Just don't call it a supergroup.

Crosby initially had the idea 18 months ago: tap some musician friends to donate a song, record it with a core group of musicians and get other well-known artists to sing each others' compositions. Arrange it so that all the proceeds go to Oxfam, not just the royalties. But, above all, make it a good album.

By the end of the project he had 24 musicians playing nine songs written, sung and played by the likes of Damien Rice, Paul Noonan, Gary Lightbody, Glen Hansard and Neil Hannon.

Songs were submitted sometimes in demo form and recorded by a core band of musicians and in some cases sent abroad for guest vocalists or musicians to record their parts.

There were no 'We Are The World' moments in the studio, no hands across Ireland gestures.

Aside from charity, Crosby had wanted to organise a band along the lines of Scotland's The Reindeer Section, of which Snow Patrol's Lightbody is a founding member. "I thought it would be great to do something like that and have it benefit charity, " says Crosby. "I had read up on it and contacted Oxfam Ireland." He then visited Tanzania with Paul Noonan to see how the charity worked on the ground.

As the project gained a natural momentum and the first few songs were done, they were used as currency to get the rest on board. Crosby indulged in a spot of Bob Geldof-style bluffing to get others on board. "That's kind of how I did it, " he laughs. "People probably shouldn't know that. In fairness, though, everyone I approached, once they knew it was for Oxfam, were involved, lent their support, no problem."

Understandably, the five or six that Crosby knew best put their songs forward first, including Noonan, who penned 'Some Surprise'. This is the band's "flagship" song and features Lightbody and Damien Rice's backing vocalist Lisa Hannigan on vocals. A video was finished (and put on YouTube) last week.

Instead of asking everybody to write an original song for the project, Crosby asked if they had any spare songs. Clever lad. "A lot of writers have a bunch of songs that don't have an outlet in the framework of their band. They might not be right for the album, but are not necessarily bad songs. It was a no-ask ask."

'Needles', a song written by Rice and also sung by Hannigan and Ollie Cole's 'Too Many People', sung by Glen Hansard, were also first in. The nucleus of the band, Crosby, Noonan, Nick Seymour and drummer Graham Hopkins, went into the studio with Hannigan to "road test" the first batch so the guest vocalists would have some form of template to record their own versions.

They either sent out the songs to the vocalists or, when it was convenient, the songwriter came into the studio and worked through the song with the band.

Emm Gryner, for example, was in Dublin on tour and went into the studio where Crosby realised it sounded perfect for Nina Persson of The Cardigans. Gryner, who had toured with the Swedish band as a backing singer, contacted Persson and 'Black Winged Bird' was nailed.

For a band comprising nine songwriters and eight singers (Hannigan singing two on her lonesome), it sounds remarkably coherent and the songs themselves are extremely personal. Crosby agrees. "I don't know if I can make this generalisation but . . . probably a lot of writers had these songs that they thought would never see the light of day outside of their bedrooms. By the nature of how we asked for their spare songs that's what filtered through. I'm not sure if that's correct or not but there are definitely a lot of personal songs."

It must have been very odd for the writers to hear other artists' interpretations of their own songs. "A lot of people who heard 'Some Surprise' swore it was sung by Paul rather than Gary, " he says. "The only version that Gary got was Paul's demo. The very first take was hands down Paul Noonan so it took a few takes for him to put his own spin on it, to unlearn what he had been listening to. In many ways that was a challenge for a lot of the singers: to take the song and make it their own, and I think that happened. And we didn't want it to be a karaoke session."

The biggest challenge the band faces is keeping it going; ie touring. Crosby had hoped to hold a launch gig but has put those plans off until the new year, "even if it's just a one-off". One 'supergroup' that has managed to take it on the road of late is Canada's Broken Social Scene, although that has become increasingly difficult in light of the commercial success of members from Metric, Stars, etc.

"Everybody is on tour at the moment, " says Crosby. "Damien is also releasing his album, so we're going to put it on ice for a bit."

There are talks to release the album worldwide but Crosby is waiting to see how it does here first. Financially it was a bit of a risk for the core members. They paid for the rehearsal/studio time themselves, albeit at charity rates.

Conor Deasy of The Thrills is the only one who wrote and sang his own song. It was the last one on the album. "To be honest we ran out of time. For every song there was a period of courtship for the singers to get into the songs."

What Crosby calls "the boring part" of the project is actually one of its most interesting aspects from a charity-versusbusiness point of view.

Before a note was recorded Crosby spent months working out the legalities of the band.

Publishing clearance was key.

What a lot of people don't realise is just how much potential earnings are generated from the publishing side of music even on so-called charity records. Most are done through a system whereby the artist donates back a percentage of publishing royalties. The Cake Sale royalties, all royalties, will go to Oxfam. If this arrangement perhaps strengthens the moral grounds for buying the album, it's a double-edged sword. The last thing any of those involved with the band want is for people to buy it just for charity.

"I am a little bit cynical about charity albums, " says Crosby.

"When it says that all proceeds go to charity they fail to talk about publishing royalties. A lot of the time these don't necessarily go to charity. I felt this album could potentially get somewhere so I wanted to make sure it was all looked after. We have done the groundwork, set up a publishing company and a record label all based around Oxfam. I don't think that has really been done before."

'The Cake Sale' is out now on Oxfam Records. All proceeds go to the Make Trade Fair campaign and Oxfam's overseas programme work