Personal Trainer - Exercises in Style

On the occasion of a pair of Italian dates by Personal Trainer, who passed through Milan and Bologna to present their second album, "Still Willing", we met up and had a chat with Willem Smit, frontman and main founder of the Dutch indie-rock/pop DIY collective, backstage at Covo Club. The recurring theme underpinning the conversation turns out to be the live dimension, where everything takes shape unexpectedly and almost playfully, like a collage. In the little room with us, wrapped in a relaxed, almost homely atmosphere, are also guitarist Franti Maresova, sitting on a small sofa and busy knitting, and percussionist Kilian Kayser.

Hi Willem, let's start with an icebreaker. How are you, and how's the tour going?

Willem: I'm doing pretty well. Actually we've only just started, this is our third night now. We've had some great moments. Our first show got cancelled, but we managed to get a replacement gig. Some people asked us to play at their place. So we ended up playing in someone's living room, which was pretty exciting. And yesterday we had our first real show in Milan, it was truly amazing.

Can you tell us the story behind your band? I've read that there have been many lineup changes, but now things are settling down.

Willem: Yes, of course. Actually, it all started simply with me writing and composing songs, and then asking different people each time to join in whenever I had to play live. But after a year or two we got organized into a band. And then it settled into this proper band. And now there are seven of us... So many, too many people.

"Still Willing" is your second album and the first for Bella Union. How did you end up signing with the label?

Willem: We were looking for a label, because we put out our first record ourselves, and it was really interesting and fun to try and do, but for us it was also interesting to reach more people, and so to find a label that would be willing to put out a record of ours. We went to Austin, Texas, to play at the South by Southwest festival, and Simon (Raymonde) from Bella Union wanted to meet us... We said, "OK, let's have this breakfast together." And then he came to every show we played: we played at least six times, and he was there every day, right at the front among the crowd, and he was really enthusiastic about it. So we thought, "Wow, this is really great!" I also found out he'd been in a band called Cocteau Twins. From then on we started talking about signing with the label, and then we did, after a while.

What are your main musical influences and how do they shape your sound?

Willem: I think for me one of the main factors is that when I was in high school I listened to a lot of indie-rock from the late Eighties/early Nineties. And a lot of music that recalled the bands of that period. Artists like My Bloody Valentine, Yo La Tengo and Pixies. Bands like that. Governor are another example. And that's something I think will always be part of my musical DNA. So it'll always be there somewhere, but then later on I also started listening to more pop, funk and hip-hop music. And I really like trying really different things. Like: "Oh, let's make an R&B song now." And then it never actually turns into a real R&B song, because that's just not how I'm made. [laughs] But yeah, I like borrowing bits from a lot of different music.

Kilian: I think it's really funny, because William deliberately tries to make an R&B song or something like that. But in the end people always say: "Oh, it's like some kind of improvised indie-rock with guitar." [laughs]

The initial idea was to record the album as if you were playing live, but then you changed your mind. Why? And are you happy with the choice you made?

Willem: Yes, I changed it because we'd also made the first record ("Big Love Blanket") the way we made this one: it was just me and a guy named Casper van der Lans. At first I told myself: "Let's all get together in the studio and play live, capture that kind of energy," because I really love playing live with these guys. But afterwards I felt we'd built up a lot of experience working together with Casper, and we found this way of communicating about the music and taking our formula in the direction we want to go. So I thought I should do it with him again. Because it feels, especially now that we've just made the other records, like we can simply start a piece of work and see it through, keeping it as spontaneous as it sounds. I'm still happy with that decision. I'd still like to record a fully live album, and I'd also like to make another record either like this one or completely different. But at that moment it felt like the right call.

Speaking of the importance of the live dimension. I read that you played nonstop for twenty-four hours at Paradiso Amsterdam in 2021...

Willem, Kilian and Franti: [start laughing]

That's insane. Did you also improvise, or just repeat your songs?

Willem: At the time we only had about ten songs or so, so we decided to only play those ten, and then we grabbed a lot of different kinds of instruments. So we could play the ten songs again, but in a completely different way: we wanted to switch instruments and do weird versions. We made a rough plan of how we wanted to do it and gave the various parts titles. For example, one of these sections was called "The Rhythm Of The Night," in which we only played with rhythms, bass, synthesizers and stuff like that. And then another time we'd perform semi-acoustic, or there'd only be two people on stage, or everyone would be up there...

Kilian: I liked the idea of having, roughly every seven hours, once an hour, a moment where someone could take a longer break to go to the bathroom, grab a bite to eat or something like that. But I think in the end everyone was so excited by the sound of whatever else was happening that they wanted to join in. I don't think Willem ever took a break longer than five minutes. Probably also because he didn't like it when it was us singing the songs... [laughs]

Willem: [laughs] Oh, I love it! I really love it.

“Round” is one of your catchiest and most beloved tracks. How did it come about?

Willem: It's a funny story. I discovered pretty late in the songwriting process that it sounds a lot like a track by another band called Bodega. We even get compared to them sometimes, which makes me feel a bit silly because, in my opinion, I unconsciously stole it. So I sent them a message and asked if it was all okay, and they were really nice about it. But honestly, that's how it originated, I think. I was just messing around and I think I wrote it in five or ten minutes or something like that. But probably just unconsciously, I picked up a lot of sounds from that song, like the rhythm or something. It's a completely different song, but in my head it sounds very similar.

There's one track that intrigues me more than the others: “Upper Ferntree Gully”. Tell me more about it.

Willem: I'm pretty happy with this song, I like it. “Upper Ferntree Gully” is the longest one we've ever made. I wanted the record to start in a way that felt a bit above things, like you were sitting on a train or something, watching everything go by from behind the window. Lyrically I never really think about specific themes, but underneath there seems to be a lot to do with reproduction, with children and people spreading across the Earth. Some of that ends up in the lyrics, but it's always a bit strange and ironic. I like that track because I had to compartmentalize everything: I'd work on one part of the song for a month, then on another part for another month, and then go back and forth between the sections and glue them together.

Is there an artist or band you'd like to collaborate with in the future?

Willem: Yes, definitely. I'm about to send something to a guy called Wesley (Fransen). He's a rapper from Leiden (Netherlands), going under the moniker Keenan Mundane. He's my favourite rapper in the Netherlands. I've got the structure of a song I'd really like to send him, but I still haven't found the nerve to actually send it; I'll do it right after this tour.

When you make a record, you're mainly the one calling the shots. With a stable line-up, would you consider making something more collaborative in the future?

Willem: Yes, that would be really fun. That's what I used to do in bands before this one, most of the time, actually. Up until now, it's been interesting being the main person really making the decisions for everything that's happened. But I'd like to try some alternative paths too.

Ok, I think that's everything. Thank you so much for your time Willem, see you later!

Willem: Thank you so much, Martina, see you at the show!

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