Introduction
Today we have another interview with a band playing this years Orange Blossom Special Festival! Personal Trainer are a Dutch Six-piece that churn out infectiously fun indie rock tunes with a pop edge!
Interview
The first question I have is was any of the band members actually personal trainers in a prior/current profession? Also why was this selected to be the band’s name?
No one in the band was a Personal Trainer before joining this band. We do have a handful of personal trainers come to our shows over the years.
I picked the name because I thought it sounded cool. Probably because it’s a term word we don’t translate in Dutch. Being an English word in Dutch sentences ups your street cred I think, it immediately has a Hollywood ring to it. I don’t know.
We noticed that there are Six of you in the band! I think it would be great if you could let people know who you all are and what roles you all take up?
Leon Harms joined the band as our guitar player about two three years ago, he plays drums now. He is also in the great band Real Farmer.
Ruben van Weegberg is our bass player. He released music under the Private Banking moniker before. We’ve been in bands together since we were 14.
Franti Mares is our guitar player. She put out music as “Bettie Jackhammer” is the past. I knew her from an Amsterdam band called Fuz.
Abel Tuinstra plays piano. He releases music as “Abel Naturlich”! Check it out.
Mart Boumans plays sax and guitar with us, he also makes music with a lot of people and is planning on making a record of his own but I don’t think he’s decided on a name for that.
My name is Willem and I started the band and make the records with my friend Casper van der Lans. I sing in the band.
I believe you’re the first Dutch band I have had the pleasure of interviewing. Can you let us know of any local bands past or current that you think we should check out?
All of the above!
Your debut album “Big Love Blanket” was released in 2022. First of all where can we get one of these big love blankets they sound comfy! But we really want to know what song from the record do you think is an unsung hero? That one track you think deserves more attention.
We still have a few Big Love Blanket records for sale at shows and on bandcamp and stuff. No actual blankets – I wanted to do a collab with Big Love Records in Japan and do an actual blanket. We had been in touch about records of ours they sold in their shop before, but they never replied to my blanket emails.
I like the song The Money Department on the first record. It was fun to record and it’s a bit shorter than the other songs. We don’t play it often though.
We are going to be lucky enough to catch you live this summer at the Orange Blossom Special Festival! What can we look forward to from your act? Other than the masses of people on stage at once obviously!
We are going to play songs from our records, it’s pretty different live I think. Live songs can go anywhere really, kind of depends on how you’re feeling that day. On a stage there’s room for mistakes but sometimes also moments of total transcendence, or like silly takes on the stuff we play. And there’s the visual aspect of people playing instruments and acting funny.
Keeping the questioning around Orange Blossom Special Festival, we notice that this year’s mascot is an otter! But if you could pick any animal to be the mascot for Personal Trainer what animal would it be and why?
I’d go for a dude.
Our favourite song of yours has to be “Rug Busters” , can you let us know what a Rug Buster actually is , and what inspired this song?
It’s a combo of “cut a rug” and “bust a move” – I wanted to do a dance song and get everyone in the world together and dance, no matter who you are, or what you have done in the past.
Sonically I think it sounds like I had been listening to groove is in the heart, daft punk is playing at my house, and short skirt/long jacket. It’s almost a bit embarrassing.
If someone was to find themselves in Amsterdam for the weekend, what would you recommend that they fill their time with?
If a UK friend asks me this I never know what to say. I’m mainly at my house, or I go to shows. There’s a pretty good, relatively cheap sandwich place my friend Otto recommended to me called caldi e freddi. De Nieuwe Anita is a nice place to go for a beer.
You have a wonderful indie rock sound with a pop like edge! I would love to know which bands inspired you. Also do you think you can here this influence in your music?
Oh yeah you can probably hear the influences quite easily I think. To me old stuff just sounds like a bit of a rip off of what I used to listen to at the time.
I think Alex G and Black Country New Road were pretty big bands for me while making the last record. Stuff like The Breeders or Pavement I have loved since I was 15 or so, that will probably stick forever.
In 2024 you released your 2nd album “Still Willing” , We particularly enjoy the song “I Can Be Your Personal Trainer”. We would love to know what form of exercise you would force us to do if you were our personal trainer?
I would never force anyone to work out.
If you was visited by future versions of yourselves, what do you think they would tell you?
Probably to work out, maybe winning lottery numbers, basic stuff.
How do you think festival shows differ from your own shows?
Playing club shows it feels like you own a room for a bit and people come by, like a weird little birthday.
When you play a festival you’re basically visiting the festival yourself.
We heard that you once played for 24 hours straight! How on earth did you manage this?
We started playing at noon one day and kind of kept going. We played around with different versions of our set and different instruments. That helped to keep things interesting.
A fun one to end the interview! If you were to cook us a meal, what would it be? What music would you have on in the background? What would we drink to go with the food?!
I like to make paella, you can pick what you want in it. We can have some (non) alcoholic beers maybe. That would maybe go well with Radio 10 in the Netherlands.
All rights to the songs used in this interview are retained by Personal Trainer. This site claims no rights over them. All images were provided by Personal Trainer and were taken by Tom Van Huisstede.
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