Not Tired Of Their Sexcess - CSS

In April this year, the band announced that bass player Ira Trevisan had decided to leave the band. Carolina says, “She had other plans in mind. Like since the beginning. She always had her doubts about being in a band. When we were going into the studio to record the album, she knew that we were going to be touring for another two years so she quit.” We ask about the some of the band member’s side projects, as all members of CSS appear to be creative forces to be reckoned with. Carolina tells us that most members use the band as their creative outlay. Lovefoxx does the art work and does screens for the t-shirts (Adriana calls her “an amazing illustrator”), Film school graduate Ana is constantly filming the band and Luíza, a photographer by trade, takes many of the pictures. It was only Ira who wanted to spend more time on her outside interests; “That’s why she left the band”, Carolina confides. Adriana says “I play the bass now, because I was never a drummer, and we have a new professional session drummer called John Harper to play for us. He used to play in Cooper Temple Clause. It’s much better now.”

We ask if the band are ‘tired of being sexy’ (the translation of their namesake in Portuguese). Adriana says, “The name is really stupid. I said to the girls, ‘Oh I’ve scheduled a gig for us but I need to tell the guy the name of the band so he can make the posters’. Lovefoxx came up with the idea because the day she logged into hotmail to get the email, there was a news blurb on msn saying; 'Beyoncé says she’s tired of being sexy’. It came out of nowhere. It was like most things that happen to the band, really random.”

The band furtively admits that they have the internet to thank for their success. Carolina narrates a story from a South Park cartoon. “They were making a band and one of the characters said, ‘Yeah let’s put our music on the internet’ and the other guy says ‘No you cannot do that, because that’s what happened with Metallica. Let’s just do the tour instead.’ Only they cannot tour because no one knows who they are. Because of the internet they cannot buy the things they need to take them to the concert. With us, we never thought we would sell any copies (of their debut) so we always put stuff up on the internet. That’s why we became known at all. People in Brazil don’t know us. They know the band but they don’t know the music or who we are. Yesterday a Brazilian journalist told me that every piece someone writes about the internet and bands they mention us. People who know us are people from the internet.” Adriana adds, “I think the more people that know about your music, the more people will go to your shows, and that’s how we make our money. We’re not Metallica! We’re not going to think we’re going to sell 100,000 copies and then only sell 80,000 and go ‘Oh my God! Where are the rest of them?”

We feel like we know CSS very well from the internet, only this morning we logged into myspace to see a vividly descriptive bulletin that Lovefoxx posted in a drunken state. Adriana says, “Anything that relates to faeces is Lovefoxx. She likes to post messages on myspace when drunk.” They may well have the internet to thank for their success, but the world would be a far less colourful place without Lovefoxx’s glittery jumpsuits and vivid and drunken myspace messages.

Their new album, ‘Donkey’, is out now.