The chords that bind

Sound Awake’ is an artist management company that was started by a few college students who decided to unite because of their passion for music.

They aspire to give small bands a chance to grow by helping them secure gigs and performances at various festivals. 

The company wanted to act as a fuel for the artistes who are struggling and need their help to spread their music. They strongly believe in one entity — music and they don’t like to diversify it.

They help these artistes by hosting events for them to perform at. Sangeeth Ram from New Horizon College of Engineering founded the company along with his friend Ashwin in 2012.

He says, “We were very interested in conducting events and Ashwin named the company. We were originally an artiste management company but now we even host shows to promote artistes and conceptualisation of festivals. We have also started a series of rock shows called ‘Insurrection’, ‘Freewheel Rollin’ and a number of other festivals.”

They have held about 20 events to date and are looking into new projects like the ‘Sound Market’, which is basically a festival with various live bands. Suhas, one of the members from St Joseph’s,  believes that ‘Sound Awake’ gives these small bands a much deserved break to showcase their talent. He also hopes to promote outstation bands. 

The company endorses various genres of music like metal, rock although they would also be interested to work with traditional artistes too. They have members from various colleges like New Horizon, T-John College, Christ and St Joseph’s. Kruthika, a member from Christ College, believes that ‘Sound Awake’ has been instrumental in helping so many bands and the progress she has seen is tremendous. 

“It’s good to see talent appreciated, and small bands booking international acts. We help them achieve the limelight they deserve. Our next festival ‘Insurrection’ is on June 15, so I’m looking forward to that.”

The ‘Down Troddence’, a metal and folk/thrash band, is currently working with them. Ganesh, the drummer of this band, when asked about how ‘Sound Awake’ helped his band, said, “We were originally a small band from Kerala and we moved to Bangalore with hopes to perform more and display the talent our band had. ‘Sound Awake’ then helped us by giving us a platform to perform and this opened a big window of opportunities for us. It gave us the exposure we needed and helped us establish ourselves in Bangalore.”

Although they began as a online company, they now have a office at MG Road and they currently have 10 members. Sangeeth always believed that there were many talented individuals who didn’t have the means or opportunities to show their talent and perform publicly so he intended to help them achieve their goals. 

He believes it’s really difficult to establish new artists but that’s why he wants ‘Sound Awake’ to help them achieve that parameter of success.

On asked about the challenges he faces, “There are a lot of artist management companies in Bangalore so we face a lot of competition. I hope to work with other companies in the future.” ‘Sound Awake’ plans to host two festivals this year with various artists and they are currently working on this.