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Lane Kim’s band in Gilmore Girls, Hep Alien, played a major part in her character’s story throughout the entire series. The band formed in season 3 and provided a sense of individualism for the character, who had long been under Mrs. Kim’s strict rule. Read on for three things you probably didn’t know about Hep Alien.

Hep Alien had a slogan in ‘Gilmore Girls’

Acress Keiko Agena appears in front of a Gilmore Girls backdrop at an event.
Keiko Agena appears at a Netflix event promoting “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” I Jason LaVeris/ Getty

Reporting from the Gilmore Girls Fan Fest which took place in Washington Depot in October of 2016, Teen Vogue discovered some little-known facts about Hep Alien. The first was that the band members were pretty marketing-savvy (for the early 2000s, anyway). Along with routinely creating flyers for their shows and organizing a tour (albeit a church tour), Hep Alien also had a slogan. 

What that slogan was, however, no fan could say. At the end of the cast panel on Saturday, the Stars Hollow squad played a trivia game with the audience. There was just one question that stumped every superfan in attendance: What is the slogan on Hep Alien’s poster?

The answer? “We’re out there.” 

Furthering the fan frenzy, actor John Cabrera (who plays Hep Alien’s bassist, Brian) later posted an Instagram picture of the real Hep Alien band poster with the slogan at the bottom. The poster came courtesy of Dave Rygalski, husband of Gilmore Girls producer Helen Pai and inspiration for the fictional boyfriend to Lane.  

The actor who played Brian couldn’t play the bass

Speaking of Cabrera, another bit of trivia about Hep Alien was that, at the time of filming, Cabrera could not play the bass. 

“Before every episode, John would have to learn the finger formations for the songs Brian was playing, but his bass wasn’t plugged in –- someone else would always be playing off-camera.” That “someone,” (as revealed by the aforementioned Instagram post) was Rygalski as well. 

Cabrera has been learning to play bass for real, however, as he told the crowd at the 2016 Fan Fest. His inspiration arrived in the form of a brand-new autoharp he received from fellow actor Todd Lowe (who plays Zack in the series). The instrument was a wedding present after Gilmore Girls actor Sean Gunn (who plays Kirk) officiated the ceremony. 

Todd Lowe is a lot like Zack

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Gilmore Girls fans also noticed another Hep Alien secret at the festival: Lowe is basically Zack. Sporting sunglasses and giving a lot of Zack-like hair flips throughout the event, Lowe entertained fans by rocking out on his guitar just like he does with his real-life country rock band, the LA Hootenanny.

“It’s not a second skin,” Lowe told NBC (via Yahoo News) in 2020. “He’s kind of a mediocre musician, so I think Amy and Dan [Palladino] kind of picked up on my vibe on that and made him just kind of a garage rock dude playing with his friends and eventually his lady.”

Hep Alien lasts throughout the entire original series and Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, which finds Zack and Lane still rocking out with Brian and Gil. That means fans of the band have a lot of content to return to when rewatching the series. Fans might even be lucky enough to catch another spontaneous real-life reunion of Lane’s Gilmore Girls band like the one that happened at the ATX Television Festival in 2015. Because, man, they’re out there. 

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