We talk about the 6AM crew, not having a genre and leaving things to the last minute…
Luke Thompson, better known as Blissfool (@imblissfool), has wasted little time making his mark. Just over a year into the project, the producer and artist has already built a sound that refuses to sit neatly in one box, blending electronic, synth-led and bass-heavy production with UK garage, experimental touches and guitar-driven textures.
For Luke, music has been a constant since he first started producing at 15, inspired by the electronic sounds that made him wonder whether he could create something of his own.
That independent spirit also runs through 6am, the creative collective Luke shares with fellow Canterbury College alumni Jake St Ange, Efan and Fuji Hideout. The group have become a source of inspiration, collaboration and mutual support, with ambitions to grow beyond their founding members.
The Faversham-based artist has moved on to 250k monthly Spotify listeners, no easy feat in such a short space of time… we got in touch to find out more.
Hey Luke, thanks for jumping onto the call, so you were at a writing camp last week?
Yes, I was in Cork in Ireland for a few days. It was great, though, the people there are all just so talented but also nice as well. Like it was like the perfect line-up of people. The whole thing was just like a big holiday but making infinite bangers as well.
How does it work? Do they find your music and say ‘Do you want to come and be part of this?’.
Well, normally, yeah, they’ll come find you and it will normally be the writing camp for a specific artist. But this one was kind of different. It was more like a general writing camp that someone I know within the scene was hosting. So that’s why I got invited. And it was just making music for anybody, not for a specific artist. So that’s probably part of the reason it was better as well.
Often you just go to the studio for the whole day and then go back to a hotel or wherever, and you do that a few days in a row. But this one, everyone was in the same house, it was just more like a residential trip. It was great.
Do you go to them with a few things or tunes pre-prepared?
I used to do that but not really anymore. You just start something fresh every time that you’re there and, as long as you’ve got some interesting people in your session as well, the inspiration will come. You normally have a couple of producers in the session, too. So if you’re struggling creatively, they can just take over for a bit and lead it in a different way.
So on to Blissfool, the reason you came up in conversation initially was a chat I had with Jake St Ange, and he was talking about the 6am crew…
Yeah, we’re all good friends from Canterbury College. We were on the same course together, me, Jake and Efan, and then there’s another member, Fuji Hideout, who was in a different class but he was also at college.
That’s pretty rare, with all of you guys now doing well in the world of music!
Yeah, sometimes we make jokes like ‘Oh, they’ll be making shrines about our class back in the day’, but no, yeah, it is kind of rare to have so many from our class doing well. But obviously we’ve got a while to go. It’s quite a cool thing that we all found each other, but I guess it’s not really a coincidence, either, because we all help lift each other up. I draw a lot of my inspiration from them, just from their work ethic and everything.
How did you get into music in the first place?
Well, I always used to be listening to songs and just thinking “I wish I could create something like this”. When I was 15, I bought a laptop off my mate for like 20 quid, pirated FL studio and then just thought I might as well start trying to make it - and then since I just got addicted and didn’t stop from there. I’ve played the drums since I was like four, but I never thought to myself “I want to do this the rest of my life”.
That must help, though…
It’s definitely a useful skill to have to start getting into music and helps you understand rhythm and stuff like that.
Who would you be listening to in that era?
Actually, a lot of dance stuff. I have a memory of walking down the road listening to ? um ?. There’s this artist called Mura Masa and he has a song called Lovesick. Listening to that and just thinking “Imagine making this”. I just thought it was the most incredible bit of music.
How did Blissfool start?
I’ve been producing for a while under a different alias for other artists - that’s what my job was for the last couple years. But I was producing a lot of UK rap, which I loved at first. But then I kind of started to fall out of love with the genre and I felt like I was just making the same thing over and over again. So it kind of made it easy to then start my own artist project because I thought I just want to make what I want to make now, which was kind of more the electronic stuff. And then I just kind of got lucky that it took off as quickly as it did because it encouraged me to just carry on, go with my own solo thing. I think as long as you’re making stuff you’re proud of, it’s not as daunting as you may think.
You’re at about 250k monthly listeners on Spotify. That’s not easy to do. Do you guys have a secret formula?
I think we’re all just very talented… but they’re all more talented than me, in my opinion. But seriously, I think it’s just you’ve got to work hard. You have to really love what you’re doing. Because you want to be doing it like every waking minute that you can, really, to just get better. And if you’re doing that, and you’re posting to socials as well, something will eventually go well, in my opinion. Just keep trying stuff out. I don’t have any secret formula, other than making good music and making engaging content. But I don’t really know what’s the right content even at this stage. No one knows.
For people discovering you for the first time, how would you describe your sound?
I’ve been asked this a bit - I can’t really say because I just make all sorts. It’s electronic-sounding, obviously, and very synth-driven and bass-driven. But it’s just how I’m feeling at the time.
Have you got any favourites that you’ve released so far?
I’d say ‘it’s you’ that I did with Jake St Ange is one of my favourites. I just love his vocal part of it, like the way it’s mixed with the beat and stuff, and then also the fairly recent one I dropped called ‘after everything’. I think those are my two favourites currently, but it always changes what my favourite is.
What’s the state of play currently - are you signed to anyone?
Well, I was independent the whole time, which I loved because obviously you get the freedom to drop whatever and whenever. But I did just sign yesterday with a label called 7Cult. It’s a four-track deal and I thought they seemed like a good fit to drop some tracks with and see how it goes.
We saw you obviously played Rampage Festival in Belgium this summer…
That was my first-ever gig. I’d only started learning about four weeks before that as well. So I had to lock the f*ck in for that month and learn how to DJ and get a set together. But that’s kind of how I operate. Put myself under as much pressure as possible to do something. But it went really well in the end. I wasn’t even as nervous as I thought I would be until maybe like the 10 minutes before I was standing waiting to go on stage. But once I got on there and played the first track, it went smoothly after that and now I definitely feel like I’m ready to start getting a load of gigs going.
What does the end of this year look like for you?
By the end of the year, I want to be as happy as I am now. Still, you know, doing what I love as a job and reaching as many people as possible with my music, and hoping that it affects them in a good way. Really, that’s kind of my aim always. I want to work with as many people as possible to learn as much as possible and to help this 6am group succeed and do well.
We talk about the 6AM crew, not having a genre and leaving things to the last minute…