There’s a garage-rock band in Amsterdam called Scram C Baby. Eight studio albums to their name, Scram C Baby are, in some quarters, heralded as the founding fathers of Dutch indie.
The band’s frontman, John Cees Smit, is a charismatic guy who epitomises their sound: Energetic. Urgent. Creative.
“Restless is how I’d describe him,” says his son, Willem, singer-songwriter in Personal Trainer, the seven-headed beast currently trailblazing a new generation of Dutch rock talent. “Yes, restless.”
You get the impression Willem shares some of his dad’s qualities: Always on the go, a yearning for expression, a thirst for artistic freedom. Their tastes in music are not too far apart either.
“My dad’s band, Scram C Baby, is actually one of my favourite bands. We’ve tried to do some music together but he never stays still for long enough. He’ll come in, I’ll set the stuff up and we’ll try something. Then he’ll be done after half an hour and go. So, he wants to try it again. I’ve said ‘OK, but you need to stay at least a couple of hours.’”
A lot of people want to make music with Willem, not just his dad. He has become a popular figure on the UK gig circuit and his band, Personal Trainer, have fast built a reputation for their characterful live shows and idiosyncratic warmth. But he is humble about his own abilities and generous in his praise of others.
“I was born and raised in Amsterdam by two very lovely parents, really great people. During high school I first started a band with Ruben [van Weegberg, Personal Trainer bassist] and it took off. We were very young but playing festivals so my parents would drive us to all the shows. We could only play like 30 shows a year otherwise it was classed as child slave labour or something.”
“After school, I just carried on playing in bands, making music. Then I’d put on nights with live bands in the Netherlands. Like the two bands playing with us tonight. I put them on at The Helicopter.”
Tonight’s gig, part of Independent Venue Week, features three bands, all from the Netherlands. Willem has invited along for the ride his good friends, The Klittens, a savvy all-female five-piece, and jumpy, acerbic pile-drivers, Real Farmer.
Personal Trainer themselves are an organic swirling storm of spiky rhythms, delicate melodies and progressive euphoric anthems. Together they make an almighty package. A compelling, carnivalesque experience.
Willem is a travelling spirit but still delights in his native Dutch connections. When asked what he’s currently listening to, he talks excitedly about two bands that he’s recently come across: One old, The Books, a highly acclaimed American-Dutch duo that were putting out some seriously innovative, trippy, sample-based collages in New York during the early 2000s; and one new, the Amsterdam-based A Fungus.
“They’re really cool.”
While Willem is a vociferous champion of his two support bands (at one point very keen to convey to me the funk element of Real Farmer) he squirms at the suggestion of a Dutch scene.
“Definitely not. It’s just a few bands in a very small country so we got to know each other and have kinda become friends. There’s a few really cool independent venues in Amsterdam, one is called De Nieuwe Anita. But there’s a lot more in the UK. It’s much bigger here. It’s more vibrant.”
Not one for scenes or trends, you get the feeling Willem is more of a seeker, an adventurer, always on the hunt for something new, something different.
“At first, when I started the band, I really wanted a lot of looseness and to have different people each time so it felt like you were always playing for the first time. It has turned into more of a rock band now. The production has become more complex on the recordings. So we went from just being a live band to also playing the records as well as possible. That means we are more adaptable. But it’s a bit less loose.”
“It’s all about the sounds, even with the words. I hate writing the lyrics. They come last. It’s always about the sounds of the words rather than what the words mean.”
Last year, Personal Trainer signed to Bella Union. It seems a suitable fit. Their first single on the new label, The Feeling, is a majestic, nine-minute epic that journeys through multiple sonic terrains. Not the kind of bite-sized commercial offering likely to get much radio play.
“I was so happy about that. It was like ‘Yes, this was the right decision’. And it was our manager’s idea. That was pretty awesome.”
“We met Simon [Raymonde] the label owner when we played SXSW in Austin. We’d put out the first record ourselves, we did everything ourselves, which was nice just learning about a lot of stuff. But then we were looking for a label. So we sat down with Simon. Then he came to a show we played there in Austin and he was really into it. And then he came to all six shows we did that week! That was the most important thing, that he was really into it.”
Constancy is not a word you’d use to describe the Personal Trainer camp. There are forever changes, with recent manoeuvres in band personnel too.
“Our former drummer, Kick [Kluiving], left to do more music with his other band, Parker Fans. I met Mart, our new guitarist, a couple of years ago and we got along pretty well. Then I re-met him in Groningen last year at Eurosonic Festival. I thought he was a really funny guy. He was supporting us with his band The Super Soakers for a couple of shows. We told him about Kick leaving and he suggested he could take some time out to invest in this, in Personal Trainer. That was awesome for me because I really like the guy. It’s also nice he plays saxophone too because we have a lot of that on the record.”
The record in question is a new album that is coming out later in the year.
“Yeah. We have a single coming. Then the album after that. It’s been done for quite a while. I’m really excited for it to come out. We play four or five of the new songs live at the moment but I’m trying not to play too many so we get an extra boost later. And with all the band changes it’s nice anyway to play the old songs, to give everyone space and time to grow.”
Willem is a super-chilled ‘space and time’ kind of guy. In such a busy band, that’s a good piece of awareness to have, making sure everyone has room to breath and the freedom to flex their muscles when the moment’s right. He’s an astute leader. A very personal trainer.
Support the artist
Listen to tracks on bandcamp and follow Personal Trainer on Instagram.
Words & media: Stephen Desmond
Main photo credit: Marieke Amplify
