Ting Tings - Interview

By Dean Walsh

TINGS are looking up for Britain’s hottest new band, The Ting Tings.

The duo are set for a chart smash with their single That’s Not My Name.

But be warned—there’s no messing when gorgeous singer Katie White gets on stage.

The 25-year-old blonde is fed up of blokes shouting "Get your t**s out", and told Rated: "I won’t put up with any s*** from these cavemen. They see a young blonde woman, and in their heads they think it’s Girls Aloud.

More

"But I’m nothing like them. Within 10 seconds, you can see I’m real and I’m passionate about what I sing about. I love some of Girls Aloud’s songs—but the people who write their music are a lot more interesting to me than the girls are."

The other half of the duo, drummer Jules De Martino, also had a pop at Pete Doherty, admitting he can’t understand why the junkie rocker is still famous.

"I got what the fuss was about with The Libertines," says Jules, 34. "But I don’t know anyone who could hum a Babyshambles song," says Jules. "He’s become this idiot playing up to the cameras. I don’t know why anyone pays attention to him any more."

The Manchester-based pair are also dating — and Katie confesses it can be hard keeping their domestic life separate.

"It merges into one," she explains.

"Jules and I are bound to have arguments, but they tend to be about stuff to do with that night’s show, and the crew step in to stop it flaring up, same as if we row with any of them about a gig."

But their road to stardom had a rocky start. Katie’s dad David was briefly a band manager, looking after briefly successful nineties girlband Sweet Female Attitude.

"Dad only did it for about a month," she laughs. "He’s not the Simon Cowell of Wigan or anything, he runs a lorry business!"

Growing up on Take That rather than the cool music that inspires The Ting Tings, Katie was in a flop girlband TKO with school pals.

She laughs: "Our biggest achievement was being on a roadshow with Atomic Kitten. But there were about 30 bands between us and them on the bill."

Then she met budding songwriter Jules and formed Dear Eskiimo with him and his DJ friend Simon Templeman. But they were dropped by their record label Mercury before they released an album.

"Simon’s a professional eBay buyer these days," says Katie.

"He buys second-hand ghettoblasters and toys for £1 and sells them for, like, £10m."

Jules, 34, admits he was ready to give up on being in a band to become a songwriter, but Katie persuaded him to give it one last go after she wrote That’s Not My Name.

That was a year ago, and now the band are about to release their album, We Started Nothing, on May 19.

"Some people insinuate we’re manufactured, because it’s happened so fast," sighs Katie.

"But who would manufacture a band like us? There’s only two of us, there’s a 10-year age difference and we were worse than unknown. After Dear Eskiimo flopped, every record company in Britain thought we were damaged goods and wouldn’t touch us."

How Tings change.

They’ve had the last laugh, and even got to meet their unlikely hero – ex-Antiques Roadshow presenter Michael Aspel – when they were both guests on BBC1’s Friday Night With Jonathan Ross last week.

"Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr were on too, but Michael’s cooler than both of them," gushes Jules.

"Gwyneth and Robert were both cool, but Michael’sHe’s an old-school charmer. He came up to me and Katie and was ‘I do like your track, it’s very rhythmic, isn’t it?’

"To be that charming at his age, that’s proper showbiz!"

That’s Not My Name is released tomorrow.