Keeping it simple for the Ting Tings

Fresh from playing one of the world's largest electronic music festivals in one of the nicest climates on the planet (Ultrafest in Miami), the Manchester, England-based Ting Tings, known for such infectious hits as "Great DJ" and "That's Not My Name," return to a more abrasive climate Monday to play a sold-out show at the relatively small Varsity Theater. Lead singer Katie White, 25, the female half of the self-described "do-it-yourself" pop duo (alongside multi-instrumentalist Jules De Martino), called Vita.mn just before Ultrafest to talk about remixes, collaborations, concert stunts and how the Ting Tings can go from playing for 25,000 people one night to 650 the next.

Q Are you excited for Ultrafest?

A Yeah! I don't know much about it, but the woman that is selling our merch is like "Omigod! You're playing Ultrafest. I'm so excited." So, yeah, we're really looking forward to it, but only because we've been told how good it is. ... Hopefully we'll get some time off so we can go dance to some DJs.

Q Speaking of DJs, how do you guys feel about DJs frequently sampling and remixing your music?

A We like it. It's weird 'cause we get asked by so many people to remix our music and we always let only two or three people do it, but we love it when people write to [our] MySpace going, "I've cut your songs up and made it into this." And we heard one of our songs mixed with Leona Lewis and we were like, "What?" But it's fun and interesting what people do. Our favorite remix is by Calvin Harris. He did a remix of "Great DJ." It was great; we really loved it.

Q We read that you were planning on recording your next album in Paris.

A No, we're gonna do it in Berlin now.

A Well, we always said in interviews that we were thinking about doing it in Paris and Berlin, but then we realized if we went to Paris, we'd get fuck-all done because we'd just sit there, livin' the good life in the cafe bars, and we'd probably have a really shit album. We've seen so many cities this year all around the world, and Berlin just stayed with us. It's not the prettiest city in the world, but it's just got a really good atmosphere. It's not super trendy; it's actually like working artists living there. So I think if you're writing and you walk out your front door for an hour to have a break, it's good to kinda go and see a band and exhibitions and stuff like that as opposed to sitting in a cafe bar getting, you know, coffee'd up.

Q What's been the biggest change for you since you last played in Minneapolis last August?

A Um. ... I have no life! (Laughs.) We've just been endlessly touring. It's gone really successful now. But it's weird because we still don't feel successful. Even like, in the U.K., we just found out today we went triple platinum! We feel like it goes well, but it's only when we hear about record sales or TV shows that we get into that we go, "Shit! It's really going well!" You can definitely feel this time in the States that people are really starting to know the songs well and know the whole album, and all the shows are selling out.

Q Last time you were in Minneapolis, you also played the Varsity Theater and sold out. Is it a conscious decision to play smaller clubs yet again?

A Kind of, yeah. In the U.K., we released two records on our own. We did all our own artwork, produced it, and wrote it and did everything and still kind of control it all. The last thing we wanted, because we don't spend that much time in the States, is to get people to think our record label just spent shitloads of money marketing it and stuffing it down everyone's throat. This is either our fourth or fifth time in America, and we said we don't want to play venues; we want to play art spaces. So we've played tons of tiny venues and feel like we've built it quite honestly and not in a fake way.

A (Laughs.) That's so cool! Did he really say that? ... That's a compliment, really. He's kind of a legend. I don't know what our music would sound like. There's a thing in the U.K. called "Live Lounge" [on BBC Radio 1] where everyone that plays there has to do a cover of song that's been played on the radio. We did a cover of the Gossip's "Standing in the Way of Control," but you kind of have to change it and make it sound different. Our cover of the Gossip actually ended up sounding like a Lionel Richie song (laughs).

Q What was the paint party you had in February in Manchester all about?

A When we started off, we lived in this used cotton mill in Manchester. It's got like 40 artist workspaces, an art gallery and a club space. Now, I grew up listening to the Spice Girls, and I was living in this cotton mill with loads of artists and watching these crazy Japanese psychedelic rock bands going, "Omigod! My mind's just been blown! That's not like Spice Girls!" We used to get the artists there to draw on our 7-inch [record] sleeves. So we wanted to do it again 'cause we really loved it and we've done something similar on most of our single releases. So we decided to throw this party in Manchester with like 200 or 300 people. We got Adidas to give us like 300 white track suits so everybody looked the same, which was really weird. We just [asked] them to paint on the walls, but within like two minutes it turned into a huge paint [-throwing] party. Literally I had paint in my eyeballs and down my throat and it was all over our equipment. It looked amazing seeing all the white track suits turning into multicolored things. Then there was so much paint mixed around that it went brown and it looked like a dirty Kotex, which was even more funny because everyone looked like they were covered in shit.

Q Was that your favorite concert you've done so far?

A We love playing big shows like festivals when you have 20,000 people singing the same song, even if you're not the band playing. We stood sidestage when Kings of Leon were playing, and just 20,000 people singing the same song gives you goosebumps and makes the hair stand up on your arms, 'cause it's quite a big thing. We started off really interested in what it would be like if you got audience participation, and I think we're a little bit obsessed by that. It was definitely one of the most memorable shows we've ever done. I'm just glad we still have shows like that a year and a half in, and we're not just puppets playing these massive shows all the time.

A Well, we'll play our whole set. We've never played our whole set when we've toured the States. We've always played like eight songs. We change it all the time because we always make mistakes onstage, which kind of makes it good in a way. You'll see slightly different versions of songs. If you've never seen us live, we kind of rock out a bit more than the album would suggest. I think people turn up expecting [sings softly], "That's not my name," you know? And we don't. We scream it at them and play our instruments as hard as we can. Expect some energy and for people to actually mean what they're singing.

Q You guys continue to play live as a duo. How hard is it to play well with just you and Jules onstage?

A If one of us is feeling tired or not in the right head space, we're shit. We're the worst band in the world because it's boring and there's no chemistry there. So we're always striving to be staggering offstage [afterward] because we're so tired. That's the only way we can do it; otherwise we have to get more members and we don't want to do that.

Q Why not?

A I don't know. When we started the band, it was just myself and Jules. We'd been dropped by our old record company and we didn't think we had any chance of getting signed again. We'd both been in many failed bands with more members, and it actually felt like there was more energy when there was two of us than when there was five of us. Then we built everything and recorded everything, kind of made our little vision into something. To bring in session musicians that probably don't even like your music and you have to pay them to turn up just would not be our kind of show. We like kind of simple things. It's weird -- sometimes, the simple things are quite effective.