Haute and Freddy’s new single ‘Touch Touch’ is out, and if their Lollapalooza debut of the track earlier this summer was any indication, Michelle Buzz and Lance Shipp have found their most direct shot of pure escapism yet. The duo brought Cosmopolitan behind the scenes of the ‘Touch Touch’ music video to talk festival runs, whimsy, and why Lady Gaga keeps showing up in their dreams.
Haute and Freddy Touch Touch: What the Song Is Actually About
Buzz, who performs as Haute, traced the track back to a specific feeling. ‘It’s fun to surround yourself with strangers, not really knowing who you’re around, but feeling that sharedness,’ she said. ‘It’s healing to see everybody losing themselves in the music when you might have had a hard time getting out of your own way.’
Shipp, performing as Freddy, put it plainly: ‘There’s comfort in knowing other people are going through something similar to you, and if you are surrounded by that completely, you’re not alone. We’re sharing this human existence, and you can take a breath for a second with everybody.’
That communal release is baked into everything Haute and Freddy do. ‘Touch Touch’ is their first release since their debut album, Big Disgrace, and it lands with the duo already building real momentum on the live circuit.
Big Disgrace, the Album Behind the Personas
Released in March, according to Music Musings & Such, Big Disgrace established the pair’s ’80s-meets-18th-century fantasy world in full. The record pulls from a broad range of influences: Musings on Music notes Madonna, The Cure and Kate Bush as touchstones on the album. Interestingly, Buzz admitted she had only heard two Kate Bush songs before label executives pointed her toward that lineage during early meetings. ‘That’s what I find really strange and magical,’ she said of channelling that sound without having lived inside it.
The album has since attracted famous fans including Hayley Kiyoko and Melanie Martinez, the latter of whom the duo recently supported on tour. Lady Gaga posted their track ‘Shy Girl’ on her birthday, a moment the pair described as life-changing. Both Buzz and Shipp then revealed, slightly startled, that they had each dreamed about Gaga the night before the interview. Buzz’s version involved a water park and inner tubes. Shipp’s had Gaga sitting in a chair somewhere, simply present.
Playing Bigger Stages Without Losing the Theater Feel
Haute and Freddy debuted ‘Touch Touch’ at Lollapalooza, and performing on larger stages is something Buzz is still working through physically. ‘I always tell Lance I’m going to move less, or I’m going to pass out,’ she said. The duo use a painted cart facade on stage deliberately, pulling attention away from LED screens and back toward what Buzz calls ‘that old theater vibe’. On bigger stages, that sense of intimacy takes more effort to manufacture. ‘I want it to feel like a small theater so bad,’ she said.
Shipp pointed to a moment of intentional camp mid-set: a theatrical heavy-breathing sequence after ‘Symphony for a Queen’ that serves a real function. ‘That’s campy, but it’s also needed in the moment,’ he said. Buzz’s body, apparently, agrees: ‘My body’s like, “Oh, you’re finally breathing right. Thanks!”‘
Whimsy as a Genuine Creative Strategy
Before Haute and Freddy existed, Buzz and Shipp were writing hits for major pop artists. The shift into their own project came when they allowed themselves to write purely for the joy of it, rather than to fit a brief. Shipp put the philosophy directly: ‘When they see us being silly, they can be whoever they are.’ Buzz framed the wider cultural appetite for it bluntly: ‘There’s much to life that feels like we’re in rigid systems. Whimsy and improv are craved, but I really didn’t anticipate that at all.’
To keep that playfulness alive, Buzz described taking deliberate breaks: driving two hours to a smaller town, browsing antique shops, buying art supplies with no plan. ‘I need those kinds of things that don’t have a mission for my creativity to stay happy and healthy,’ she said. Shipp’s method is simpler: ‘I find the most surprises in trying things we don’t know will work, but we do it anyway. There’s a lot of beauty behind the I don’t know.’
‘Touch Touch’ is out now. For Haute and Freddy, the next step is continuing the live run that turned a Lollapalooza debut into a proper moment.