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.
Yeah, you're absolutely right. When we’ve interviewed people that worked on something like [the Eagles’] Hotel California, there were months of taking a week to work on guitar solos.
Exactly. We did that by default. I'm pretty sure, when we look back at it now, it was that first year that changed the sound of where we were going with this record.
Did you track piano and vocal takes at the beginning?
I record in a certain manner. I love analog gear, but I obviously use a DAW. We have a Neve Genesys desk, a load of outboard gear that I carry around in a rack, and great microphones. I can't start a record on a laptop. It doesn't work! It's not what I do. We had [Neumann] KM 185 [microphones] over the piano. I’d put the DAW into record, me and Katie would sit there and go through the songwriting on the piano, and I'd record it all live. We'd listen to that the next day. We'd sketch three or four rough songs, I'd go into the studio, and I'd listen to those takes. I'd put this hat on where I'm like, “Okay, how do I make this really make me feel good?” That's the moment where the bands I love really came into play. I'd put a Pink Floyd or Steely Dan record on and just sit in the sweet spot on my Barefoot [Sound monitors]. “Wow, those drums aren't that loud.” Everything I've been making for the last 10 years, the drums are in my face. Listening to these amazing records, I'm like, “No, those drums just aren't as loud.” They're there, and I'd hear them beautifully.
But they're not hitting you in the face.
They're not killing the whole record. One of the first things I did was, “Hey, I need to think about placement.” An engineer in New York once said to me, “You know that whole thing about faders and feet? There are two tracks and two microphones. They'd put a microphone in front of the lead singer, and they put a microphone on the whole band. If the drums were too loud, they'd say, ‘Go back two feet,’ and if the drums were too quiet, they'd say, ‘Come forward.’” Like a fader. I started to think, “Wow, imagine recording like that.” I started to set the room up. We had this baby, and I'd have cables all across the floor, and instruments all across the living room. That's how the record was made. Everything was about picking the right mic, creating the right distance, taking the right amount of time, learning my part properly, and using brilliant instruments.
How did you approach the drums? They sound period-appropriate.
I did some rough drumming in London, but they were in a big, big room and it was a bit too bold. When I started compressing, it sounded a bit too Phil Spector.
The room gets louder.
Yeah. So, we got down to our studio in Spain when we were able to leave London. I have a Yamaha Absolute [drum kit], and I have deep, seven-inch snares. I put a load of foam on a wall, and I pushed the kick drum right up against the wall, leaving a gap just so I could put my hand in to put a mic in it. That's it. When I was facing the wall, it was ‘70s – I felt the warmth off the wall, and my ears were telling me, “This sounds like an old ‘70s drum record.” I used all my usual [Shure SM]57s and 58s in certain ways. I placed some overhead [mics] facing this wall. I had the best two and a half years making this record in the studio. This is me being an engineer for the first time. I know I produced all our previous records, and I was on all my DAW systems. Sometimes we were on a flight, and I'd be listening to a mix in my headphones, making alterations – I'm never doing that again. There’s no way.
Did you do all the final mixing on your own with the Neve console?
Yeah. We gave it to a guy who was in Ibiza at the time; I'm not going to mention names because he didn't make the grade. He's a lovely guy. He’d worked on some massive records of that time as an engineer. I asked, “Have you ever mixed anything?” He was like, “Nah, not my thing. I'm an engineer.” I said, “But you engineered all this, and you did some of my favorites.” I asked, “Why don't you have a go mixing?” He took our record away, gave one track back, and it didn't work. Then he came back to me and said, “Your rough mixes of your record are very close. Just keep in the sweet spot, keep listening to those records that you love, and keep copying them." I kept listening to those beautiful records, and I kept putting the drums in that pocket as far as I could in the mix. I kept thinking, “When they mixed those records back in the day, they used to cut on vinyl and play on old hi-fi systems. They didn't think about hits and what radio did in the compression. They made it for the vinyl.” When I finished mixing the record, me and Katie went out for a drive around the island, and we listened to it. Katie was saying, “The drums are too low. My vocal’s too loud.” I said, “Let's master the record first. Let's do what they did years ago. Let's go to Abbey Road [Studios]. Let's get a mastering engineer.” We've used Geoff Pesche a few times, and we sent the record to him. When we got to Abbey Road Studios, he was in the foyer, leaning on the reception desk. He said, “You've made a fucking amazing record. I had to come down and tell you that before we go to mastering. If you want me to master it, I've just got to do this little bit of finessing. Let it breathe, keep the dynamics, make it feel like you’re struggling a little bit to hear that vocal or that drum. Just like we do with our lovely records that we love from yesteryear.” We came out of mastering, and we were like, “We've done it!” So, that's how this record came about.
Have you heard a vinyl version of it, at this point?
Yeah! We’re making vinyl, cassettes, and CDs. It's an amazing moment for us again 
