Herodes Falsk

Kim Bård Hansen (born 9 July 1954), better known by his stage name Herodes Falsk, is a Norwegian comedian, actor, author, and songwriter.

His career in showbusiness began at age 15 when he in late 1969 became friends with Terje Jensen, a young guitarist and songwriter also from Drammen.

The two shared a similar musical taste, listening to artists like Jethro Tull, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa and Led Zeppelin.

Jensen also played in a local rock band called Frosk, and Hansen became the band's manager and roadie.

It was during this time Kim Hansen became Herodes Falsk.

According to his autobiography, when reading a short newspaper story about Frosk in 1972, he realized that the band and its members were "too average", looking like regular long-haired boys with ordinary names, and that an image change was needed to make it in the music industry.

Thus, Terje Jensen began using the stage name Jonas Fjeld, a name he still uses today.

Hansen became Herodes Falsk, and the other bandmembers also picked eccentric stage names.

Also, the band itself changed its name to Jonas Fjeld Rock n' Rolf Band, and the bandmembers began wearing outrageous outfits on stage.

In line with this new image, Falsk would begin joining the band on stage, even though he did not sing or play any instruments, usually dancing around on stage, telling jokes or reading dirty poetry in-between songs as well as various other crazy antics.

The image change seemed to pay dividends, because in 1973 the band got a record deal, and for Falsk, who was still the band's manager, it became much easier to book concert dates.

By late 1975, the band had released three albums, but felt they weren't getting enough backing from their record company, and wanted to get fired from their contract.

To achieve this, they decided to make an album containing the absolute worst music the guys could imagine, and Falsk was given the task of producing the record, only because he had absolutely no experience in the field.

The album was named ''Endelig!

(Uff, ikke nå igjen?) (translated: At Last! (Oh no, not again?)''), was recorded in just four days, and featured JFRRB's take on protest songs, disco, football chants, Swedish dansband music, yodeling and every other genre that the band hated – and to everyone's surprise, the album became an overwhelming success, peaking at number 15 on the Norwegian national album chart, and was by far JFRRB's most successful album to date in terms of record sales.

The unexpected success of "Endelig!"

saddled JFRRB with the label of being a humor band, which was a label they did not want.

Even though JFRRB's concerts had always contained an element of comedy, Jonas Fjeld and the other members regarded themselves as serious musicians, so in order to distance themselves from the humor band label, they dropped the silly stage costumes and "Rock n' Rolf" from its name and became the Jonas Fjeld Band.

No longer required to perform clownery on stage, Falsk left the band in 1976 to pursue other projects.

After leaving Jonas Fjeld Band, Falsk hooked up with his childhood friend Tom Mathisen.

Together they wrote a collection of comedy sketches and humorous songs in the summer of 1976, and were later joined by former Popol Vuh singer Jahn Teigen whom Falsk had become friends with on the road.

Both Mathisen and Teigen were accomplished musicians, and although Falsk was no musician himself, he had in his own words become a half-decent songwriter during his years with the Jonas Fjeld Band.

Falsk, Teigen and Mathisen also shared a common sense of absurd humor, and decided to form the musical comedy group Prima Vera.

Prima Vera performed together for the first time in October 1976, and toured extensively for the next year.

Prima Vera's comedy shows contained a mix of sketches, music performed by Teigen and Mathisen, and monologues performed by Falsk.

They also became famous for their silly costumes and their trademark lime green tights which they wore at all times on stage, as well as during most of their other public appearances.

Their self-titled debut album Prima Vera was released in September 1977, and although it failed to make the charts, it sold well enough that the guys decided to make a follow-up album the next year.

One of the songs recorded for the debut album was a song called "Arne Belinda", which was a mock version of "Anna Lovinda", a song recorded several years earlier by TV host Erik Bye, with different lyrics.

However, as the song's original composer, Bye refused to allow Prima Vera the right to use the song on their album.

Annoyed by this, Falsk included "Arne Belinda" on the debut album's track list, with the line "Censored by Erik Bye" written underneath.

In-between their work with Prima Vera, Teigen also had a solo career as a more serious artist (at least compared to Prima Vera), and Falsk wrote many songs for the Teigen albums Teigen's Tivoli (1977), This Year's Loser (1978), En dags pause (1979) and Mentalkrem (1980), with the latter two albums reaching the top of the Norwegian album chart.

For their 1978 follow-up album, Brakara, Prima Vera decided to include "Arne Belinda" anyway, by slightly altering the song's melody so that Erik Bye could no longer be credited as composer.

This move gave Prima Vera much publicity ahead of the release, and with rumors of Bye going to court to have the album stopped, people flocked to the music stores to secure a copy before the album was withdrawn from the market, and to hear what the fuss was all about.

As a result, Brakara sold 130,000 copies in Norway, went platinum, and reached the top of the album chart, where it remained in the top five for 13 weeks.

In 1979, Prima Vera released their third album Salmer og sanger vi gjerne hiver, which stayed in the charts for 11 weeks, peaking at #2, only beaten by Pink Floyd's The Wall.

Prima Vera's fourth album The Best of Ebba, released in 1980, was a compilation album containing the band's greatest hits plus one new song.

Falsk is probably best known for his work with the musical comedy trio Prima Vera alongside Jahn Teigen and Tom Mathisen, and for his longtime collaboration with Mathisen after Prima Vera's breakup in 1984.

He is also often credited as Norway's first stand-up comedian.

Kim Hansen was born and grew up in Drammen.

The rumored lawsuit from Erik Bye never came, but in his 2004 autobiography Falsk credits the "Arne Belinda" debacle as the single-biggest reason Brakara topped the charts, claiming this was "the kind of publicity you couldn't buy with all the money in the world", and helped make Prima Vera a national phenomenon.