The Ting Tings on almost ditching their name, new album ‘Home’ & life after 'That’s Not My Name'

Following the stratospheric success of their debut single That’s Not My Name in 2008, indie duo The Ting Tings have been committed to using that platform to reinvent themselves and put songwriting first with each new album. New album Home sees a big shift into music inspired by Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, and Toto, with Jules De Martino no longer just behind the drum kit and joining Katie White as co-frontman. The duo talk to Headliner about almost starting anew with a different band name for their new sound, their most recent record, and why they could never resent the success of their breakthrough debut single.

Having tried their hand in prior bands, Katie White and Jules De Martino met when the latter was visiting Manchester, quickly bonding over a shared love of UK trip-hoppers Portishead. Before long, their first musical venture together as Dear Eskiimo was underway, signing with Mercury Records. An unwanted change of management caused that first project to end prematurely.

White continued to work as a barmaid at the Islington Mill in Salford, while De Martino worked as a producer for artists in the building’s studio space. The pair began to draw inspiration from the various contemporary sounds coming from the artists making music at the Mill, forming the basis for The Ting Tings. White named the band after the name of her Chinese colleague at a shop. Upon deeper exploration, they discovered one of the name’s meanings was ‘sound of innovation on an open mind.’

The newly created duo began writing songs and performing regularly at the Islington Mill — their third performance was mentioned by XFM, and the likes of Rick Rubin began asking for tickets. The unstoppable That’s Not My Name was the band’s first single, originally released with a small, local label, and they soon found themselves being played on British radio and even performing at Glastonbury 2007. Following a UK tour and appearance on Later... with Jools Holland, The Ting Tings signed to Columbia Records. That’s Not My Name was re-released as part of their debut album We Started Nothing, topping the UK single and album charts respectively, and their success was assured.

White and De Martino join the Zoom call from their warmer Spanish island home of Ibiza. Looking back, White feels the continued success of their trademark song is because it felt and still feels distinct from the other indie rock of the 2000s, during the genre’s most successful commercial moment.

“Weirdly, we didn't fully fit into it,” she says. “I remember NME jumped on what we were doing, and we did this big NME tour. But you could feel it – that we didn't fully fit. We came from an artist community in Manchester that was very DIY, indie, and art-pop. But we always seemed to write songs that had some kind of pop sensibility to them, especially back then. We were just in our own weird little lane. And I think now that's why That’s Not My Name is on a Starbucks commercial, and it's just been on a big Netflix film that's number one on Netflix at the moment. Those songs on that first album keep getting constantly used. Everyone calls them evergreen now, and I think it's because you don't associate them too much with that indie period.”

Not only did That’s Not My Name top the UK singles chart, it fought off Rihanna, Madonna, and will.i.am to do so. The track stood out from the indie crowd of the time with its sparse instrumentation, with White just singing over De Martino’s drum beat until the guitar joins in the chorus. The incredibly catchy, repeated refrain of the song’s title helped the track spread like wildfire. And while the song sent the duo to stardom and three years of non-stop touring, you sometimes wonder how a group feels about such a song years later. Radiohead practically refuse to play Creep live, while Nirvana would often perform Smells Like Teen Spirit sarcastically.

“No, there's no resentment,” De Martino says. “We're delighted. We're very lucky. We've got a career still, we're making records, and we’re on our fifth album. It's wonderful for a band to be able to do that. Some bands can't get there. Arguments happen, and things change. We're very thankful that the first record set us up – we got to see the world.”

The Ting Tings then toured that first album pretty relentlessly for three years, and their lives were completely non-stop. It’s a fascinating juxtaposition to where we find them now, with a slow-living lifestyle in Ibiza, which is known as a relaxed, bohemian retreat for creatives for most of the year, outside of party season. They do still tour occasionally, but much more selectively and without the need to stop in every big city around the world.

“For starters, we have a daughter,” White says. “She's four, and you have to change the way you are when you have a child. But also, we're just so in love with songwriting. We want to get old and still make music, and this feels like the right route for us. It definitely wasn't that before, flying every day and trying to think about what's the best transition to doing a video that will make it relevant and cool. We definitely let go of that. And with this new record, it was so lovely to write. It was a complete joy.”

The best part of two decades later, The Ting Ting’s new, independently-released album is a far cry from the punky, pop-leaning indie of their whirlwind 2008 and beyond. The pair’s recent obsession with the ‘70s sounds of Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles is worn very proudly on their sleeves. The album opens with its second single, Good People Do Bad Things, and if someone were to tell you the guitar was recorded by Lindsey Buckingham and the backing vocals were Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie, you might not bat an eyelid.

“We were in London at the time, and we had just become a family,” De Martino says. “We had kind of given up the idea of going out and touring or trying to be anything. So we built this really nice, small studio, with lots of live instruments around. We had two bass guitars, five electric guitars, some really good analogue outboard gear, a drum kit, the usual stuff. And we just dropped the laptop and all the digital technology, all the bits we used to use to start layering stuff. And at that point, you start immediately sounding like all the famous bands that we'd never stopped listening to: Bread, Supertramp, Steely Dan, Toto. We then hunted around for some cool musicians, and we put a rehearsal together with these new songs. And it was just mind-blowing. These people play with 10CC and ELO, and some of the greatest bands ever. We played them our songs, and they said ‘we'd love to do this.’”

White then reveals that, with such a major change of sound, there was a serious discussion about a new band name. Did they almost kill The Ting Tings?

“Our old manager around us at the time said we should call it De Martino and White. And we felt that as well. So we called ourselves that for a while, but eventually thought, ‘Why are we not calling it The Ting Tings?’ Because if we want to do it independently, it's so hard to push anything through. Spotify is mainly owned by the majors, and it's very hard to get on playlists and all that. We thought, ‘Why don't we use The Ting Tings, when we're proud of what we've done?’ If you're flicking through a feed on TikTok and something related to The Ting Tings comes up, if you've had any connection with our music in the past, there's going to be some recognition. But I like the fact that we did go down the De Martino and White route whilst making the album, because it just helped to lift that weight off us.”

The other big talking point of Home is that this is the album where De Martino steps forward from the drum kit to take on much more of a co-frontman role, a big step outside of his comfort zone. In the breakthrough days of the band, he would play drums, trigger some electronic parts, and do a few backing vocals here and there. Dreaming is one of the album’s moments where his vocals are absolutely key to the song, in the Fleetwood Mac tradition of different singers taking a more leading role in different songs.

De Martino explains what a big hurdle this was to get over, saying, “I'm comfortable in the studio as a vocalist. I'm not frightened of it. But it's a different thing going onto stage, whatever the size, that's where my fear starts to get hold of me. I'm petrified of standing in front of an audience. Sitting behind a drum kit or stack of keyboards, it's much easier with sunglasses on. Katie was really convinced it would be fine.

“We went to London, played our first show for this new music. It was about 700 capacity, and I had a massive breakdown. I was backstage and I had to go for a walk down the high street to breathe. I was trying to conjure up an excuse why the gig had to be cancelled. For the first four songs, I was just rigid and I couldn't move. Then we did a second show, and that was a lot better. Now I'm really excited about it, and the show will just keep developing from here on.”

Home, this big, creative shift from the powerhouse duo, is out now. An August performance in Portugal is coming up, followed by a big headline show at EartH, London in late September; a fascinating opportunity to not only hear these new songs with the band they have put together, but also to hear how the old songs sound reworked with the West Coast magic sprinkled on them.

“We hope that the songs will do a lot of the work,” White says. “Because we've really concentrated on the songwriting, and we feel like, as songwriters, this is something that will last us forever.”