Katie Rebecca White (born 18 January 1983) is an English musician and member of the pop duo

The Ting Tings The Ting Tings are an English indie pop duo from Salford, Greater Manchester formed in 2007. The band consists of Katie White (vocals, guitar, bass drums, bass guitar, cowbells) and Jules De Martino (drums, lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboards ...

. After some success with a

girl group A girl group is a music act featuring several female singers who generally harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female pop music singing groups, many of who ...

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

trio TKO, which supported Steps and

Atomic Kitten Atomic Kitten is an English girl group formed in Liverpool in 1998, whose current members are Liz McClarnon, Jenny Frost and Natasha Hamilton. The group was founded by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) members Andy McCluskey and Stuart K ...

, her father David White brought in

Jules De Martino Julian "Jules" De Martino (born 16 July 1967) is an English musician and a member of the pop duo The Ting Tings. Early life De Martino was born in West Ham, the son of Northern Irish mother, Rosemary (née Middleton), and Italian father, Benito ...

to write songs for TKO. Katie White and De Martino subsequently formed the Ting Tings in 2007.

Early life

White was raised on a farm in

Lowton Lowton is a suburban village within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is around from Leigh, south of Wigan and west of Manchester city centre. The settlement lies across the A580 East Lancashire Road. ...

with her father David K. White, mother Lynne C. (Sharples) and sister Helena. White went to Lowton High School in Lowton, which has a large performing arts department. When White was 12 years old, her grandfather Ken White won £6.6million on the National Lottery and gave each of his three sons, David, Stephen and Richard, £1million. As well as buying ponies for White and her sister Helena, White's father used his share of the money to start a music management company.

Career

TKO

White started her music career aged 14 in 1997 in a

trio TKO, short for technical knock out, with two friends from Lowton school, Joanne Leeson and Emma Lally. TKO was managed by White's father's music management company. They had some success and supported Steps and

. TKO also appeared on

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

's '' CD:UK''. In March 2001, David White brought in songwriter

, who wrote four songs for TKO. TKO were not able to secure a record deal but released a single on the Internet.

Dear Eskiimo

White got back in touch with Jules De Martino when she was at

Leeds University , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

and he moved to Manchester. They formed a band called Dear Eskiimo (often misreported as ''Dead Eskimo'') with a DJ friend Simon Templeman. The name was intended to be as nomadic, tribal and independent as possible. There were already several bands called "Eskimo" but Jules, who wrote the lyrics, wanted his songs to tell good stories as if in a letter, hence "Dear Eskiimo" with the odd spelling of 'Eskimo" with two 'I"s to make it stand out. Their first performance was as a support between two rock bands but it went well and they were signed up by

Mercury Records Mercury Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It had significant success as an independent operation in the 1940s and 1950s. Smash Records and Fontana Records were sub labels of Mercury. In the United States, it is ...

at the end of 2004. Creative differences and the management style of the record label caused them to split up.Ting Tings – the hottest party in town
Manchester Evening News – 8 June 2007

The Ting Tings

White and De Martino started a band in 2007 with White on vocals, guitar, piano and bass drum and De Martino on vocals, drums, bass, guitar and keyboards. They started writing songs together and doing short concerts. White was working in a boutique with a Chinese girl named "Ting Ting", which sounds like Mandarin Chinese for "

band stand A bandstand (sometimes music kiosk) is a circular, semicircular or polygonal structure set in a park, garden, pier, or indoor space, designed to accommodate musical bands performing concerts. A simple construction, it both creates an ornamen ...

" ( 亭) or "listening" (聽) and White used it as the name for the band. The Ting Tings started by playing for private parties at the Islington Mill arts centre in

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

, and their debut album ''

We Started Nothing ''We Started Nothing'' is the debut studio album by English indie pop duo The Ting Tings. It was released on 16 May 2008 by Columbia Records. The US edition has a different cover image in several background colours. The album was also released ...

'' was released on 19 May 2008. Their follow-up album ''

Sounds from Nowheresville ''Sounds from Nowheresville'' is the second studio album by English indie pop duo The Ting Tings, released on 24 February 2012 by Columbia Records. It was by preceded the lead single " Hang It Up", which was released on 27 December 2011. Althou ...

'' was released on 27 February 2012 in the UK and 15 March in the United States. In 2014, White told the '' Daily Record'' that comments by Internet trolls previously caused her to stop writing songs for six months. In 2015, she sustained a tendon injury to her left hand that caused the band to cancel its U.S. tour.

Discography

The Ting Tings released their debut album ''We Started Nothing'' on 19 May 2008. Their follow-up album ''Sounds from Nowheresville'' was released on 27 February 2012 in the UK and 15 March in the United States. '' Super Critical'', their third album, was released on 27 October 2014.

Personal life

In a February 2022 BBC interview, White and De Martino spoke of their 20-month-old daughter and personal relationship: "The pair have previously avoided saying whether they are romantic as well as musical partners. 'We never particularly spoke about it,' the singer says. 'We always wanted to keep it quite separate from the music, but it's quite hard when you have literally a mini person. We've been together a long time now.'"

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Katie 1983 births Living people English dance musicians English multi-instrumentalists English women guitarists English guitarists English women pop singers English women singer-songwriters Lead guitarists Music in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan Musicians from Manchester People from Lowton 21st-century English women singers 21st-century English singers 21st-century British guitarists 21st-century women guitarists