The Ting Tings: The Next Big Ting?

Their fabulously contemporary sound mixes indie rock and Spice Girls pop. As they head out on the NME tour, The Ting Tings talk to Andrew Perry

Watch The Ting Tings perform at Glastonbury

Opening annual proceedings in the music industry, the NME Awards Tour has a pretty good track record for launching successful bands. Previous beneficiaries have included Coldplay, the Killers, Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys.

The most intriguing - and most keenly tipped - of this year's four acts will be taking the stage first, at about 7pm. Called the Ting Tings, they're a girl/boy duo from Salford, who have released only two very limited-edition, seven-inch singles, sold at their live shows. I, for one, would eat my hat if they haven't had two Top 10 hits before the year's out.

Their repertoire, presently just 10 songs, is fabulously contemporary, mixing the lo-fi, synthy indie-rock of CSS, Go! Team or the Gossip with the out-and-out pop of the Spice Girls. Indeed, singer Katie White has all the attitude of Geri Halliwell.

"I was into ballroom dancing until I was 16," says White, when I meet them before a gig in Camden. "After that, I convinced two schoolfriends to be in a girl band with me."

They were called TKO, short for Total Knock Out, and once supported Atomic Kitten. After the split, she formed a more guitar-based pop band called Dear Eskimo, with one of their (male) songwriters, Jules De Martino.

"We had a deal at Mercury," White remembers, "but the two bosses who signed us got the boot after four months, and we never got our record out. Nobody wanted to work with us. We were like damaged goods."

Fortunately, White and De Martino had set themselves up in a living/work space in Islington Mill, a building in Salford that is an artists' collective.

"We had nothing apart from our little studio and Katie's will to do something," says De Martino. "She was like, 'No, I want to sing, and create something.' She made me get back into playing drums, and it all went from there."

"When you've got nothing to lose," says White, "it can be quite a liberating feeling."

About this time last year, White picked up a guitar for the first time. One of the first songs they wrote was That's Not My Name, about their bitter experiences in Dear Eskimo. The song's gig-only release somehow got airplay on Radio One.

"We played four gigs in our living room at the Mill," says White, "and by the fourth one, the head of Sony was there, sitting on our floor." (He later signed them.) Their next gig was at Glastonbury. On their return home, they switched on the BBC's coverage of the festival and found Jo Whiley and Mark Radcliffe touting them as the find of the weekend.

After such a brisk ascent, the band encountered something approaching a backlash, with certain voices in the music press castigating White's lack of proficiency on the guitar. De Martino long-sufferingly recalls one gig where White asked the audience if they could hear her guitar, only to be told: "No. Try turning your amp on first."

"But I can play about four chords with a passion," she counters, mischievously. "And I do. I mean it when I play, and my rhythm's good.

"I wouldn't say I'm a natural singer, either," she adds. "I'm just trying to find a different way to express myself."

British pop has always welcomed artists who represent a triumph of spirit over technical ability. The Ting Tings might simply fall into this category if they weren't the authors of such extraordinarily catchy tunes. These feel all the more empowering and exciting for being delivered simply and spontaneously by a genuinely punky DIY duo with little time for musical snobbery.

The duo themselves seem mildly confused but otherwise unfazed by all the attention.

"One of our songs, We Walk," says White, "is about this mentality we've got ourselves into, which is that if it all goes wrong, we can just walk, do a runner, and find a new life. It's nice to remember that onstage, if you're nervous. What's the worst that can happen? You know, Spain looks nice at this time of year…"

As the anticipation surrounding them reaches fever pitch, the Iberian adventure will probably have to wait.