mandagsborsen". We played two songs, Gor va´ru vill (Do what you want) and Mode Modern (Modern Fashion) from our then just released album "Ung och gjord av glas" (Young and made of glass) . So in one year, between gigs and tours, we cut two albums, kinda hectic. But let´s not forget that we recorded the first album in just 3 days..

TV was of course THE big break for us, but let´s not forget that we did three live-radioshows for the Swedish National Radio SR. The first back in -78, when the band still was Heartbreak Hotel and included Jan O Boogie. The show was called "Tonkraft" and basically it was 55 minutes of live music played live in the studio (for an audience) by one or two bands. In 1980 we were back for our second "Tonkraft" session. And we did another "live performance" radio show called "Onsdagsbiten" the same year.

We continued to tour and for our 3rd album WOW! we got a major record deal with EMI. So we were set to make the big break...
The first single "Min tjej viker ut sig i Fibban" (My girlfriend is the centerfold of Playboy) was that years best “Would have been no. 1”(!?) but wasn´t...

In the spring of 83 almost all of the school of ´79 have disbanded. Pop wasn’t the big thing anymore...so we thought we call it a day.
Hanoi Rocks made 2 covers of Heartbreak songs. Vill ha dig (I want you) and Rock´n rollband. I want you made it on a couple of Hanoi Rocks albums and even as a movie soundtrack (Long hot summer).

And now Hanoi Rocks are back together again. BUT so are we. Well we´re back with this web-site anyway, to spread our music around the globe. So download the MP3s listen and enjoy..you know pop music is supposed to make you get that feeling of an eternal summer. And that’s the sound of Heartbreak.

As a final note: From time to time we actually do a one off gig to celebrate the band. Last time was back in 2000, so one never knows when the next re-union gig will be.

Peter Fatale-2002