Upbringing
Louis Cole was born in 1986 in Los Angeles, into a deeply musical family: his father played jazz piano and his mother played bass. Thanks to that environment, he was exposed to music from a very early age, and by the time he was eight years old he had already started playing the drums. He describes his childhood as "the luckiest upbringing," because those early years — with a parent jamming on piano and him drumming along — served as his foundational musical education.
Those creative impulses might have been discouraged, but his parents tolerated the racket of early drum-practice, giving him the freedom to explore rhythm and sound inside his home. Over time, his curiosity expanded — he learned not only drums but also keyboards, bass, and began to experiment with composing and producing. This early multi-instrumental exposure and DIY-style freedom fostered in him a sense of musical openness: he came to see music not just as performance, but as a space for creative experimentation.
As he grew older, Cole decided to formalize his passion: he studied jazz at the USC Thornton School of Music, graduating in 2009. His formal training refined the skills he'd developed at home — understanding harmony, improvisation, and the broader possibilities of jazz and composition. But equally important was the spirit he inherited from childhood: the combination of structure (from his education) and freedom (from his upbringing) — a balance that shows up in how he blends jazz, funk, pop, electronic, and experimental elements in his music.
Because of that upbringing, Cole grew into a multi-instrumentalist who doesn't limit himself to one genre or style. Instead, he approaches music as a playground — open-minded, inventive, and unafraid of blending influences. That early foundation — rhythmic curiosity, parental support, musical immersion — not only shaped his technical skills, but also fostered a creative ideology: music as experimentation, fun, and soulful expression.
Career
| 2010 | Immediately after finishing his studies, he co-founded Knower with Genevieve Artadi — a duo blending jazz, funk, electronic and pop |
| Parallel to the duo, Cole developed a solo path: since 2010 he has released several solo albums, exploring a distinctive style merging jazz-funk, electronic and experimental sounds. | |
| 2017 | One of his breakout moments came when his short track “Bank Account” went viral — that helped propel him and Knower to wider fame. |
| 2018 | He released "Time" under the eclectic label Brainfeeder, cementing his reputation as a virtuoso modern multi-instrumentalist and eclectic composer. |
| 2022 | In 2022 he released "Quality Over Opinion", showcasing his evolution and earning recognition for blending complex arrangements, funk grooves and genre-defying compositions. |
| 2023 | "Some unused songs" was published, a less concrete project with a dreamy feel and more classic jazz inspirations. |
| 2024 | His most recent project was the ambitious "Nothing", a live album featuring Metropole Orkest, leaded by Jules Buckley. This is his most elaborate work to date, since he arranged all of the orchestral parts and also performed drums, keys and vocals live. |
| Throughout his career, Cole has also collaborated with artists such as Thundercat, Brad Mehldau and others from the jazz-fusion and contemporary music scene. | |
Influences
The magic of Cole's music can be traced to the works that inspire him. Living under a musician's ceiling, he grew up listening to the likes of James Brown, Michael Jackson and Prince, and quickly discovered jazz classics such as Coltrane or Davis.
However, in his youth he became heavily interested by electronic music, mainly , with bands such as Boards of Canada or Aphex Twin, and drum&bass and jungle classics.
Therefore, he made a lot of research about sampling, sound design and synthesis, while maintaining a deep connection and understanding of advanced jazz music and concepts, being specially influenced by drummers Jack DeJohnnette, Tony Williams, Vinnie Colaiuta and Keith Carlock.
Because of this, he's become a really unique profile, a sort of modern Frank Zappa
