CSS have a bumpy donkey ride
By John Earls - "I can write when I'm angry, but not when I'm depressed."
CSS may have been the archetypal party band of recent times, but the constant touring of their 2006 debut album left them stressed before managing to make lively new album Donkey.
"We all got stressed," Lovefoxxx says. "Adriano coped by writing more and more songs, but I became so anti-social and withdrawn, I didn't want to write."
Lovefoxxx blames ex-manager Eduardo Carlos for the band's stresses.
"He's not an evil man," she sighs.
"We played so many shows, and we were still in debt. It was so upsetting, because I've never been good at coping with no money. I sit at home thinking 'I need to party, and I can't afford to'. I was like that in Brazil, and to find myself in the same situation in England was heard to take."
Ironically, the shows themselves proved one of Lovefoxxx's few respites.
"The shows were always good," insists Lovefoxxx, 24. "A band should never moan on stage, they should always give a crowd a good time.
"And I know CSS are good at that. If I felt like I wasn't having a good show, I only had to look at everyone else in the band, and that would make me smile and think 'How did I get here?'"
Now sharing management with Bloc Party, Lovefoxxx feels all is well again.
"We aren't good with plans," she says of Donkey's inspiration.
"We didn't get much further than thinking 'Our shows are rocking out, let's make an album more like the shows.' We had a lot of tough times to make this record, but we aren't a band who'd want to come back with a record like 'It's hard in a band.'"
Most of CSS have relocated from Brazil to London, where Lovefoxxx lives with her boyfriend, Simon Taylor of Klaxons.
"People think we're really wild, but we don't get much time together, so we prefer nights in," says Lovefoxxx.
"I'm so used to being with Simon, I don't think of speaking English as another language any more, except when I'm with the band. Then I wish my slang in English is as good as in Portugese."
So quiet is Lovefoxxx's life these days, she says the biggest bonus to being in London is her new bicycle.
"I love cycling to theatres and galleries and leaving my bike outside," she says. "I couldn't do it in Brazil.
"Even before I met Simon, I was the quiet one in CSS. I'd be the one saying 'I need a night in' and being teased for it. I like a party sometimes, but off stage I'm such a home body."