In an interview with EE, Kochar spoke about the aim of his venture and challenges facing the music industry today.

Manpreet Singh Kochar, Founder A&M Studio has served a 23-year long stint in the corporate world across organizations like KPMG, Coca-Cola Company, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank and Times group. Having worked across various brands and renowned musicians and predominantly singers, he realised that music has always been the most effective consumer marketing tool to reach out to the dormant audiences. With over 2 decades of experience, Kochar has taken his passion for music to the next level with A&M Studio. The Studio aims to create a community of musicians that’s being formed with talent from unusual places and walks of life. 

In an interview with EE, Kochar spoke about the aim of his venture and challenges facing the music industry today.

Excerpts:

What was the thought behind starting A& M Studio?

A&M Studio is one of its kind neutral platforms, created to promote budding talent in the field of music, giving equal opportunity to talented artists & musicians. The studio aims to bring out real raw talent and encourage any unfair biases in the music fraternity. It is also a unique platform that paves the stairway to success and stardom, A&M Studio is here to turn an artist into a rising star. This is an interesting journey of how there is so much music in the potential mankind that go unnoticed or camouflaged under the incessant coercion of working professionals of life.

Tell us about your collaboration with Fever 104 FM.

A&M Studio has collaborated with Fever 104 F.M and most of the singers of A&M Studios are associated with the Fever Unplugged program which is hosted by RJ Urmin. This collaboration brings forward the singers of A&M studios on one by one basis of their selections and promotes them on the channel. 

Can you share more details about your new IP--Fusion Nights.

A&M Studio has been organizing Fusion Nights – an IP that brings together talent amongst the 20-30 singers from across genres at one location for an evening filled with one thing that binds them all together – their love for music. These are bunch of super passionate musicians who marshal regular corporate working professionals in life otherwise, transform into power house at the fusion nights. When they begin jamming, they go from Hindi classical to Sufi filmy to pure Bollywood, to Punjabi and Rajasthani, Gujarati,Himachali, Assamese and Bengali folk to country music and to Hard Rock and Rock n Roll to instrumental jamming. The atmosphere during these Fusion Nights is just magical. One has to witness it to believe the pure passion & love for music that echoes across the room!

According to you, what are the biggest challenges facing the music industry today?

In a country the size of India, there is an insurmountable talent, and also huge challenges.

• Roadmap – there is no formal and organized stepping stone. New talent is encouraged to get into regular ‘paying jobs’ instead of harnessing their craft, as many don’t know how to channel it properly.
• Music is free - People have this huge inertia to pay for music, be it tickets for live gigs and shows or to the artists.
• Compensation structure – The remuneration to artists is not up to mark and there is exploitation. This needs to be corrected.
• Bollywood – dominates the Indian music scene. Playback comprises of about 70% of the music industry. So artists feel that they can make it big only if they score a playback.

How is A&M studio nurturing new talent?

The Studio scouts for talent in the most unlikely places. Whether in a corporate job or a business or unable to harness talent due to other challenges. A&M Studio dedicates itself to finding the raw untapped talent amid the meticulous professional life.

Some of A&M Studio talents such as Ujjawal Singh Bhandari, Nishant Gadhok, Abhishek Rathore have been successfully performing to a packed house at places such as Radio Bar & Café Haqq Se. Also, the skilful RishabhGiri, the youngest member, who has been learning music since the age of 5, represents his school music team and undeniably is an upcoming rising star. The response to them has been mind-blowing. 

Moreover, A &M Studio has now branched out to Canada & Dubai also. Where singers and musicians have already started getting added. In fact in Canada A&M Studio has found and added the singer of the first ever reality show ‘Leher Leher Sangeet’s final winner-- Ms. Manpreet Kaur Bawa’ who also sang the very popular song “Ghar Aaja Pardesi Tera Desh bulaaye re’ from the Legendary film Dilwale Dulhania Le jaayenge’    She’s is now making a comeback in her serious proffesional singing again. In Dubai branch we have got multi talented singers from India, Dubai, Pakistan and USA, namely Anup Jalota, Sanjay Jalota, Sudeep Banerjee, Gulaam Abbas Khan, Imran Ali and Farooq Ali Moon, winner of Lil Champs Sa Re Ga Ma Pa.