RENEGADE HOUSE’S
Interview with CSS guitarist LUIZA SA
Interview by Mike Atkins illustrations by Marie Ockleford
Renegade House: Where are you as a band? We haven’t heard from you in a while. Luiza Sa: We’re finishing a record. We already wrote and recorded a lot of material. We want to do something really good, so we’re pushing it as far as we can go.
RH: What’s influenced it, the new album?
LS: When the second album was written, we wrote it on the road. We didn’t really have time off, so it was about what we were living. We were really tense, and it came out really tense. This record is more imaginative, and I feel, [it is] a bit like a teenager’s intuition. It’s about having fun and being confident, RH: You had some issues between the first but not being pretentious. Every song is and second albums, didn’t you. different, but the overall feeling, for me, is that it’s fun. It’s a bit like the first record, LS: We had problems, yeah. The first but more... at a different stage. record really just happened; it wasn’t Even Brazil influenced a little bit of this something [that was] planned. And we only started touring internationally after the record; I don’t think musically, that you’re going to hear anything that resembles release of that first album. Then we had Brazilian music, but the feel of it... the some management... problems. So, the second album was kinda dark. I love it, but happiness, and sometimes the danger. it carries a little bit of the weight of the dark RH: What is São Paolo’s music scene like? things that happened. There were a lot of great things that happened too; it was just LS: São Paolo has a lot of shows, a lot of an extreme moment. things happen there. I feel that the music scene is very much in boxes. Y’know, RH: You wore your hearts on your sleeves there’s the hardcore scene, and the with that one. The single: Rat Is Dead rockabilly scene; it’s not very different, it’s (Rage), that was descriptive of that time, very traditional in that way. We’re not very wasn’t it. influenced by the music scene [there], we’re more influenced by the city itself, LS: Yeah (laughs) there was death in the concept. The songs talk about dark things, how crazy it is to live in, how warm and interesting it is. but they also offer you a way out, I think. I think São Paolo is an artsy place. The But I guess we were angry too. The new things that I like are... like art, and fashion, record is totally different from the second. and the party scene, more than the It’s a very fun album. it’s very pop. specific music scene.
RH: What’s it like being part of a scene where you’re easily the biggest thing to come out of that scene? LS: We have the sort of fame where we’re the band that made it outside, but we’re not not huge [at home]. We’re never going to be; we sing in English. In Brazil, we’re never going to be as big as other bands there. We’re the stars of the underground... maybe... but not of the mainstream. I think that’s a good thing, because it’s not a big scene, and you can escape it easily; more so than London, or something. I think that helps to create a process, not being so involved in a scene. You can just be real, and you don’t have to think about how things are going to reflect on the scene. You can just do it for yourself, and for your friends. RH: I can imagine that... LS: We act the same way that we’ve always acted. People know us, and they treat us exactly the same. That’s how I feel at least: that we’re the same people, just with a really nice job. RH: I heard you played for one of the Russian Oligarchs... (CSS played at the 16th birthday party for the daughter of the Russian oil tycoon Roman Abromovich)... LS: Oh yeah, that. They made up something about us making half a million dollars off that, or something, which is stupid, and not true. But yes, we did play at that party.
RH: You know you’ve made it when people are making up shit about you? LS: The media is weird like that... But you’re the media, so I can’t say that (giggles). RH: You have this appeal to figures like that, and mainstream international audiences. that’s clearly unintentional, but what does knowing you have that appeal do for you, and do for the band? LS: I don’t know... It’s weird trying to say what commercial appeal even is. I often think about what you’re saying, but you never know what’s going to be a hit. It’s a weird thought... we love pop music, and everything we do, is our version of pop. I don’t know if we actually do pop, because we are also into more obscure things, it’s a tricky balance. I think with this new record, it’s getting more pop than anything we’ve ever done. RH: So, you’ve never gone and listened to a song like Music (Is My Hot Hot Sex), and asked yourselves “what is it that makes this such a mainstream hit?” You’ve never tried to deconstruct it, and apply it elsewhere? LS: We’re still in the middle of everything. I think some of the new songs might go along that path. I don’t know if they’ll be commercially
successful, or have that commercial appeal, like Music (Is My Hot Hot Sex). I don’t know if we’re trying to deconstruct things. Everyone who’s young, and who is producing things right now is... I mean, nothing’s ever new. Everything’s always a product of what’s gone before. The original things today are probably just things that went before, but put together in a new way. RH: What about the iPod ad (Music (Is My Hot Hot Sex) found fame in an Ipod commercial,) is that an example of that? LS: A kid in England actually did that. He made the ad himself, and Apple saw it on YouTube, and hired him, and flew him to California. It’s funny, it wasn’t made by Apple, it was made by a buyer. It was kind of interesting, just the sort of thing that typically happens to us. We actually met him; he’s a real sweet kid.