Jade's Music Blog

Their infectious, shouty pop has given us the most catchy tune of 2008, and at Glastonbury last weekend the duo drew the biggest ever audience to the John Peel Stage.
“I thought it would be slightly more glamorous,� says Katie, speaking of the expectations she had of international pop stardom. “Not that I was in it for the glamour, but I just thought... I’m sure if I had a stylist, it would be a lot easier. But I don’t, and I don’t want one. We’re quite DIY.�
Brought up on an exclusive musical diet of radio pop music (“any old c**p really�) on a farm in the delightfully named Slag Lane in Wigan (“try living with that in the school playground�), Katie is an unlikely figurehead to stumble out of Manchester’s Bohemian margins.
She speaks as she finds, admits to being fired up by “a massive chip on me shoulder� and hadn’t heard of The Smiths until she moved into The Mill, the band’s rehearsal space in Salford. Her lack of Smiths knowledge was nipped in the bud when erstwhile guitar God Johnny Marr started renting space at The Mill, dropping in on occasions to here the manic pop thrill that was going on down the corridor.
Katie (don’t call her Stacey, don’t call her her, don’t call her Jane – that’s not here name) also possesses the unique ability to whip the stage up in a manner entirely befitting of a frenzied thrift shop messiah. You wouldn’t know it now, but she started her musical life in a girl band, which was, as she freely admits, “the sort of thing you did in the mid 90s, wasn’t it?�.
She’s bluff Northern alternate-girl incarnate. Funny, brassy, not a boring bone in her body and with one ear always cocked to the chorus.  
Jules de Martino is the ying to Katie’s yang. His Metropolitan charms are a direct counterbalance to Katie’s brusque Northern manner. Ting Tings are very much a two-way operation. They share lyric and music writing duties.
“If it feels right,� he says, “then it goes in, whoever has come up with it.�
Jules admits that it was Katie who taught him to accept the pure thrill of pop music.
Even though we come from opposite ends of the musical spectrum, we have sort of reversed roles. I was always ‘the alternative one’, now it’s the other way round.�
Jules and Katie have been writing together for over four years. They began exchanging visits between Wigan and his native London (“I’d stay at her dad’s farm and we’d write in a barn,� explains Jules, “it was a cheap way of doing things�) before Jules decided to bite the bullet and up sticks to the north for good.
Their first serious endeavour, Dear Eskiimo, fell flat.
“Suddenly I was angry,� says Katie, picking up the tale. “And I had something to sing about.� The defining moment came in their studio at The Mill when Jules had returned back to his first love, drumming, and Katie decided to pick up the guitar.
The Ting Tings were taking shape. “She played a D chord that I’d taught her, badly. She was swinging the guitar round and screaming and kept dropping it. That was the moment. We found our energy through a bum chord that turned into Great DJ. We created a loop and we were off.�
Precisely at the moment that they thought no-one was interested in them, the world came knocking.
“We didn’t think anybody would listen to us or even be interested,� says Jules, “We just knew exactly what we wanted to do.�
Their big break came with That’s Not My Name, the song that they wrote in direct response to the apathy of the record industry. In true DIY fashion, they pressed the record with limited edition, hand done artwork. Buzz built in the North West and the record sold out in days. And the excitement about then has been building ever since.
When they play at the Carling Academy this time, their liveliness could well lift off the roof. Get tickets now, while you still can.
For the Ting Tings intuitive pop nous is about propulsive energy, positive thinking and smashing up a couple of rules along the way. Who really wouldn’t want a little piece of that?
The Ting Tings play Carling Academy Liverpool on September 20. Tickets available from the Academy box office or 0844 477 2000. For details see www.myspace.com/thetingtings.