Personal Trainer‘s debut single, “Backyard,” is teeming with passion-fueled magic. The Philadelphia and Brooklyn-based trio have created a tension-filled pop tune with all the confident shimmer that surging past inhibitions deserves. An instant anthem, “Backyard” simmers on intimate moments of desire and temptation on a hot night that never escalated further. With its steadily plucked bassline, resilient, harmonized chorus, and oscillating guitar riff’s constant push forward, the song serves as a beacon of hope for the kind of love eluded by the lyric’s protagonist.
The band had the following to say about the song:
“I suppose it went something like this… I’m in a basement in South Philly and it’s New Year’s Eve, right, and for some reason we’re swapping stories about the first time we got high. My ears perk up like they always do when she speaks. She takes us back to the summer of 2004 when the popular girl asked her over for a sleepover. She was approached after most had fallen asleep. Did she want to come out into the backyard with the others? Inside popular-girl’s-dad’s toolshed, somewhere in south jersey, she inhales for the first time, and they let her know that it’s going to be okay. ‘Your ex was a bitch, anyway.’ She sits there astonished as smokey relief washes over her. She was one of the only out girls in her grade. Her eyes quiver now as she remembers this single kindness of the straight popular girl, and the profundity of 16-year-old heartbreak. I want to reach out and kiss her cheek. She looks up and smiles at me and, like a riffle of cards, they all begin catapulting through my memory. All the girls I never got to love, to sneak out to a toolshed with, to kiss on a blanket, to hold hands with on the 4th of July. How many chances did we miss to truly love those whom we admired? How many times did we hurt someone because we were too scared to tell the truth? ‘Backyard’ is for anyone who cares to reimagine what their childhood may have looked like had they been unafraid to love honestly. And for all of us who are still figuring out who we love and how to love them without fear, without compromise.”
“Backyard” out now via House of Feelings and we are already eagerly awaiting more brilliance from Personal Trainer.
