CREDIT: PROVIDED BY DRAKE CAMPBELL/BUBBLEGUM
Fanshawe Music Industry Arts (MIA) student Drake Campbell has an exciting future in the industry, most recently peforming as BUBBLEGUM.

Drake Campbell is a student in Fanshawe’s Music Industry Arts (MIA) program who has made tremendous strides in the local and online music community during his past two years as a student.

A highly ambitious and passionate musician, Campbell stays involved in the music community anyway he can, working as both a drummer, producer, DJ and composer.

Campbell got his start in the in the industry while he was in high school, where he began as a drummer playing for pop punk bands.

Eventually these bands parted ways and Campbell, who wanted to continue fueling his passion for music, began to look into other ways he could create music when not joined by other musicians.

With this in mind, Campbell soon found a fit in the electronic world and began learning as much about this craft as possible. During this time, he formed a House Music duo with an old band member and began playing shows while releasing music of this style.

As Campbell’s interest in the industry continued, he came to London seek out more information on how to form a career in this field.

“I moved to London wanting to go to MIA,” Campbell said.

Campbell told the Interrobang that upon starting the program and being put into group assignments with other musicians he started drumming with bands again.

“So, it was [a] kind of back and forth [path] between drums and producing,” Campbell said.

Over the course of last summer, Capmbell began work on a project called BUBBLEGUM, an upbeat EDM act.

Campbell shared that when undertaking the project, he wanted to create music that was “similar to what’s on the radio just with a more EDM vibe,”

Drawing upon inspiration from artists such as Marshmello, Slushi and Illenium, BUBBLEGUM features uplifting melodies and catchy hooks that leave the listener in a positive mood and ready to dance.

Collaboration was a huge key in this music and MIA served as an excellent resource for Campbell to find talented singers to work with.

“I started writing songs…and I was like ‘this song would be way better if I had someone singing on it and MIA just has so many different people who you can collaborate with,” Campbell said. His first track released in this fashion was a song called “Can’t Call You Mine” featuring Elisha, an artist Campbell met who was in second year, during his time in first year.

Campbell was smart enough to take advantage of the faculty strike this year, using the extra time as an opportunity to fully launch the BUBBLEGUM brand, releasing several singles.

“So even though it was kind of a sad time it was a good opportunity to be productive,” Campbell said.

The music has been very well received from his peers and online fans so far and Campbell plans to continue releasing a steady stream of content throughout this summer.

On top of his work with BUBBLEGUM, Campbell still stays involved as a house music DJ and drums for MIA bands Lost Arts and Kid Royal. He shared that in the beginning it took some time to get into the swing of balancing so many different projects but now that he has, the variation has had a positive effect on his own music.

“All those other projects influence my personal stuff…and I don’t get pigeonholed into one genre…I get to do other stuff and still come back to that. It’s kind of like a pallet cleanser every day of the week,” Campbell said.

Although there is a bitter sweetness with his time attending MIA coming to a close this summer, Campbell is optimistic and excited to see what the future hold for him and the multitude of projects he’s involved in.

Those who would like to stay in the loop with everything BUBBLEGUM has in store this summer can follow him at Facebook.com/IAmBubbleGum, Soundcloud.com/IAmBubbleGum and Instagram.com/IAmBubbleGumm.