Two Jersey Songwriters, One Studio

Most of the music that reaches a listener in London or Tokyo travels there on the back of a label, a marketing budget and a machine. The music of Hatten & Orliss, their management says, made the trip a different way — out of a private studio in New Jersey, written and recorded by the two people whose names are on it.

They are, by their own account, a genuinely independent act: a duo that writes, plays, records and produces its own original songs, blending contemporary pop, rock, folk and indie into something they are careful to keep melodic above all else. “A song is not a song unless it has an outstanding melody” is the principle their camp says the partnership is built on — the thread that runs through their catalog, from 2023 singles like “Standing Room Only” to this year’s “Stop Your Crying.”

What makes it a Jersey story is not just the zip code. It’s the model. In an era when “independent artist” often means one person and a laptop chasing an algorithm, Hatten & Orliss have built something closer to an old-fashioned songwriting shop — two writers, one room, and a standard they refuse to lower.

Who Hatten & Orliss Are

The duo is based in New Jersey, where they keep a private recording studio. Their camp describes a complementary partnership: one writer driving melody and creative direction, the other providing the rhythmic and structural backbone — a division of labor that lets them move a song from a hummed idea to a finished, produced master without leaving the room. Hatten attended Berklee College of Music, according to a profile the duo publishes on its website — the Boston institution that has trained generations of working songwriters and producers.

“Behind those achievements is a very New Jersey story about two independent songwriters creating music on their own terms.”— AJ Waller, Artist Manager, Phoenix Rise MGMT

Doing It Themselves

The phrase “we do it ourselves” gets used loosely in music. For Hatten & Orliss it is close to literal. The writing, the playing, the recording and the production all happen in-house. That control is the point: it’s what lets two people chase a melody for as long as it takes and answer to no one else’s release calendar. It is also the hard road — independence in 2026 means wearing every hat. The trade-off is ownership. What comes out carries their fingerprints and no one else’s.

How the Music Went Global

According to their management, the duo’s work has traveled well beyond New Jersey — picking up chart recognition in the United Kingdom and Japan, placements in film, and radio play in markets around the world. For an independent act working out of a home-state studio, international radio and overseas charting are the kind of milestones that usually require a label’s reach.

Their manager says there is more to tell — the stories behind the songs they’ve already released, and what comes next.

The Gazette has confirmed Hatten & Orliss as a working New Jersey songwriting duo with an active, self-produced catalog. International chart, film-placement and radio figures are as provided by the artists’ management.