24 May,2026 07:41 AM IST | Mumbai | Akshita Maheshwari
Sanchit Khosla, 26, Indie musician, one half of musical duo KhoslaRaghu. Pic/Shadab Khan; Rosemary Fernandes, 31, Part of cover band Rosemary and the Herbs. Pic/Atul Kamble; Zain Calcuttawala, 37, Indie music producer; Avan Roy, 20, Classic rock musician
When Michael came out last month, lakhs of fans and non-fans alike united in the cinemas. Michael Jackson is not just the king of pop - he is the human form of the wide-eyed dream many of us had as kids, to make something that somehow connects millions in one go, to make a sound that transcends languages and cultures, to be a musician.
But would Michael Jackson have made it today? Rising cost of living and the oversaturation caused by the Internet is making the craft too expensive today.
Sanchit Khosla is one half of band KhoslaRaghu, with Rishabh Raghuvanshi. He says, "The economics of the industry only work in favour of the top 0.01 per cent." He got online to break down exactly how much it cost him to make the new album from his band. Their EP Aawara (2025), which contains five tracks, took them around R10 lakh to roll out - R4 lakh from their own pockets and R6 lakh from their team. Though they saved money on recording since they have a home studio, the musicians had to spend money on mastering songs, shooting promotional content and music videos, and marketing. "This is peanuts compared to how much money bigger artistes spend," says Khosla.
And how much money did they make back? Despite having 38 lakh streams on Spotify, they made only R4 lakh back. "It'll take us a few years to recover all the money that went into this record," says Khosla, "But this is the cost of being independent."
Khosla moved to Mumbai from Delhi around a year ago. "I always wanted to produce or compose my own music," says the 26-year-old who started collaborating with Rishabh Raghuvanshi in college. He adds, "He also wanted to pursue music, so we ended up jamming and making a bunch of songs. The purpose of music, as I see it, is just to bring people together. So in a way, it fulfilled that need also."
Back home, Khosla has a full studio set-up, on which he spent Rs 1.2 lakh. "I was fortunate to come from a privileged family. My father asked me to pursue music for the passion of it," he says. It is in this studio that they produced Aawara. They speculate that their upcoming full-length album will cost another Rs 20-25 lakh.
"The Internet has democratised music in a way that you can set up a studio in R20,000 also, or in R1.2 lakh also," says Khosla, "India has a jugaad for everything. You can pirate software, record in a closet. It depends on the artiste - how many favours can they call in."
The falling rupee has been hurting the industry. "All the equipment you need for a studio has to be imported from China. There is no manufacturing set up in India. That means payments are happening in US dollars," says the Andheri resident. The mic that he bought for Rs 21,000 in 2019, now costs around R27,000.
KhoslaRaghu just did an India tour, right after finishing a couple of shows in the UK. They have close to three lakh monthly listeners on Spotify. So how's the money? "Initially, there is no revenue. Every artiste has to hustle. We sold one of our songs to a label for Rs 1 lakh in 2021. That was the first proof of concept for me. You can ghost-write, ghost-produce - you'll get a little extra since your name isn't on the project."
Once they've made it, we wonder how much does streaming pay. "Not very much. Spotify is near the bottom on payouts. Their subscription in India starts at R69. In the US, it is $12-13, so streams earn less money here. Generally, for a million streams, you get around R50,000 in India. But again, if you're signed with a top label like Universal or Warner, they could negotiate a higher pay out for you," Khosla says, "YouTube pays much higher than Spotify, but generally Apple Music has the best payout for artistes."
So where is the real money? "Wedding shows," Khosla answers without hesitation, "There's a surcharge on everything and no cost from your side. If I do a ticketed show for my own fans, I'll sell around 300 tickets at R700 each. But then there are many costs: band, sound engineer, production, accommodation, flights. A wedding show bears all of these for you."
Then, it seems like making music is reserved only for the privileged. "No," Khosla says matter-of-factly, "It is much cheaper to make music today than it was in the '90s. But as technology enables everyone to make music, standing out becomes harder. Either you make a brand out of your music, or there will be 100 more artistes made from a single prompt." Storytelling is what will make an artiste stand out today, Khosla argues. "A Hanumankind or a Chaar Diwari came with a certain kind of aura. You need to build a world around your music. Even Aawara was an effort to do that - everything from the music videos to the artwork to the promotions revolved around being aawara."
Rs 27K
Cost of one mic today which used to cost Rs 21,000 in 2019
Rs 700
Average hourly rate of a jam room in Mumbai
25-30%
Of a musician's revenue comes through streaming
Musician and widely popular American music educator Rick Beato recently made a statement saying, "In my day, you could afford to have a regular job, pay the rent, and still make music. Now in 2026, invariably, the artistes that are popular, almost all of them are from wealthy families." He gives examples of artistes like Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, Sabrina Carpenter. "Historically, bands like The Beatles, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, The Kinks, Nirvana⦠were all working class bands. But now, only those with wealthy parents can afford to be musicians. There is no money in the music business like there was. Yes, people can make millions of dollars doing it, but it's such a small number of people that can do that."
Rock musicians, new and old, tell us the struggles they face
When Avan Roy was 11 years old, he came across a film called The Doors (1991), based on rock legend Jim Morrison. At his home in Jaipur, Roy grew up around three older sisters who first introduced him to English music. But it was Morrison who opened his eyes to the world of rock and roll. "The Beatles, Pink Floyd, David Bowie," says Roy, now 20, "I didn't just want to listen to this. I wanted to be able to play it as well."
Roy has never stopped making music since. In 2024, he moved to Mumbai to enroll in HR College as a mass communication student, while exploring the city's rock scene. "I've played multiple venues like The Stables and The Finch," he says. Right now he has two singles on Spotify and is working towards a self-produced, self-written, self-performed multi-genre album.
At home, he has set up a studio that cost him in the lakhs over the years. Gigs and music-scoring are his only source of revenue, but gigs are becoming a costly ordeal. "In Delhi, jam rooms cost around Rs 100-Rs 300 an hour - you can make a margin. But in Mumbai, they start at R600-R700 an hour. The band spends more money preparing for the show than they make from it."
Live recording gets too expensive too. "I've learnt to programme my drums. I spend four hours making a drum track for a song when a drummer could do it in five minutes. I'm saving money, but time is money."
How does he hope to make it? "If you're performing in Mumbai, it's surely not going to be a big money-making scheme. Bands like Peter Cat Recording Co. can make money, but that comes after years of name-building - they've been around since 2009," says Roy, "I'm choosing to make English rock music when I could make much easier money doing Bollywood or Punjabi rap. But this is what I love." He is hopeful still. "It is a developing market. Go to Instagram - rock music has been coming back in India after its initial wave in the 1990s."
We hit up Sidharth Kadadi, guitarist for one of the city's most adored metal bands Zygnema, about what the scene was like in his day. "Rock music isn't going to put food on your plate in India," he says plainly. When they started, Kadadi had just quit a dot-com job of 10 years. Other than Zygnema, Kadadi also started a band called "Kover That". "We used to play hard rock at Bonobo. We'd play 10 shows every month, paying an average of R20,000-R30,000 each, split it all, and we weren't left with much. But we're all born and raised in Mumbai, so we weren't paying rent."
Kadadi now runs a music school called Guitar Garage Inc., and argues the situation today is still better than before. "It's just that social media has made it look dire. People are chasing online views over real community," he says, "When we had to promote our first show, we'd write gig details on A4 paper in pencil, make Xerox copies, and hand them out. When you put in that kind of work, the community gets stronger. You can't just send emojis saying âfull support'. You have to come out of your house and do the hard labour."
Rosemary Fernandes, Founder, Rosemary and the Herbs
Music is something I always wanted to pursue, I just didn't think I could do it," says musician Rosemary Fernandes. After being in a corporate job for six years, Fernandes decided that it was time to pursue this life-long dream and started a cover band, Rosemary and the Herbs.
Although initially Fernandes was afraid of the instability of living gig-to-gig, soon, "I was making more money in a few days, than what I would in a month," she says. They're a retro, classic rock, pop, and Bollywood cover band. "If you're at weddings, you have to engage your audience. I go up to the bride, groom, parents, grandparents, everyone, and dance with them, engage them with me. I have a energetic, vivacious personality, both on and off stage," she says.
The band's been making money since day one. "I made my contacts first and then I jumped into the industry. I used to work in programming where I would curate gigs and place artistes. When I formed my band, I used those same contacts to build myself," she says.
But hustling can never be escaped. "I made spreadsheets of every single event planner in the country and outside India," she says, "I cold called every single one of them, sent everyone an email. If I couldn't find their contact anywhere, I went via Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook to get the number."
The band is now venturing into original music. "We'll slowly and gradually start introducing our original music too. I honestly don't know what it's like for a cover band to transition into being an original or indie band. But I want to keep both alive - be known for my own stuff as well as for the wedding circuit."
Zain Calcuttawala, Musician
Zain Calcuttawala has been in the music industry since 2010. He produces, engineers, composes, works on ads and films, and collaborates with artistes. Calcuttawala says there is absolutely no standardisation in the industry. "As a producer you can charge anywhere from R20,000 to R1 lakh for a single indie song." This makes it hard for musicians to make music without calling in favours.
What is making music-making so expensive? "Life in the city has become way more expensive," he says, "If you compare the cost of rent 10 years ago to what it is now, a musician 10 years ago would have been very comfortable making Rs 20,000 for a session. But today, it doesn't make sense to do a session if it is less than Rs 30,000-Rs 40,000."
Where does this leave indie artistes? "If you have a certain amount of privilege and a safety net, then there's a little less risk. For younger artistes who may not have that kind of socioeconomic advantage, it's hard to say," he says, "In a lot of ways, it's always been a game of chance. Not only is it about the right talent, but it's also about the right place, the right time, the right audience - all factors beyond your control."
"The value of being an artiste and a creative has really dropped down over the last few years. Because we are constantly consuming, and how quick doomscrolling is, everything has become fleeting. Budgets across the board for any medium have been slashed," he says, "I've been asked to do projects in the last year or two for budgets we had back when I first started producing around 2015."
Raghav Meattle, Musician and founder of artiste management company first.wav
Raghav Meattle has now turned his music career into working with and enabling thrive at first.wav. How does a musician make money today, we ask him.
"Recorded music will be about 25-30 per cent of an artiste's revenue. I would hate to call it this, but it's almost become advertising material for you to sell more tickets, build a community and a brand for yourself. In the long run, if you hold an IP, you'll be able to monetise it for many decades."
Meattle thinks there is a lack of infrastructure around artistes that leaves them struggling. "We're trying to build this infrastructure. One is management - great mentorship to help them plan their careers so that it's sustainable," he says, "Second is recorded music - we invest a certain amount of money or work with them to help scale their careers faster through great records.
"Then we have a content studio where artistes can come and make content. It's paid, of course, but the idea is to give them marketing infrastructure," he says, "If you look at pre-pandemic Mumbai compared to today, there are barely any performance venues where a young artiste can go and perform. We're working on a project called Discover where four singer-songwriters every month can perform at Khar Social."
Meattle hits the nail on the head with this: "Why should only a hundred artistes live a decent quality of life through their music? Can that number not scale up to lakhs?" he asks, "I keep questioning - if I had come to Mumbai today instead of 10 years ago, would it have been harder for me to build my own career? And I would say yes and no. There are some things that have gotten easier, some things that have gotten harder."
