CSS

Doing It Themselves

By Leo McGovern

10.13.08

It’s CSS’s world—we’re just living in it. The Brazilian quintet could be the culmination of our internet-driven worldwide culture, as the band met on social networking websites and made their name known by the sheer number of downloads inspired by their network-based buzz. And, as the music industry shrinks and resources available to artists become fewer, CSS shows that it pays to be multi-talented—whether it’s graphic design or filmmaking, CSS handles it in-house (singer Lovefoxxx designed the band’s “Dirty Finger” t-shirt and Ana Rezende directed the video for their self-titled debut’s “Off The Hook”). Their efforts came to a head when Sub Pop released CSS in 2006, and if there was any doubt that the band had knocked down every fourth wall in the media while taking their place as electroclash icons, it was erased in late ’07 when Apple chose “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” as the inaugural backing track for the iPod Touch commercial, sending the track to the highest ever Billboard ranking by a Brazilian band.

If that sounds like a sophomore release can’t live up to the hype, think again. CSS’ new album features more of the Elastica-meets-discotheque beats, lyrics with enough allusion to make a teenage boy blush and so much artsy funk that you’ll forget about that pony you wanted as a birthday present—this Donkey is the ticket. Antics got a chance to ring up bassist/keyboardist Rezende while the band was in London making the Summer festival rounds and talked about the pressure of making a hit, DIY and The Spice Girls.

You guys are playing some U.S. dates later this year. What are some of the differences between performing at home and in the U.S.?

We like playing at home, because it’s like a homecoming. Our first tour was in the States and was pretty amazing. We felt like we neglected the States a little bit last year, because we played so much in Europe, but playing in the States is cool too. The people were high energy and fun to play for. Our show has changed a lot since that tour.

How did the live show change?

After we toured nonstop for three years we just changed some small stuff. I used to play guitars a lot, but now I mainly play the keyboards. We changed the structure of some songs. I think we’re much better now, and much different actually. We’ve been playing some bigger shows, so we changed some stuff, but it’s pretty cool.

You have several tracks that have been remixed—how does that come about, and what are the benefits of it?

It’s just a cool thing to have a bunch of remixes, but it’s more a label thing to do. They have to have interesting singles to sell, so they always want you to have different formats, all with a different B-side remix. It’s cool to collaborate with an artist that you like. It’s not like in the ‘80s and ‘90s when people just did their own multiple versions of the same songs, though we like to do that too because it doesn’t seem to happen much anymore. [Remixing] is kind of corporate, but we try to make it nice by using people we like.

“Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” has been successful in the States, at least from an Apple aspect. In recording Donkey, was there any pressure to write another song that could be used in marketing?

Not really. Our primary label is Sub Pop, and they’re the most respectful people ever. I think they invented the fact that you have to respect the artist and let them do whatever they want in order to create a successful album. Going back to Brazil [to record Donkey] was a really good thing for us, because we had no pressure—we didn’t have to deal with any of the annoyances of people wanting to attend the recordings, because then we might’ve felt pressure. It was really laid back, and it was also the first time we’d been back to Brazil for two months straight, so it was more like hanging out with family and friends. No one from Sub Pop even listened to Donkey before we sent it off to get mixed.

Members of the band are designers, filmmakers and artists—how did having these non-musical talents augment your becoming a successful band?

We really like that we have a band and all the stuff that comes with it besides doing the music—the cover art, the shows, the visual act. We try to apply whatever we know from outside music to the band. We like DIY, because we always did it ourselves and that comes from the fact that we like to look at what we’ve done and admire the result of it.

What would the ultimate multimedia show for CSS be?

We really, really want a bunch of dancers, but it’s too expensive because they have to travel with you. We have one now, which is pretty cool. I saw the Spice Girls show, that reunion tour they did and it was pretty mental. It was the richest show I’ve ever seen in my life—it must’ve cost a million pounds or something. It was really tacky. [Laughs] We’d like to do something weird like that, if just for a little while. If we could have anything, we’d probably have a holiday on ice kind of thing, with lots of dancers and ice-skating, those types of things. We’d go crazy on that.

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