It was just last year that Michelle Buzz and Lance Shipp, two seasoned Los Angeles-based pop songwriters, were feeling a little burnt out, and decided to do something different on the weekends for fun. “We really felt like there wasn’t room to be wild and infuse what inspired us into what we were working on,” Buzz says over the phone from L.A. “So I think we both in our own ways started saying no to a lot of stuff and found ourselves with a little more free time. Lance and I were playing each other these really obscure favorite records from our childhood and all this stuff, and really lighting up.”
The result was some infectiously catchy alt-pop songs that felt a little quirkier than what they might have come up with for a big-name client. “In songwriting sessions there is kind of this pressure of, like, ‘We have to make a hit today, we have to make something amazing, I want this artist to invite me back, I want them to know that I’m good,’” says Shipp. “We kinda just throw all that out. We just literally just play around with sounds with no expectation and no pressure. That’s kinda just how we do it.”
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Within a few months, Buzz and Shipp had not just songs but whole new alter egos, Haute & Freddy, that came with a wardrobe full of retro costumes and a hint of a backstory. “From the beginning we were really inspired by these old circus flyers, and this kind of fairytale we were putting together,” says Buzz. “Like okay, we were raised in the circus and we ran away because no one understood us and now we’re causing trouble. And I mean, I just happened to like bloomers, Lance just happened to like pirate tops. It was all these things converging, we didn’t know it was gonna fit together so well in the minds of anyone until it did.”
By the end of 2024, the duo had released their debut single and video “Scantily Clad” and played their first few shows in L.A. and New York, establishing a Haute & Freddy template that sounds like ‘80s synth pop and looks like a period piece about the 1700s or 1800s. Of course, those aesthetics have always gone together to some extent, dating back to New Romantic groups like Adam and the Ants and Culture Club.
Haute & Freddy take things a bit further with their carnival atmosphere and playful choreography. But you can find familiar echoes and parallels all over their moodboard, from Soft Cell’s erotic cabaret to Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, and even other recent rising stars like Chappell Roan and the Last Dinner Party. For Buzz, it’s a chance to indulge in her instincts as a frustrated theater kid. “I was in high school trying to get lead roles and always not getting the lead in the musical,” she laughs.
Buzz and Shipp both came to Los Angeles with a dream, she from Texas and he from Michigan. They seem disinterested in name-dropping the pop superstars they’ve written for, which include Katy Perry and Britney Spears, but you can hear the years of finely honed songcraft that they’re able to let loose as Haute & Freddy. “Shy Girl,” the most popular of the five singles they’ve released over the past year, has amassed millions of streams since dropping in April, and it feels an appropriate anthem for two musicians who’ve worked hard behind the scenes but also enjoy the spotlight. “‘Shy Girl’ is very powerful to me emotionally,” Buzz says. “It reminds me of everything that I want this project to be, in the sense of freedom and self-liberation. We still listen to it, like, just for fun in the car.”
The duo followed “Shy Girl” up with a midtempo love song in August, “Sophie,” which has quickly become their most popular video on YouTube. “I do feel like ‘Sophie’ showcases a different color of Haute & Freddy, and we did that on purpose,” Buzz says. ”We wanted to establish that early.”
So far Haute & Freddy have largely performed with a duo, with Shipp on drums, accompanied by backing tracks and sometimes costumed dancers. But as “Shy Girl” and “Sophie” have grown the duo’s fanbase, known affectionately as the Royal Court, they’ve added a bassist to their band to perform around the country, including in Buzz and Shipp’s home states.
In June, Haute & Freddy appeared at Electric Forest, a festival in rural Michigan, and were able to stand out and connect with music lovers at an event dominated by EDM producers and jam bands. “It was like, okay, this is literally the circus sideshow happening in the forest at 1:00 a.m., everyone was loving it,” Buzz says. “Here’s these fans all dressed up like jesters and clowns and everyone can escape for a while here, and get a balloon crown and be knighted in this silly way.”
For Shipp, it was a chance to show his crazy new project to some of his family. “My sister and her husband actually got to come out and see us, and it was really great, I’ll never forget that,” he says. “My sister was blubbering like a baby the whole time. Every photo she’s in, just tears streaming down her face.”
In October, Haute & Freddy will play Austin City Limits, which should be a similar full circle moment for Buzz, who grew up a couple hours away in Houston. “I’m very excited to bring the rebellion to Austin,” she says.
It’s not lost on the duo that this success came to them when they took a break from the commercial pressures of working in the music industry and followed their bliss. “We were just writing songs for fun, and we had no intention of putting them out,” says Shipp. “But we just had so much fun that we were like, ‘Let’s just post about it and see what happens.’”
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