The Ting Tings

The Ting Tings biography

The Ting Tings are an English musical duo, consisting of Jules de Martino (drums, lead guitar, bass guitar, vocals, piano) and Katie White (vocals, guitar, bass drums, bass guitar, cowbells). They formed in December 2007 while based at Islington Mill Studios in Salford. They have released four singles on their current label Columbia Records UK, including the single "That's Not My Name", which charted straight at number one on the UK Singles Chart on 18 May 2008. The album We Started Nothing was released on 19 May 2008 and charted at number one in the United Kingdom. The album has now sold over two million copies, with a further four million singles sold worldwide. Their single "Hands" was released on 11 October 2010 - also featured in the video game FIFA 12. Their second studio album, Sounds from Nowheresville, was released in February 2012, with the lead single "Hang It Up" being released on 16 January.

Career

Background

Katie White started her music career in a girl group punk trio TKO - short for Technical Knock Out - with two friends from Lowton school, Marion Grethe Seaman and Emma Lally. The band had some success and supported Steps and Atomic Kitten. In March 2001 songwriter Jules De Martino wrote four songs for TKO at Leeds University. While De Martino was in Manchester a few months later, the pair bumped into each other and discovered they had a mutual love of Portishead. De Martino relocated to the Greater Manchester area, based at Islington Mill Studios in Salford. The pair along with friend Simon Templeman went on to form the Portishead-influenced trio Dear Eskiimo who were signed to Mercury Records. However, due to a change of directors and managers, the management style of the record label caused them to split. The experience left White and De Martino with a distrust of the music industry.

Formation

Retreating to The Mill, while White served behind the bar, de Martino produced tracks for various artistes located at The Mill. Developing their sound while listening to performances at The Mill they formed The Ting Tings. "Ting Ting" was the name of a Chinese colleague of White at a shop, who told her that it sounded like the pronunciation of "bandstand" in Mandarin (δΊ­).

Having created three songs, the band's first gig was a free-beer invite all at The Mill. Subsequent gigs were funded on donations, and after their third gig they were name checked on XFM. The subsequent Islington Mill gigs ended up as some of the most sought after tickets on the Manchester party scene - with various A&R reps and record producers, such as Rick Rubin, asking for tickets.

Their first double-A side single "That's Not My Name/Great DJ" was joint released by the band and local label which was Switchflicker Records, and together with their second single "Fruit Machine", they were on heavy rotation on British radio (amongst others BBC 6 Music, played regularly by many DJs including a session for Marc Riley who was first to have them in session on 6 Music and first to play their record on the station). "Fruit Machine" was a limited-edition, 500-only seven-inch single on Legendre Starkie Records, the band's own label, which was only available at the group's gigs at Islington Mill in Salford, Electrowerkz in Islington, Berlin in Germany and at Glasslands in Brooklyn, New York City. They had a notable performance at Glastonbury Festival 2007, and after an October 2007 tour of universities in the UK with Reverend and the Makers, signed for Columbia Records. On 14 December 2007 they appeared on Later with Jools Holland. In May 2008 the band credited BBC Introducing for giving them their 'life changing' break after BBC Radio Manchester's Introducing show spotted the band and put them forward for inclusion in the Glastonbury running order.

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