I’m meeting the Ting Tings at their finest hour. Last night, after their success at the Radio 1 Big Weekend, their single ‘That’s Not My Name’ reached Number 1. They seem unable to believe it has actually happened.
At seven in the evening, they are also still impressively hung over from a night of celebrating back home in Manchester. Katie White, the lead singer and guitarist, explains that it still doesn’t seem real; they don’t feel any different in themselves from last week or even last month.
The Ting Tings were first unleashed on the Introducing Stage at the Glastonbury Festival last year. Both played in smaller bands before finally teaming up in early 2007.
Working in other bands was an unpleasant experience, but learning to ignore other people’s advice seems to have been the lesson. ‘We knew we didn’t want any producer telling us what to do,’ says Jules, ‘because to us, that’s killing it.’
The duo are itching to do everything themselves, from tinkering with the instruments, to taking their own promotional photos, to creating their own vinyl sleeves. ‘We created these playful, customised sleeves from older ones, so people could compare and see what they got, like oh, I’ve got Elvis, what have you got? Depeche Mode.’
I ask if this is a backlash against the way pop has been going for the past decade. They agree, with another invective against producers, before adding that it’s also of a move away from the typical four–piece Manchester sound, where everything was created and marketed along similar lines.
‘Everyone makes music in Manchester, probably ’cos it’s such bad weather all the time, people spend loads of time in their bedrooms,’ laughs Katie, ‘but we’ve really tried to move away from that whole Smiths thing. I think we sound the least like a Manchester band!’
In fact, their whole rise to fame has come about in the least traditional way possible. Their success has largely been due to the internet, where their songs were available for free long before their first single was released.
Katie is an inveterate MySpace user, who takes feedback from fans and even virtually DJs on her nights off – like last night, playing unsigned records she’d been sent from Berlin. ‘That kind of contact is phenomenal, breaking down the barrier that producers put in your way.’
I sense trouble for producers in the future, particularly since the Ting Tings have conclusively proven that you don’t need a hired suit to make it in the music industry. But what about the Radiohead approach? Is taking away the price–tag really the way forward?
Katie hesitates before answering: ‘I think it’s fine for those bands to do that sort of thing, but if you’re a small band, with a smaller fan–base, you don’t really have the clout to do that.’ Or the money to fall back on if it goes wrong, I suggest.
But their appearance on the lucrative festival circuit may change all that. Apart from Glastonbury, they’re appearing at Benecassim, various smaller festivals in Japan, and the United States.
All very exciting, but what are they aiming for after that? Neither of them really knows. ‘The music you make is part of one period,’ says Jules, ‘maybe six months of your life. You can’t go back to it. But we know we want to keep on connecting with a wide range of people and making our own stuff. We want to change the way people think about pop, so it’s a creative kind of music again.’
Raw, unpolished, infectiously catchy – the Ting Tings have definitely got the new pop sound sewn up.
