Shortly after seeing their lively, albeit under attended, show at The Republic in New Orleans, I had the opportunity to speak with Ana Rezende from CSS. We spoke about Diplo, t-shirts, touring and the internet. Through our conversation, I found a person who seemed both genuinely contented with and excited about her new life as an indie rock star. The same came across blazingly clear in their live performance with: windmill sweeps upon the guitar, rollicking and rolling on the ground, golden boots, drunken dancing, power chords, looping synth, and ever infectious excitement.

AudioMonger: So how was touring with Diplo?

Ana: Very cool. I really liked it. It was like our first real big tour. It was very good, everything went well.

AM: I was able to catch you when came down to New Orleans. It was a very fun show.

Ana: Oh. Yeah. (Laughs) You were like one of the ten people there. (Laughs)

AM: It was kind of a disappointing turn out, wasn’t it?

Ana: No it was ok. Good for playing in front of not so many people. The place was ok.

AM: You seemed to be having fun.

Ana: Yeah. (Laughs)

AM: Were you fans of Diplo before?

Ana: Diplo always comes to Brazil. He has really likes Baile Funk. And, actually, our manager has a label there that releases Diplo’s albums, and their friends. At some point Diplo heard one of our songs. Then he came to one of our shows and he wanted us to tour with him, which is really cool. We’re also really good friends with Bonde de Role, as well, and he releases them in America on his label. Its all really cool and we’re happy to be doing this.

AM: Definitely. I noticed that during that tour you were doing a lot of border hopping between here and Canada. Did you run into any problems?

Ana: Problems with what?

AM: With crossing borders between here and…

Ana: Oh. No. Not really. It’s really kind of boring. Just stop at the border, tell them all about everything: what your doing…All the time. Just boring, no real problems.

AM: So did you like the way the Sub Pop release turned out, or are there any regrets?

Ana: No, not at all, we are really happy with it. It’s just great, going on tour and everything. Now we’re going to go to Europe. We’ve never been there. The album is doing very well in London. We’re just really happy with everything that is happening. We have shows scheduled until like December, I think. It’s just really wonderful.

AM: That’s great, and you seem to be getting lots of attention…

Ana: Yeah.

AM: And aren’t you the first international band signed to Sub Pop?

Ana: Yeah. Well from Latin America.

AM: I noticed a lot of good looking shirts and buttons at your show. I know a lot of you are or were in art school, how much did you have to do with the design of those?

Ana: Oh. Wow. Actually, the shapes of the t-shirts, it was all basically completely hand made. Iracema, the bass player, is a fashion designer so she did all the shapes of the t-shirts and everything. It was all her design. And the prints were all done by Lovefoxxx. She is a graphic designer. It was all almost hand made.

AM: Are you going to have those available in the U.S. anytime soon?

Ana: We did those while we were in Brazil, because we had the time to do it. Now, everything has gotten so crazy that we don’t really have time to do them. Well, we don’t really have the time to cut the shapes ourselves. But with the prints, Lovefoxxx does those, and that won’t change. We’ll always want to have different things and we always want to have good things, as much as we can. But now it is hard. We have had to get another person to do the t-shirts; of course the prints are still ours.

AM: How about with the album cover, did you have a hand in that lay out, as well?

Ana: Yeah, it’s Lovefoxxx’s. She did all the cover art for the record and for the single. We try to be involved with all of that as much as we can. Having a band means being involved with those things too, you know. Like making videos, our merchandise, and the cover art of the albums is as important as anything else, I think. And Lovefoxxx is a very gifted graphic designer. I really like her cover art.

AM: I also noticed that members of the band were taking lots of photos at the show, as well. Is that for personal use or is that part of a project?

Ana: Oh yes, Luiza (guitar) really likes to take photos. They are turning out to be really good photos. She is hoping to make like a video, or maybe a book out of it, which would be really cool. I also do video and stuff like that. I hope to do video projections for us, maybe not for the next tour. I don’t know if I’ll have enough time, but I really want to do something like. Maybe even with the tour photos or something. They are for personal use, also. To remember all of this will be really great.

AM: Definitely. So as a band you’ve been collectively quoted as saying that your scene is not Brazil or elsewhere, instead it is the internet.

Ana: Yeah, you know, the internet, in general, is one of the greatest things to happen to alternative/independent music. You can do whatever. You don’t really need someone else to press your CD for you to get somewhere. You can do it on your own. And MySpace is just like a shortcut. We’re always updating our MySpace and using it a lot. We’re going to continue doing that. It is very important. Its great way to communicate with people, and it is good to communicate with people.

AM: Pretty liberating.

Ana: Yeah, definetly.

AM: Are there any plans for the next record or are you still just having fun with this one?

Ana: Well we’re having fun with this one, but we are thinking about the next one. We’ve tried to do some songs on the road, but it is hard to focus when you are living with twelve people on a bus. Hopefully we will have a break at the beginning of next year to record some songs.

AM: Are you getting tired from all the moving around?

Ana: Not at all, it is a really cool job to go all around the world, meet people, and play music. All we have to do is play shows, which we love to do. At this point in the tour, at least, we are really ok.

AM: Well I look forward to catching you again in the future. Thank you very much.

Ana: Thank you.