Betrefi has been in the making ever since early 1995 when guitarist Karl (then 15 years old), bassist Dylan (15 and a half), and drummer Siggi (then 12) first met when we were in a band that lasted about three days. Ever since then we've played together in some form or another. From then until early 1999 when we actually got together to start an actual band, which was then Betrefi, we'd been jamming almost non-stop (to our neighbours dismay) in my (Karl) parents garage. Me and Dylan had been playing for some time and that was great, although we did probably suck. We wanted to do something so we spontaneously signed up for this "battle-of-the-bands" thing here called "Músíktilraunir". We got a friend of ours, Albert, to play bass and then got some girl that Dylan sort of knew to sing. We needed a name so a few friends of ours got betrefi (if you know what it means please tell us!) from a ouiji board. That was the first version of BETREFI. It didn't really go that well, but an expirience that was well required.

But enough fun... we decided to start a real band. Since Dyl coudn't play drums Siggi was an obvious choice to add to our so-called band. We went through an ordeal of singers each weirder than the next, it'll be material for a crappy eighties movie some day soon. The first was a guy called Oscar, he was in that band that lasted three days among other things, don't really wanna go into that, let's just say we didn't mix well. Then we tried out one girl who was really more into softer music, I think Siggi managed to scare her away when he lit up something totally legal in the middle of the "audition", that didn't go over too well with anybody I think, but Dyl still thinks it's funny. Alright, then there was a lesbian mansonite who went by the name of Mobus, she's the one we played with in músíktilraunir, and all in all I think I met her about three times. I think she's a stripper now. The first one after that was a guy who worked with Dylan at a pizza place (which hence shall be refered to as hizza put), he had little singing experience outside the shower but reckoned he sounded like a mix between Burton C. Bell and Phil Anselmo, as far as I'm concerned, he didn't. We played once with him but we never really heard him, think he was a bit shy. Then we finally settled on a pizza deliverer (whom also worked with Dylan) named Ásgeir.We then moved out of the garage to a practice place where we stayed for a few months. After a while there we had to move out ...for health reasons, and besides it kind of sucked when somebody smashed up our drumkit with Dyls bass. We got another practice place in the beginning of 2000 and then we decided to go to a studio so we could actually hear how we sound. We practiced and practiced, up to three or four times a month! We then went to a studio in May and recorded a 7 song demo which we dubbed DOWNER. We made about sixty copies of it and sold and distrubuted. We wrote the cd's on my parents computer and photocopied the covers at my dad's work, then we colored in the covers with crayons, that was great fun! It wasn't that good but at least we had something to call our own. Initially we were going to start playing a lot more but Ásgeir got a job in the country that summer so he only came home about once every 10 days. But the three of us kept on practising and we did play one concert in August. That was also the last time I saw Ásgeir for quite a while, seeing as he neglected to mention to us that he was moving to Los Angeles. He did tell us soon after he got there though.So back to square two. We decided to get another singer, that didn't work out to well, especially since we weren't really trying. But we kept practising more than ever and wrote more. In about October we decided to go to a studio again. In December after my exams we went and ended up setting up, recording, mixing, and so forth, 12 songs in 12 hours, which I thought was pretty economic of us. Conveniently enough Ásgeir came home for christmas and since he pretty much knew most of it anyway we practiced with him a bit and then went to the studio again and recorded the singing. Originally we weren't gonna release it at all, just something we could let friends hear and for ourselves, but in the end when we heard the recordings we were surprised with how well it sounded so we decided to release it. This one we decided to call THE FLOP SYNDROME (I would like to point out, for good cause, that nothing sexual is meant by this title). We even had a release concert with a few other bands. Ásgeir then flew back to LA the morning after.So again we were without a singer. This time we decided we needed to find a replacement, we needed to play more live, it made sense. So we tried out a few, one German guy, named Lasse, he'd never actually sung before, but he wanted to try, nice guy though. Then there was this one guy who was very dissociative, he thought he was Chino Mareno (effects and all!), he probably wasn't quite what we were looking for (he worked for another pizza place!). I remember him not liking how our songs changed so often. We then settled on yet another pizza dude (this one was a baker so we're planning on opening a pizza place if all else fails) who goes by the name of Óli (not the same one though, I'm sure). We played one concert with him in Akranes.

This pretty much brings us up to date so to speak. Any questions or comments please refer them to our e-mail

"The Flop Syndrome"

1. 15 Seconds
2. Everything is a moot point
3. A moment of Silence [mp3]
4. Sold
5. Syll Tree
6. Zero Return
7. Act Normal
8. Ode2ODy
9. Carnival

"DOWNER"

1. Sold
2. Orange
3. Act Normal
4. Ode2Ody
5. Carnival
6. UltraViolet
7. 15 sec.