A Session with Personal Trainer
Personal Trainer’s music explodes with energy, liveliness and humour right from gritty chord number one. Hailing from Amsterdam, this 8-piece (in its current line-up) keeps the pace up with groove-based hitters, woozy harmonies and abstract lyrics that perfectly translate the fun they’re having into melodic form. Releasing their debut EP Gazebo via Holm Front Records earlier this year, the raucousness and punch of the Dutch outfit’s music fits perfectly with the label’s existing roster of utter brilliance featuring Walt Disco, Sports Team & Ugly to name a few.
Unsurprisingly, the band represents this exuberance in the flesh too. A couple of weeks ago, we met the lovely lot before their show at Village Underground in Shoreditch for some bagels and a moonlit photoshoot. The creative direction you see below is all Personal Trainer – we put them in front of some graffiti’d walls, held up a camera, and they ran with it to the best outcome we could imagine. This isn’t surprising since the band strongly follow a DIY ethos – Personal Trainer are musicians, producers, directors, videographers and visual artists, which is just a further testament to their immense creativity. Just watch the video to their single ‘Fiddlefunk’ - simple, effective, genius. We sure enjoyed it, we think they enjoyed it, and we hope you enjoy it. Introducing: Personal Trainer.
Thanks so much for taking the time to chat to us! First off, could you please introduce yourselves…
Hi! This is Willem from Personal Trainer. Thanks for having us. I met all other Personal Trainer members by playing a lot of shows. Mostly in Amsterdam.
What’s the first song you listen to this morning?
Damaged Goods by Gang Of Four. I’m currently touring as a stand in guitarist for Pip Blom and it was the first one that came on our shared playlist today in Newport. I quite like them, but have never been a huge fan. I think Casper, who mixed all our stuff up until this point, mentioned buying that record a couple of months ago and really digging it! I think we actually played Damaged Goods while DJ-ing on a Subroutine night in Paradiso with Global Charming and Apneu. Subroutine is a cool Dutch label. They released our third 7” Issue Box/Edible Plastic/The Industry, which is our only physical release that hasn’t sold out yet.
You recently released ‘Fiddlefunk’ – the latest single off your EP ‘Gazebo’ – how did you decide on which song will be the single?
We had two songs left we hadn’t released with a video. We needed some new content to promote our tours and figured we could make a little video! We might actually make another video for the last song on Gazebo, The Loozer, too.
How would you describe the concept of ‘Fiddlefunk’ to a common punter like myself?
1: The song is a bit like something I would have made about ten years ago, when I started playing in bands.
2: Lyrically its a bit all over the place and I haven’t quite figured out what it’s about for myself yet, but I like the idea of trying to remember how many steps it takes you to go to your go-to grocery store - I think I pronounce “Lidl” a bit different than English folk would - and I like yelling “you’re playing the funk!” with my mates.
3: The video is a bit silly, but I really like it! Percussion player/driver/CFO Kilian Kayser and I filmed it in a rehearsal space in Amsterdam. We had come up with the idea to film everyone in front of something green so we could put them on the same flat background (I had been wanting to make press pictures like that for a while). I edited it with my friend Abel Tuinstra (also known as Abel Naturlich).
The music video is fantastic – how do you arrive at the idea for a music video from your songs?
Most of the time it’s a silly idea, like having all of us play music without our instruments, then try to make something we think looks cool out of it.
The YouTube video for Fiddlefunk says in the credits ‘music, performance, camera, edit’ all by Personal Trainer – it seems like the DIY ethos runs through your work, with you also partially recording Gazebo in your bedroom studio. Why is this important to you?
It’s mostly important to us because it saves us money. Also, I like the idea of having all your output coming from one source. It immediately gives it some sort of coherence. I would love to leave stuff to experienced artists (like we did for our video for ‘Crops’ which was made by students of the HKU), but I guess we don’t have the money to do stuff like that all the time.
Am I right to think that members come and go through Personal Trainer and it’s kind of like a collective spirit?
For live shows we used to have a lot of comers and goers, but we’ve pretty much settled on a band now with a slight functional change here and there to make things work out logistically. Most of the recording I do myself and I finish recordings and mixing with Casper van der Lans, who often plays bass live. I sometimes ask someone to play drums or add some backing vocals. So in ‘studio’ there’s not a huge collective spirit going on. I would love to make something with more people involved throughout the process in the future though.
How does this translate to song writing and arrangements? Is there someone who’s at the centre of all this?
I write the songs! The lyrics are a bit of a mess. I mostly try and find some word-groove while making the songs, then chip away all of the really awful stuff until I’m not super embarrassed. I think the lyrics are a bit abstract, which I like!
You’re embarking on an autumn tour - are you working with a core arrangement of members?
We have built up a pretty set group of trainers now. We have just played a couple of shows in Belgium, France and the UK with a new member, Otto de Jong, who’s in a great band called A Fungus. I think in November it’s gonna be raining regular trainers.
Have you toured before?
I’ve toured a couple of times with my former band Canshaker Pi. We’ve played a bunch of shows with Personal Trainer, but The Netherlands are a bit too small to call a bunch of shows in a row a tour, since you can easily drive back home after every show. We’ve done one very nice tour with our friends from Pip Blom. It was really nice to join them and play in front of big sold out rooms. Would recommend.
What’s the key to a good performance?
I don’t think there is one! What I like about good Personal Trainer performances is that there’s a bit of nonsense and a bit of sincerity. And a lot going on on stage!
What spirit animal do you channel on stage?
The lion.
What would be on your dream rider?
Espresso Martini.
What’s next for Personal Trainer?
Where working on an album - it’s gonna be super poppy I think. We’re playing a bunch of UK shows in November. Find a show near you and buy your tickets on our gross website.
You’ve just comeback from a raucous night out – what are you listening to on the Last Bus home?
Ice Cream Man by The Modern Lovers.
