Singer-guitarist Katie White and drummer Jules De Martino are The Ting Tings, the Brit pop band whose debut CD We Started Something has spawned hits. (Michael Peake, Sun Media)

Making a record can be an extremely arduous, time-consuming and expensive process that often leaves bands severely in the red.

So when the duo of vocalist-guitarist Katie White and drummer Jules De Martino -- better known as sugar-coated British pop band The Ting Tings -- got together they decided to keep it very simple.

"We've done a lot of experimenting and produced it ourselves so it's not a case of someone going around and trying to get your sound down," De Martino says. "We gave every song or the idea we had two hours. So in two hours if we didn't get that fix that we wanted and the enjoyment out of it, we scrapped the song."

That spontaneity saturates The Ting Tings' debut We Started Nothing, a short but very snappy electro-dance-pop record clocking in at just over 35 minutes. And on first (and repeated) listens, it's hard to believe the band didn't have anything but a blast creating it.

White says that wasn't the case.

"At the time when we wrote some of those songs, we had been in a band for a while and we were not confident and we were getting frustrated as well," she says. "So there was this mixture where I would write frustrated lyrics. But we wanted it to feel good because we were feeling so crappy that we wanted it to have this uplifting feeling to it. So people think, 'Oh yeah that's a happy song.' But it's not, I was moaning for like 50 minutes."

The album features the punchy opener Great DJ and the equally infectious Fruit Machine, both sounding like a cross between The Go-Gos and former British band Elastica.

The Ting Tings, named after a Chinese friend White knew, got a big break when Apple decided to use the song Shut Up And Let Me Go in an iPod commercial. White says that happy circumstance also came during a hectic three days when she collapsed at Austin's South By Southwest Festival after a bout of jet lag.

"We were playing South By Southwest which is that big music festival where all the bands go to just to get pissed," she says. "So on the second show on the second day I fainted on stage. The temperature was 100 degrees heat and I had two dresses on, tights and a cardigan. I'm from Manchester and I'm not used to dressing in hot weather."

As for the song, De Martino says they were trying to let the rhythm drive it along.

"We were thinking about songs like (Queen's) Another One Bites The Dust and those rhythm tunes," De Martino says. "So we went straight into the studio but we said let's do a track that's based on rhythm more than content and we just started writing.

"I think what came out was a little bit of being signed to a label that didn't want us to be signed to them anymore. They just kept us hanging on and telling us what we should do and how we should dress and what we should look like.

"We just wanted to get on with doing our own thing which was Shut Up And Let Me Go."

The Ting Tings played Canada recently and will stay on the road in North America and Europe until Dec. 19. De Martino says they aren't thinking ahead to the next record but don't expect to change the recording process too much.

"We're planning on doing the same thing again," he says. "We're not a band that's going to store away anything."

They sure dance up a storm on vinyl

The Ting Tings have become known for a high-energy live show that features both Katie White and Jules De Martino usually dancing up a storm on vinyl.

The group place old vinyl discs on the floor and dance on them, something that's gotten the duo some added attention.

So when White and De Martino visit record shops, do they dance on them first before purchasing them?

"I think that's a great idea," White says with a laugh. "We love doing things like that and we love doing stuff with vinyl. So we decided to dance on them for this one. We have slept with them and ate with them just to make them feel like the old loved vinyl."

De Martino also says the group find themselves in a nice spot, on the cusp of something bigger but currently happy their music is making inroads.

"People are hearing your record or hearing you on the radio," he says. "But when they come to see the band, they hear nine tracks off the album in 50 minutes and you can see the audience's reaction to the energy. And we get a lot of pleasure from doing that."

Probably the hardest part coping with the success is touring, especially the phobia both have of flying.

"We sat there in London and sat there for an hour," White says speaking of the flight into Toronto during a severe thunderstorm. "We got refueled and when we got back off the ground we went straight into the storm. We thought we were going to die. When we landed everybody clapped for the pilot."