Sarthak Kulshreshtha Interview: From Ajmer to Managing Dream Note, Burrah & Samar Mehdi
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
It started quietly in Ajmer, a city not exactly known as a launchpad for the music industry, where Sarthak was the singer and songwriter for a metal band. A chance friendship with a college junior from the Northeast introduced him to music that would reshape his entire vocabulary as a listener and, eventually, as a professional. "He introduced me to some great music," Sarthak recalls, "and that actually shaped up a lot of my music vocabulary and the way I look at music."
In 2014, he moved to Bangalore as a data engineer with Infosys. But the city had other plans. On the side, he started picking up gigs and small-level shows, meeting people, building relationships, and quietly learning the architecture of the music business. Then came the international chapter.
Together with his then-partner, Sarthak began inviting international rock and metal artists to India. By the time COVID-19 brought the live music world to a halt in 2020, he had spent years on the road, booking and touring with artists like Steven Wilson, Tesseract, and Polyphia, names that carry serious weight in the global rock and metal circuit.
"Then COVID hit," he says plainly. "The entire live setup was at a standstill."
The Pivot
When the shows stopped, Sarthak made a decision: whatever came next had to be sustainable. That's when he met the boys from Dream Note, now one of India's most-streamed independent rock acts with over 6 lakh monthly listeners on Spotify. It began as a booking arrangement where he would handle live shows, but the relationship deepened organically. "They really liked my work and said, why don't you manage us?" he recalls. "It is not like a particular point you realize you're an artist manager. Gradually, even with the artist, the relationship is very gradual."
He reaches for an analogy to explain it: "I always give this example: whenever you meet a girl, you don't say 'okay, you are my girlfriend, I'm going to marry you.' Similarly, artist management is like a relationship. It builds over time."
What an Artist Manager Actually Does
Ask Sarthak what he does, and he'll first tell you what he isn't. There's a distinction, one the industry doesn't always make clear, between a manager and a booking agent. "An artist has a team around him or her," he explains. "There is an artist manager, a booking agent, a publicist, a business manager, entertainment lawyers."
A booking agent gets you shows. A manager does something deeper.
"An artist manager is the one who is working on long-term business strategies. He's the one who is negotiating on your behalf." For Sarthak, that means contract negotiations with music labels, navigating royalty structures from café plays to Spotify streams, working with collecting societies, securing brand collaborations, and steering the entire arc of a music rollout from planning through post-release strategy.
How Much Does an Artist Manager Earn?
He's candid about the financial reality too. When an artist is still finding their footing, a monthly retainer is often impossible. "They don't have money." But once an artist breaks out, the structure typically shifts to a percentage of annual revenue, usually somewhere between 15 and 20%, varying by project. Some projects, he notes, he takes no cut from at all, because there's no revenue, or simply because it matters artistically.
Ajmer's Voice
There's a geographic tension that runs through Sarthak's career. The industry's decision-makers are concentrated in Mumbai. The agencies and managers there have faster, more direct access to the rooms where opportunities are made. Being Bangalore-based, and now, increasingly, Ajmer-connected, means navigating that asymmetry.
"You get a call one day, can you come? My artist will have to figure out logistics, figure out availability," he says. "That's a challenge that is still there."
But rather than retreating from it, Sarthak has leaned in. He's returned to Ajmer with purpose, having already organized three shows there: Dream Note, Samar Mehdi, and Parvaas, all performing at Alchemist. "Great shows. We exceeded expectations," he says. "But I would love to see someone from Ajmer breaking out in the scene. I'm sure there is talent. I'm sure there are people who have stories to tell through their music. It's just that we have to nurture them and show them that this can be a career."
Sarthak also shared his aspirations of bringing music culture to Ajmer, one of the prominent reasons why he moved back to the city.
A Legacy, Not Just a Career
Ask Sarthak about what's next, and he gives you two answers: the short-term and the life's work.
Short-term: all three of his artists, Dream Note, Burrah, and Samar Mehdi, are releasing new music. Two are heading out on tour, not just across India but into the UK later this year.
"Crazy good music that we are going to put out," he says with quiet confidence.
But the larger ambition is harder to quantify. "I always think of leaving behind a legacy. I want to build a sustainable system, even when I am not there in this world. Building blueprints, building teams where we transfer knowledge to coming generations."
It's an unusual thing for someone still in the thick of their career to say. But for a man who came to music management not through a classroom or an internship but through a decade of showing up, building trust one relationship at a time, it makes complete sense.
Sarthak Kulshrestha wasn't handed a roadmap. He drew one. And now, quietly, he's making it available to everyone who comes after him.
Sarthak Kulshrestha is a Bangalore-based artist manager representing Dream Note, Burrah, and Samar Mehdi, with roots in Ajmer, Rajasthan.
Comments