At one end of Banquet Records in Kingston upon Thames the Dutch indie band Personal Trainer are performing a short set next to the album racks. Before them are 30 or 40 people who have pitched up on a Thursday evening to see them launch their second album, Still Willing. Afterwards, the band will sign the albums the fans have bought and everyone will depart a little happier: the fans with memories of an intimate show and signed records; the band a few quid richer, a few more sales made, maybe a few more fans won. And Banquet will have sold a few hundred quid’s worth of stock.
It’s early August and the start of an intensive week for Personal Trainer – as well as Banquet, they will play record shops in London, Brighton, Portsmouth, Totnes, Bristol, Liverpool, Leeds and Nottingham. There will be festival shows, too, but only one conventional gig, an undersell in a tiny pub. This campaign is not launching with touring, at least not in the old-fashioned sense. “Our record label suggested we do it,” says bandleader Willem Smit before they take to the stage. “We’ve found it’s fun to try out new things, play around with setups.” Then he laughs. “But I guess it’s probably just to sell as many records [as possible] in the first week.”
