De Martino was born in West Ham, the son of Anglo-Irish mother, Rosemary, and Maltese father, Benito De Martino. Jules has one older sister, Maria. He began playing drums at the age of 13.
Musical projects
Babakoto
When he was 17, De Martino was the drummer and songwriter in a band called "Babakoto", who once played as a backing group for Bros and released a single at the end of 1987 called "Just to Get By", which failed to chart.
After Babakoto broke up De Martino became the lead singer in another indie band called "Mojo Pin", named after the first song on Jeff Buckley's 1994 album Grace. Mojo Pin released two singles, "You" in 1995 and "My Imagination" in 1996.
TKO
In March 2001 Katie White's father David White brought in De Martino as a songwriter and he wrote four songs for her group TKO.
Dear Eskiimo
De Martino moved to Manchester and formed a band with Katie White and DJ Simon Templeman which they called Dear Eskiimo. The name was intended to be as nomadic, tribal and independent as possible. There were already several bands called Eskimo but De Martino, 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. 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.
In 2007, De Martino and White started a duo with White on vocals, guitar and bass drum and De Martino on vocals, drums, bass, guitar, and keyboards. They started writing songs together and performing short concerts. White was working in a boutique with a Chinese girl called "Ting Ting", which sounds like Mandarin Chinese for "band stand" and White used it as name for the band. One transliteration of the band's name in Japanese is a slang word for penis. 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.
