With
of The Ting Tings
by bill biss
The Ting Tings are enjoying music right now and that’s a good thing. After a miser-
able stint with their first band, the two broke off from the pack and decided to make
a go of writing and performing together. Quite simply, their attitude was “F#@k it! So
what if they boo us?… we’ll just go somewhere else.” That somewhere else has taken
them around the world five times over this past year as their debut We Started Noth-
ing rang in at number one on the U.K. charts right off the bat. After a successful song
campaign with iPod with “Shut Up and Let Me Go,” the duo of Katie White and Jules
De Martino are generating more musical pop happiness with “That’s Not My Name
and will be touring with P!nk come September. Katie White hails from Greater Man-
chester, England and she is delightfully surprised about the band’s great reception.
She realizes that doing something you really enjoy will always bring forth positive
results. The playful pop of The Ting Tings is poised for more success here in the U.S.
Rage: It’s just a hoot that you and Jules were enjoying just being a party band before this success.
There’s not a bad track on it. There’s a definite essence of The Go-Go’s, Blondie and stylistically
with the guitars a sound reminiscent of early Talking Heads. It’s really just pure pop and takes
your cares away for a while.
Katie White: Ahhh. I like doing interviews with you (laughter). All the bands that
you just said… we’re huge fans of, so that’s a compliment for us. Thank you. When we
wrote the album, we were feeling a bit depressed to be honest. I think we probably
made it sound upbeat to make ourselves feel better and it worked.
Rage: It definitely does. If you’re stressed or pissed off about something and you put this on,
there is no way that you can’t bop around.
KW: Yeah, you forget and you kind of dance around to it. That’s exactly what we
were doing at the time. Our last band had failed miserably. We felt like completely
failed musicians. We just started partying and deejaying and writing these songs. I
think the lyrics are quite bitter but nobody really realizes because the music makes
you feel quite upbeat.
Rage: Congrats on winning the prestigious Ivor Norvello Award.
KW: You actually know about it. Nobody in America knows about it.
Rage: I bet that was a rush. Were you able to attend the event?
KW: No. We were rehearsing in France. We didn’t think we was going to win. We
didn’t even try until our fellow countrymen demand that we go. We just thought,
“We’re not going to win. It’s such a prestigious award. It’s for someone like Sir Paul
McCartney or all these established writers and musicians.” It was for our first album
and we got it! We were in complete shock.
July 2009 | RAGE monthly 43
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