Haute & Freddy are heading to the big top

Embarking on a tour around the U.S. with multiple sold out dates, Haute & Freddy are taking the alt pop scene to the circus, complete with full costumes, hair and makeup. Under the heat of the Texas afternoon sun, the duo performed at Austin City Limits, where Pleaser had the chance to chat with them about costuming, the creative process and the musical Cats. 

Pleaser Magazine: Start from the beginning, how did music come into your lives?

Lance Shipp: My mom put a piano in front of me when I was three, like, a light up little piano. I was just obsessed with it. It would light up and teach you songs by the lights. And so I just loved learning the piano. So I learned that, and it led me to learn guitar and bass and drums –

Michelle Buzz: Like all when you were young. He’s like ‘Yeah, I was just producing by the time I was 15, and playing every instrument.’

LP: I just became obsessed with music at a young age.

MB: I think mine came from my grandma showing me Broadway stuff and musicals, Andrew Lloyd Weber, [and] I fell down the rabbit hole. She showed me Cats. I was like, this, is it –

LP: We watched it last weekend –

The movie or the stage production? 

MB: They filmed the 1998 stage production. So that's all I watch.

Because I was gonna say the movie is –

MB: Yeah, we don't even, we don't discuss that. I have a similar story with piano, like, started really at 15, making up things on the piano. So I took lessons and the whole thing. And I was just always writing after school. I was like, I have to get home and purge my emotions and be like, [imitating playing the piano angrily] ‘why don't you like me people at school,’ you know? And that was just my entire life every day: write about your feelings, and then it can feel like, okay, now I can go do basic sh*t.

We both found ourselves in LA, and that's a whole different chapter. We both wrote and produced for other artists and didn't know each other. [We] just wanted to help make great songs. Lance [and I] both made albums when we were teenagers, and we never showed anybody, but put the effort in. We found ourselves making songs for other people, what happens if we start writing together for us? 

You said you both made albums as teenagers, how has your musical taste and musical ability evolved over time, as y'all have kind of come to find y'all's shtick?

MB: I mean, for me, I've just returned to my original inspirations unafraid. I think for so long I really drank the Kool Aid in LA of okay, a hit song is this, and it's formulated, and I was rejecting my favorite little unique places to pull from. So this music now is really close to what I was making when I was seven, but it wasn't as good at seven, like –

LP: The feeling in the creative process kind of is like back when we were kids, where there was no goal, really, we were just kind of making music for fun just to make music, and I feel like we're back there.

Y'all obviously have costumes going on, the whole circus, jester, 19th century kind of theme. When y'all sat down and said, okay, this is what we want to do, of all of the things that y'all could have picked from, what made y'all pick this?

MB: This was so like a slow little snake into my brain. I was consuming a lot of fashion docs from the 80s. So I was seeing that whole New Romantics era. And this is like, two years ago. I'm just looking for inspiration.

I was burnt in the music scene of songwriting. So I was like, okay, I need to watch some other art, like watching fashion documentaries. And I kind of fell in love with hearing the stories of opera houses closing down in the 80s, and people were just grabbing costumes and wearing it to the club. And that's how you got that whole movement. And then designers really pushed that into pop culture. So you have Madonna doing that in the early 2000s or late 90s, it's so cool to kind of pull from this snooty era of aristocracy. 

We've always felt like misfits at the same time. I'm finding all these old circus illustrations. And I was like, this is so sick. I resonate with this metaphor of we never fit in in the circus of life, and then we just wanted to escape and cause trouble in the kingdom. And to me, those things just merge. And I was like, how sick would it be if we go [Renassiance] fair on this, but kooky and our way?

Are y’all scouring costume stores, or do y'all work with people to get these costumes done?

MB: We're scouring a lot. This [pointing to their costumes] obviously, I would have passed out if I found this. This was one of our favorite things to work on all year with this designer, Molly Bell, literally since January. I was sending her references and I was like, I want to do this. It's been so fun to work on this. This is kind of the first custom situation.

I see kind of a lot of what you were talking about, of people wearing this in clubs in your music videos. What is the process for beginning to end? 

LP: I guess it's song to song. With our last video “Freaks,” we were like, it’s going to be freaky, but we want to dance and make it silly and make it fun.

MB: I'll just play the song in the car and we'll just kind of picture what naturally is popping into my mind. Are we outside in this song? Or are we in a weird –

LP: Like how many synchronized swimmers are there is a good question to have. [Laughs] 

If any!

LP: Probably at least two! [Everyone laughs] 

What does the writer's room look like for y'all? Because you have so much experience [is it] lyrics first, production first, a combination of both?

LP: A combination of both; it happens differently every time. Sometimes there's a track she might have, or even just the sound pulled up, and that inspires a feeling, which inspires a lyric, which inspires a song.

MB: But I will say we're both, I think, quite driven by production, like playing chords first. We'll both just have sounds and toy around, and then we'll sink into that flow, and then I will kind of start to be like, okay, I'm getting that blurry cloud of, there's gonna be a lot of ideas here, let's hop on the mike.

For me, lyrics are last and the best songs for us. The lyrics have happened magically when the melody is [found]. I mean, that is like a strike of lightning.

You have the song ready, you have your set. You're performing at a festival now that you have a few under your belt. What was it like, ACL versus the other festivals you've performed at?

MB: The heat. I mean, this is the first time we had our computer overheat, and it overheated on our last song, “Shy Girl.” So then we pivoted and did “Shy Girl” acapella,

LP: Acapella with drums.

MB: We'll never forget that. It was beautiful, but we'll do everything to also probably not [do that again]. [We’re] really inspired to learn from that.

LP: That was different. [laughs] 

It feels like a good sign, yeah. Y'all do a lot of collaborating with the same people and things. Do y'all have other people that you'd want to collaborate with in a dream scenario?

MB: I like keeping the door open. We're always kind of looking to meet those magical minded creatives. There's some choreographers I see out there. And designers, I'm like, please respond. It's kind of like, we'll see who's paths align. Then artists –

LP: And companies like, if Roland wants to make us a custom drum kit –

MB: Oh yeah, Roland please help! [Laughs] 

LP: Roland if you’re listening we would love a custom drum kit. We love you. We love you. We use all your drums. I mean, we love you. 

There's been a slew of singles. Is this working up to an album? An EP?

LP: Maybe?

MB: I mean, we're planning some strong hints in the comments about an album, so the announcement is coming.

Have people figured it out? Are they sussing out there's –

MB: Yes I really feel like everyone feels it. We haven't said it and even though we're not saying it now.

LP: Can neither confirm nor deny.

MB: I always say you can hear the stampede of horses hair in the wind on the horizon.

LP: The soft wind whispers in your ear ‘the album is coming’ which it may or may not.