MUSIC INTERVIEW: CSS
On a Mission to Have Fun & Bring Musical 'Liberacion' to the World
An international music festival based in one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities seemed like the perfect place to chat with Sao Paulo, Brazil’s polished party-starters CSS (AKA Cansei de Ser Sexy AKA Tired of Being Sexy) about their recently released third studio album, La Liberacion. And Spanish guitars. And writing songs in a cab. And dogs. Buzzine’s Stefan Goldby sat down with CSS’s Lovefoxxx and Ana Rezende in the banquet room at Taix French Restaurant just a few minutes before the band took the stage to headline the Toyota Antics Block Party and close out Filter Magazine’s 2011 Culture Collide Festival in Los Angeles, CA.
Stefan Goldby: You took a little bit more time in recording this latest CSS record. What do you think was the biggest impact on the music itself from that extra space you carved out to make it?
Lovefoxxx: I think, since we took such a long time to do this album, we really had a long time to revisit lots of thoughts and times of our lives – our teenage years. I think this album has a lot of that feeling. When you’re a teenager and you feel like you don’t fit in that much, you really want to have your pack of friends, and I think there’s a lot of this kind of thing on the album. Like “Rhythm to the Rebels”, “City Grrrl”, “F*** Everything”… what else? [Looking at Ana]
Ana Rezende: … I think the fact that we took a long time to reflect on the mood of the album because we had time to ask people to do stuff for us; we had time to think about a lot of instruments we don’t really play, which is cool…
L: There is a saxophone, trumpet…
AR: Spanish guitar… a lot of things we don’t know how to play, so we could ask people to do that for us.
L: It was good to finally have guests. We always wanted to have other people collaborating with us, and you need time to do it because people never answer that fast!
SG: For the tracks you made with Ratatat, Bobby Gillespie, Mike Garson, and Ssion, did you first create songs that you thought they were right for, or were they people that you wanted to work with regardless so that the songs were created hand-in-hand with them as collaborators?
AR: They were mostly friends of ours – people that have something to do with us in some way, because we’ve known Bobby for a long time – she collaborated with Primal Scream on their last album…
L: I think the most collaborative participation we had was with Cody from Ssion on “City Grrrl,” because he has one of his songs called “Fear Us” off his first album, which has that kind of speaking voice, and we thought of something like that for “City Grrrl,” and, Cody can really do this kind of thing, so it was really cool.
SG: Is there a moment from the recording of this album that stands out in your mind more than all the others?
L: It was such a long process, it’s really hard to remember. But I remember one day, I was going from my house to the studio in a cab, and I started to write lyrics for “Cats,” and that was really cool because it’s really good when you have so many ideas, you get them right even in the cab! Feeling so productive. So that was a high point of this year, [laughs] of making the album.
AR: We were having like a house for ourselves to do that, and we were just hanging out there. And when we didn’t want to do anything, we would just watch TV…
L: Some days, I remember it was really, really hot, and we didn’t know what to do with ourselves…
AR: … yeah, we were fainting…
L: …that wasn’t a high point…
AR: …that was a low point.
L: That was low, yeah. Okay: another high point! At one point, we had two puppies in the studio. Two dogs – puppies. They were really cute. But now they’re big dogs…
AR: …not cute anymore…
L: That was a good experience. [Laughs]
SG: Your music has always been energetic. It’s always also been direct and emotional, but those elements seems even stronger on this record. Your live shows are also super energetic: Does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy that you create the kind of music which then you can take on stage and really go for so much?
L: Yeah, I think you made the question and answered it for us. [Laughs]
SG: Dammit!
AR: It’s really important for us how we play the songs live, because if the song is boring for us to play, no one is going to have fun and we’re not going to have fun, and for us, we really like doing the show. We have a really good thing together when we’re on stage. But there’s this song called “Radio Night,” which is from the second album, and it’s a song that was never a single, and no one has ever asked us to play it. No one, as far as I know, likes the song…
L: …no one has ever manifested towards that song…
AR: …but it is our favorite song to play live, so we always play that song live, so for us, that’s actually important. And even though people don’t really know or like, especially, that song or whatever, they really have fun when they see us playing because we have a good time. [Laughs]
L: But I think we nailed better some stuff on this album that can be more show-friendly. People can sing along; it’s easier. The first album, we barely have a chorus on the songs. [Laughs] On the second album, the songs are so long, we cannot take it, and we are like, we’re not gonna take it anymore. So it’s good to have two-minute-long songs.
SG: Your lyrics are rife with pop culture references. Does that come from everybody in the band, or is there a pop culture maven/geek/genius lurking within?
AR: I think we’re all in different areas of that…
L: We have lots of references, and they all end up going in the songs. We really like when artists, like ABBA, Madonna and Toni Braxton [laughs], have a Spanish phase. I think that’s a really good, curious phenomenon, because all the pop stars… Did Cher have a Spanish phase?
AR: Probably. I’m sure we’d fine something…
L: Okay. So we wanted to make this our Spanish phase. [Laughs]
AR: That’s why we have a Spanish guitar. It was always something we wanted to do.
L: And we have some references to Volver, the Almodovar film, on “Ruby Eyes.” It’s filled with the Spanish references!
AR: Yeah, we’re in our Spanish phase right now. [Laughs]
L: Yeah, right at this moment. At 6:45. Oh my god, it’s my brother’s birthday – I need to call him!
SG: Before you do, can I ask: Are you gonna cover “La Isla Bonita”? [Laughs]
L: We wanted to, but we didn’t…
AR: Yeah, we actually had this idea at one point…
L: But we just had another idea for a cover today…
AR: Yeah, that’s amazing. But I think “La Isla Bonita” is something that we really like to DJ. It’s actually Luiza [Sa]’s song when she DJs, and it’s amazing, so always when we DJ we play that song because…we love Spanish phases. [Laughs] It’s true.
SG: For the last couple of years, festivals have been a little bit less fun because you guys haven’t been there. What do you think it is about the music of CSS that lends itself so much to summer stages?
L: We really like to have fun. I think we are very funny people. When we are together, we have a blast.
AR: I think we care about doing the show as well…a lot.
L: Yeah, but the thing is that it’s the way that we’ve always done the shows – we cannot do it differently, and people really have fun and we get along well with the crowd, we build a relationship, and we really care about this kind of thing so people can feel lit.
SG: You’ve played twice here at this year’s Culture Collide festival – last night’s club show at The Echoplex, and here today comes the open air performance. What can the people who were in the club last night expect from tonight that will be different?
AR: It’s a different day. The days are different. The thing is that when we play a show, we try to do the set-list a little bit different to keep things different, but we never really…
L: We don’t choreograph things.
AR: Yeah, we don’t think too much in advance, because when things happen at the time, it’s more fun. So I don’t know how to answer your question, but it’s going to be a different show – definitely.
SG: Well one of the ways you’ve been differentiating the shows is that you’ve been handcrafting posters for each date.
L: Yes, but I didn’t do it today because we don’t have a merch table.
SG: How did that come about? That’s a pretty ambitious extra thing to add on top of actually playing shows every night.
L: Actually, on our tour, we wanted to do this through the “Falling in Love Tour”, so we’d glue on the walls of the bathrooms and the doors, this manifesto about how people should start a dance with a stranger, and then we’d do lots of things on the day – we’d talk to the light guy… [laughs] like how we’d like our lights to be, and then we organized the merch table with Humberto…
AR: We get involved a lot too.
L: It’s a stretch. It’s a worry – but I’ve got to work at some point [laughs] because I don’t feel the gig is really work. But today I’m kind of happy it’s just 45 minutes because my voice is really f***ed, and I’m a bit nervous about that.
SG: I’m sorry, I’ll just ask you one more question because now I feel bad about making you talk. [Laughs] You guys have a lot of them onstage in every show, but what has been, so far, the biggest, shiniest rock-star moment for CSS?
AR: I think it was when Donita Sparks from L7 sung “Pretend We’re Dead” with us at the Henry Fonda Theater here in L.A. …
AR: That was amazing.
SG: That’s a pretty precise memory: What time? [Laughs]
L: I don’t know… Nighttime!
AR: 9:46. [Laughs] It was pretty amazing…
L: Yeah, we were like, “L7!!!” And it was a great thing that we were covering L7 because we ended up becoming friends with Donita Sparks…
AR: Yeah, she comes to the shows and hangs out. She’s our rock-star friend.
L: Yeah, she’s really cool. [Laughs]
The third album from CSS, ‘La Liberacion,’ is out now on V2/Cooperative Music.
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