The Ting Tings

Katie has to Be The One for us

Turn on the television or radio lately and you're highly likely to hear The Ting Tings. The Salford-based-act have provided the soundtrack to 2008 and it seems Katie and Jules really have caught the current musical zeitgeist.

Sandman recently caught up with The Ting Tings' feminine half, vocalist Katie White (That is her name), and primarily asked why the band's music featuring on nearly every TV programme or ad-break,

"We've been gigging every night around country," informs Katie, who admittedly sounds shattered, "So I've hardly caught anymore than twenty minutes of TV a day, but I heard 'Shut Up and Let Me Go' on something with Noel Edmonds on it and thought, what the f*ck?"

Obviously such airplay is a testament to the catchiness and truly universal popularity of the group's sound. When quizzed on the band's rapidly increasing audience and the widespread appeal of their music, Katie admits,

"It's weird but strange." The Ting Ting's popularity also seemed to spring up overnight to themselves, "Last year we did the small stages at the festivals and no-one really knew us, but as we left to go on a world tour, the album went number one. So while we were on tour, people were playing our music and talking about us here and when we came back everyone knew our music and recognised us which was dead strange because to us it all seemed so sudden!"

As a duo who tour incessantly, it would be easy to presume that Katie and Jules are consistently at each other's throats, but this is surprisingly not the case, as Katie illustrates,

"We're never really on our own with eachother for too long at all. We're constantly with the guitar techs, tour manager, security, driver and the rest of the crew so there's always someone different to talk to. I'm never like 'f*cking hell you're doing my head in!' To be honest me and Jules often gang up and bully people, like the sound guy, together!"

It seems nothing has really changed with The Ting Tings since the days before they were but there has been one tactical change with the band's on-stage performance. Due to a rise in the audiences demand to see them they have obviously had to play bigger venues and therefore, larger stages. However, Katie and Tom have had to overcome the obvious problem of where to go and what to do when you are a duo on stage; especially when one is stationary and the other mobile. Katie continues,

"We learnt a lot of new things from being on bigger stages during this year's festivals, I didn't know how we'd cope because when we played the [Manchester] Apollo we were put one on either side and I was running around using the space and was knackered afterwards! So we put ourselves close together in the middle of the stage, realising that we didn't have to fill all the space given to us, I mean, why should we?"

"We have a good connection and we play better when we're closer together," concludes Katie, "We learnt this at this year's festivals and we'll probably keep doing things this way now."

One thing they haven't got over however is the sheer size of festival audiences, "Its well weird staring at 15,000 people! You just want to stand there and stare back!" declares Katie.

Even fellow artists are trying to hitch a ride upon The Ting Tings bandwagon. For instance, Dizzee Rascal recently covered 'That's Not My Name' on Radio 1's Live Lounge and it turns out The Ting Tings were impressed by the version, Katie explains,

"I was happy because he obviously understood what the song was about, it's not just about a guy in a bar forgetting your name, it's more than that, it's about being prejudged and feeling shit about that sometimes."

If The Ting Tings could choose a dream artist to cover one of their tracks it seems that it would be David Byrne, lead singer of cult classic band Talking Heads. Interestingly, Katie tells Sandman that The Ting Tings were close to doing a cover of Talking Heads classic track 'Once In a Lifetime,'

"David Byrne got in touch with us and offered us a song to do for a charity compilation but we couldn't have possibly gotten into the studio to sort it all out because we were touring."

"We were really upset," sighs Kate, "but they wanted us to cover 'Once In a Lifetime' and I thought that in the end it may have been a good thing that we couldn't make it because that was my favourite song and it would have been odd. I would have hated anything to have gone wrong!"

The Ting Tings have been nominated for a European Music Award, and they are looking forward to attending an award ceremony which is closer to home,

"It's going to be a lot more relaxed being in Liverpool than it was when we were at the VMAs [Video Music Awards]," Katie elaborates, "The VMAs were good, but slightly weird. It was very Hollywood and glitzy, with the red carpet and all that."

The Ting Tings aren't new to the USA by any means and have recently completed their fourth American tour,

"We've been all over there now: east, west and Mid-America. We first played to all the small places but we are selling out the normal sized venues now. We used to play a lot of art-space venues, one was called The Mercy Lounge which was a bit like Night and Day in Manchester. The audiences are getting bigger on each visit and our music is on pop radio now and not just indie radio, we even made the Top 40 Playlist for 'Shut Up and Let Me Go."

And its not just been the USA where the combo have hit, "We've been touring all over the world and its great because we were both scared of flying and I don't think we would have travelled as extensively otherwise, so we've seen places we would have never have gone to like Japan and North America."

Sandman discovered however that not all these new destinations provided equally positive experiences,

"The worst place I think we've been to is Albany in New York. It had beautiful houses but they'd be boarded up and lovely parks but full of drug addicts, there was complete poverty within such beauty, it was strange."

Unsurprisingly Katie's favourite venue so far has been within walking distance from where she currently lives, admitting she thoroughly enjoyed The Ting Ting's recent two nights at the Manchester Academy. Katie remembers fondly,

"The Thursday was great and the Friday was just even better. Home crowds are always the best but this was definitely the best Manchester crowd yet, it was really good, really buzzing, it was electric."

They might like playing back at home but when it comes to the domestic music scene, Katie doesn't seem to be full of praise for indie bands,

"I'm bored of English indie bands, there's too much and they're all too similar." In fact, Katie doesn't seem to be positive about much of the world in general at all of late, "Everything's seemed to have gone to shit this year."

However, it's this anger that helps Katie write her songs,

"Most of my songs originate from frustration or false prejudice. When I wrote the last album I was quite down but we made the music to lift us up so this is where you get this hybrid sound in our music," clarifies Katie.

These angry lyrics to an upbeat melody have helped create a real tour de force in the music world. The Ting Tings new single 'Be The One' has now hit the shelves but believe you me, you won't have to buy it to hear it; just switch on any form of broadcasting media and whether it be ITV, Magic AM or The Guardian's weekly podcast, you'll hear it.

Finally, The Ting Tings have also confirmed to us that they plan to work on their new album at the start of next year, so expect yet another year of gigs, tours and festival headliners for the dynamic duo. It seems that it will be a while then before they shut up and let us go. Good news I say.

Liam Ronan

www.thetingtings.com