Katie Rebecca White is a British musician and member of the popular duo the Ting Tings.
Background
After some success with a girl group punk trio TKO, which supported Steps and Atomic Kitten, her father David White brought in Jules De Martino to write songs for TKO. Katie White was raised on a farm in Lowton with her father David K. White, mother Lynne C. (Sharples) and sister Helena.
Career
Katie and Jules subsequently formed the Ting Tings in 2007. Katie went to Lowton High School in Lowton, which has a large performing arts department. As well as buying ponies for Katie and Helena, David used his share of the money to start a music management company.
TKO TKO was managed by Katie"s father"s music management company.
They had some success and supported Steps and Atomic Kitten. TKO also appeared on Independent Television"s Civil Defense:United Kingdom. In March 2001 David White brought in songwriter Jules De Martino who wrote four songs for TKO. TKO were not able to secure a record deal but released a single on the internet.
Dear Eskiimo Katie got back in touch with Jules De Martino when she was at Leeds University and he moved to Manchester. 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 at the end of 2004. Creative differences and the management style of the record label caused them to split up. The Ting Tings Katie and Jules started a band in 2007 with Katie on vocals, guitar, piano and bass drum and Jules on vocals, drums, bass, guitar and keyboards.
They started writing songs together and doing short concerts.
Katie was working in a boutique with a Chinese girl called "Ting Ting," which sounds like Mandarin Chinese for "band stand" (亭) or "listening" (聽) and Katie 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 and their debut album, We Started Nothing, was released on 19 May 2008.