Are you in Ibiza right now?
Yeah, we're in Ibiza. We’ve had the house for about 13 years, but we’ve rarely spent more than six months here because we were touring or recording. We’ve recorded a lot in London, L.A., Berlin, and mainland Spain – we have a studio there in a little building in the lemon groves in the middle of nowhere. Our daughter is in school now, so we're now here full time and then we also travel from here.
Did the pandemic accidentally give you a moment to breathe?
We were in London because Katie was pregnant, and we were starting a family. I come from London. Katie comes from Manchester. Katie and I had been making music together for 22 years, and we never stopped. We came off of tour and had a child – Meadow’s our little girl; she's four and a half now. We had a great six months after having her, bringing her into our lives, and adjusting to the changes. Eventually, we hired an RV. We threw the baby and the equipment in there and left the UK, driving through Europe to get to Spain where my parents live. The RV company phoned me a month later, “Dude, where's the vehicle?” It was a crazy time. So, we’re here in Ibiza now with our daughter and our work.
That previous record, The Black Light, was in 2018.
Yeah. We were in L.A. when we made that record. We lived in L.A. for two years. We went there with a load of demos. We were hanging out in L.A. thinking, “What kind of record do we want to make?” Every one of our records is different. We bought an apartment, and had it done out, and it became our studio. Below us was Skrillex, and we got on really well with him. We'd taken this kind of Manchester/Smiths record that we were demoing to L.A., and slowly it started to go more drum and bass. Skrillex would come up and say, “What about this?" We were getting inspired by some of the technology he was using, and we were like, “Yeah, that's cool.” We did this whole record for $2,500 and released it. Me and Katie are always deconstructing everything about the way we work. After that album came out, we heard the demos again, and we released them as The Black Light (Manchester Versions) as well. A lot of our friends were like, “They were dope. Then you went off on this L.A. crazy vibe and put this other record out.” After that, we went out and did a little bit of touring in Europe, and then we went into family mode.
And then you started working on Home?
We've been writers all our lives. As musicians, that's the first thing for us. Writing and recording is everything.
That's how you two met.
Exactly. It's probably what we do, more than anything. The touring, stage shows, production, and the interviews are such a small part. We've built 20 studios, and we do it all ourselves. We plan the room, start from scratch, and a month later we've got a good or bad sounding room. We've always been in this bubble, me and Katie. Our first record, We Started Nothing, broke out; a moment of time where an art band crossed into commercial pop. It was an amazing moment; but we've always been this insular band, funding everything ourselves and working it all out. For this new record, we thought, "Maybe we should think about it in a different way. Think about us as writers, and not about this band called The Ting Tings." We changed our name to De Martino & White, and we were listening to all our favorite music that we've always listened to: the Eagles, The Carpenters, and Steely Dan. The list is endless. The best from the late ‘60s, through the ‘70s, and into the early ‘80s. We were wondering, “How do we make a record like that today?” Lyrically, I think this is the best lyrics that we've ever written. Even though I'm a father and I'm engaged and connected in a most amazing way, it's nothing the same as being a mum and having a child. Lyrically, Katie started homing in on what mattered. I'd be sitting at the Yamaha mini grand piano in the living room, and everything I was playing was like early Elton John. What normally happened with the two of us is that I would be plowing through loads of guitar riffs, chords, and melodies, and Katie would be saying, “That's too dated. That's too slow. That's too fast." Then we'd get the melody together. This time she walked over, and she was saying, “On point. What an idea.” All these years later, I'm sitting at the piano dreaming, wishing we could just be in a studio, being the Eagles, being Elton John, because they must have had the best time, right?
I imagine!
Katie's saying, “That's amazing.” We were singing these songs over the piano, she's sitting next to me like old traditional writers, and then every now and again there'd be crying in the background. It was an absolute godsend because it meant we defocused. We used to spend 24 hours in the studio: Beer, whiskey, tequila, don't go to bed. We had no responsibilities. We can't do that anymore. What's good now is that we'd spend an hour writing a song and then the baby would cry. So, later the baby would be asleep, and we'd say, “Let's listen to that idea.” We had a different approach because we weren’t on it all day long. We were distancing ourselves from what we were writing, and there was this lack of rush. I think records, when they were made years ago, I don't think they were rushed. I don't think people rushed as much as today. Years ago, people were in the studio for longer hours, they had more musicians, more people spent time learning their instruments, and everything was spread out.
