I
f you had been one of the two other shoppers browsing the trinkets at the empty Sherman Oaks Antique Mall in early April, you probably would have seen a couple who looked like they’d time traveled from the Renaissance era. They were staring at a two-headed taxidermied rodent with a cowboy hat and a hamster posing with a skateboard and a helmet.
“How do you ethically source a two-headed rat?” asks Lance Shipp, reading a disclaimer above the dressed-up dead animals. “They can’t be real, right?” he says, the sleeve of his pirate blouse flowing as he points at one of the creatures.
“I don’t know how to feel about this,” says his partner, Michelle Buzz, looking at a two-headed rabbit wearing a ruffled clown collar just like the one she has on right now. (She’s also wearing powder blue tights and bloomers. She’s hard to miss.)
Despite our pitstop at this booth, we’re not here looking for dead-animal decorations. Buzz and Shipp, who make up the band Haute and Freddy, are on the lookout for a nice parasol for Buzz, and they wouldn’t mind finding a fun prop or an accessory to use for their shows. We browse through antique head massagers, spot a vintage, faded bodice, ride an old-school scooter, and skip a stack of vintage Playboy magazines during our time here.
The musicians (and real-life couple) have always embraced vintage style and quirkiness. Since their song “Scantily Clad” came out last year, the duo have built a solid group of fans, who have been drawn to Haute and Freddy’s baroque, 18th-century-inspired fashion and Eighties-synth sound. The band is just getting started: Last Friday, the duo dropped their latest single, “Shy Girl,” written about breaking free of societal norms and “owning every part of yourself without apology,” in time for their first show in New York City on June 3.
Even if they’re just at the start of Haute and Freddy, it’s been a whirlwind getting to this point as a pair. Both Buzz and Shipp share similar stories of moving to Los Angeles to pursue songwriting as a career. For years, Shipp co-wrote and produced songs for Rauw Alejandro, Britney Spears, and Calvin Harris, among others, as part of a composer collective. Buzz, for her part, penned hits including Katy Perry’s single “Never Really Over,” Kylie Minogue’s title track “Magic,” and cuts for Bebe Rexha’s past two albums.
“Truly being at the end of your rope emotionally opens up some crazy doors,” says Buzz, who grew up near Houston. “When I got out here, I was writing songs with five other people in a room and lost that special feeling that you can only get from just being in more of a play mindset instead of ‘Oh, I got to write a hit.’”
Songwriting was a passion, but deep down, both of them felt that they were meant to be artists. While navigating the already-tough world of songwriters, the duo connected through a mutual friend. There was an immediate spark. Buzz and Shipp connected over their love for theatrical music, The Phantom of the Opera, and obscure avant-garde choral pieces.
“When we finally sat down and played each other music, we were like, ‘We basically have the same brain,’” says Shipp, who remembers listening to the Carpenters and Luther Vandross as a kid growing up in Detroit.
The pair started hanging out on weekends and after writing sessions, and later freestyling with different, obscure sounds in Shipp’s studio, creating tracks that “never made it to the finish line.” Shipp emerged as the quieter percussionist and instrumentalist, while Buzz took the reins as the vocalist. “It was just to feel like ourselves again,” Buzz says.
For nearly two years, the pair kept their music to themselves. Their process was a stark contrast to their writing sessions for other artists, which often involved more of a show-and-tell approach with A&Rs, artist teams, and other songwriters to gauge a song’s hit potential.
“I was very much at a low point, wondering, ‘Is music still for me? Is songwriting the thing? My soul isn’t feeling fed anymore because I don’t get to play while making it,’” explains Buzz. “We’ve been these kooky people pretending to be like, ‘Hello. I am normal,’ and it’s not true and it’s not working.”
Together, they started to develop songs with alt-Eighties synths, freaky toplines, and free-flowing lyrics. With that, the duo began to shape the foundation of Haute and Freddy, adding wigs, playful clothing, and role-playing. Buzz, who tells stories about leading her little neighbors in playground productions of Cats as a kid, says she found a picture of an antique circus and felt inspired by what she saw to develop the group’s fairytale world. “This is us,” she remembers thinking.
Drawn by the photo and that feeling of being outsiders in their writing session, they developed a storyline for their musical personas: Haute and Freddy grew up in an 18th-century carnival “long, long ago, far, far away” but failed to fit in because they couldn’t do basic circus tricks. So instead, they secretly formed a band and with the dream of performing their music, they ran away from the carnival, pissing off aristocrats in the process.
“It’s the 18th century, but we’re allowed to wear shoulder pads,” jokes Shipp, who’s learning to play the lute to live the full fantasy. “We blur the centuries. It’s fine!”
It’s fitting, then, that the duo’s debut single opens with Buzz’s operatic Haute voice declaring: “The queen passed out in her balcony when I came out/The king ordered his men to close their eyes and say a prayer out louddd.”
“We’re just fine to rain on their parade and upset the queen, upset the prim and proper, and just be these fabulous misfits.… We are going to offend the pearl clutchers, but all we’re doing is being ourselves,” Buzz says. “If you have a problem, goodbye!”
Sonically, the pair pulls inspiration from the Eighties, specifically, Pet Shop Boys, with touches of New Order, opting for stripped song-building over vocal stacking and elaborate productions they saw used for some of the stars they worked with.
For their debut single, “Scantily Clad,” Shipp dug the deep web to find old drum-machine libraries and found a perfect one they used for the song. “It’s just a melody line going, and then you’re doing your crazy, ‘Baaaaah,’ over the top of it,” says Shipp, mimicking Buzz’s Haute voice. “The most important ingredient is the one you leave out. We don’t want to overdo it.”
Lyrically, the band gives in to the medieval misfit energy of the band’s storyline. On “Anti-Superstar,” Buzz sings, “Save it for the vain/I could care less if anyone else knows my name,” over a driving synth-y beat with a shining echo. The song goes against the structures of pop that they were using to write for others. On “Fashion Over Function,” they imagine an outsider’s perspective on their looks: “The town crier testified/The second we walked on by like/Could they be from Venus or Mars?”
Their newest release, “Shy Girl,” is a rebellious anthem dedicated to unapologetic expression that feels straight out of a coming-of-age film. Buzz was inspired by her upbringing, where “a lot of things were painted as sins.” She sings the track as a reminder to herself and others to “not forget that you always knew how to be bold and that you were always a goof and that it’s OK to just be fully you,” says Buzz. Writing the song “was just the quickest little explosion,” she adds.
The Haute and Freddy fantasy translates to their social media pages and during live shows as well. On Instagram, they write in thought-out Ren Faire English that their fans interact with in the same manner. “Dost thou have a favorite lyric to our lady on the run Shy Girl?” wrote the band under a recent post. And during a Valentine’s Day show at El Cid in Los Angeles, the duo included a voiceover introduction, presenting the band to the fans, which they’ve nicknamed the Royal Court, as their “humble jesters.” They even featured an interlude with a pair of vintage-style clowns. (Hayley Kiyoko was among the fans in the audience.)
“Come, here’s a place where we can dress up,” says Buzz of their shows. “I can’t wait to integrate more of that feeling for live shows, where it’s like maybe you receive a little role at the door and you have a part, and intermission is a play that we all participate in.”
What’s clear is that the duo just want to have fun. They’re making music freely, experimenting with their style, and building a community of queer people and misfits around them. It’s exactly what they’ve always wanted. “It’s just the deep hunger to be understood and to express myself,” says Buzz of her inspiration. “It’s a time where you can feel so much self-expression brewing, so much experimentation. I think everyone just needs that.”
We’re nearing the end of our thrift-hunting adventures, having sifted through a surplus of trinkets, Disney statuettes, and bedazzled cowboy boots. No working parasol, no real clothes were found, just a top hat Buzz found, removing her own feathered brown beret to try it on. As we approach the exit though, she spots something unusual at one of the last booths.
“Hello???” Buzz exclaims, her eyes lighting up. She’s found a Victorian-style phone with its rotary dial replaced by a number pad, and encased in what looks like jadestone. “That’s beautiful.… Oh, my goodness.”
Her ooh’s and ahh’s draw Shipp over, gears already turning. “I could probably turn this into a microphone,” Shipp says, picking up the receiver like he’s answering a call. “I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try.… We could stick it on a stand and have you sing into it onstage.”
“This is crazy,” Buzz says. “This is coming home with us.”
