CSS: Too sexy for Sao Paulo

As cultural ambassadors go, Cansei de Ser Sexy make unlikely diplomats. Their fusion of electronic pop and punk has more in common with New York and London than their native Sao Paulo. Yet after a profitable 2006, CSS are due to make even greater inroads as their self-titled album is re-released by Sire Records, following initial success on Sub Pop and a lauded stint on the NME tour.

I catch up with the group at a Glasgow hotel. While singer Lovefoxx and drummer Adriano Cintra are the main songwriters, everyone has an opinion and it is impossible to prevent them speaking over each other. Only the bassist Ira Trevisan is Awol, while Cintra is yet to return from a shopping expedition. Although tired and recovering from a cold, the keyboardist, guitarist and sometime harmonica player Ana Rezende is making the most of life in a successful band, a far cry from her group's humble beginnings. "Brazil is a Third World country, so people don't have money to buy music or go to shows," she says. "The places we played didn't have proper sound, especially for underground bands. You have to make it big first."

Not that CSS come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Most went to university in Sao Paulo and met via the city's compact arts scene, where they were more into having a good time than forging careers, as bubbly guitarist Luiza Sa explains. "We went to the same clubs and exhibitions, watched the same films. Adriano used to make soundtracks for fashion shows and we had our own club night Meuku, My Ass. The highlight was playing all the worst songs we could find."

All the band grew up listening to English-language pop and rock, gravitating eventually to more alternative indie, punk and electronic music, with a keen interest in pop culture, as evinced by their band name, the Portuguese translation of a supposed Beyoncé quote, "I'm tired of being sexy". Meanwhile, on album track "Paris Hilton", half-Japanese singer Lovefoxx fantasises about meeting the dippy celeb.

"We have a common background of basic stuff we all share, but we all really like cheesy, commercial pop music," Rezende explains. "When we like bad songs, it is all for the same reason. We get drunk and dance to it, like Fergie's 'Fergilicous'."

It was Trevisan who first convened the band, fleeing from the confines of a more serious group. "Her band was trying really hard to be professional and she didn't want that," Sa reminisces. "When she got everyone together, Ira said she didn't want to hear that word, professional. It felt like a joke, but a good one."

"We would just drink and have fun and play for hours," Rezende remembers, a boon when most of the band were entirely unmusical. Apart, that is, from Trevisan and Cintra, who made money writing jingles. Both sought a place where they could simply have fun. "Adriano learnt piano and played guitar well, but he went to the drums, which he never played before," Rezende explains. "So there was no pressure to be great."

Trevisan invited her friend Lovefoxx, who was keen to learn guitar, to join. "Ira invited a bunch of friends to play, her criteria to pick people being 'Who do I like to hang out with?' When I got to the first rehearsal - late - everybody had taken places and there was, like, four guitar players. I was all awkward with nothing to do and Adriano said 'Go, Japs, sing!'"

Even in early, chaotic sets, made up of one-minute numbers played twice, this sense of fun infected an ever wider audience until they were invited to play Brazil's TIM festival in front of 5,000 people, on the same stage as Kraftwerk. Only then did they decide to start rehearsing and write proper songs. They put out two albums in their home country before they were picked up by Sub Pop. Is it not weird for such a light-hearted group to sign with the same label that gave us Nirvana? Cintra demurs: "We have a similar attitude. Kurt Cobain wasn't into making serious music. He made songs for himself, but got so popular he was playing in front of thousands of people, and that was really bad for him. The guys at Sub Pop say we have the same energy Nirvana had in the beginning. But because we enjoy ourselves, people don't take us seriously."

Writing songs in a foreign language has also eased the development of a deceptively throwaway style, Rezende adds. "It's easier in English because we grew up listening to music sung in English. We're like bands from Sweden or Iceland. It's a second language, so we don't over think about what we write. And the shape of the words is easier, because Portuguese has a hard structure to fit into these melodies. It's only good for bossa nova."

CSS begin their UK tour at the Astoria, London WC2 (020-7434 9592) on 22 April; 'Cansei de Ser Sexy' is re-released on 7 May