Avarin

Mumbai-born pop artist Avarin would have been perfectly happy as a guitarist and songwriter, but necessity made him a singer. “I  had to learn how to sing because I never found someone I  liked enough on my songs,” he says. Avarin’s music amalgamates his varied musical influences (“Think classic rock like Jimmy Page mixed with the polished pop of Bruno  Mars”), life experience in India and the US, and his aptitude for instruments and production. The multi-talented artist started along the path to being a professional musician very early. His mom started him in piano lessons at age five, and he played until his early teens. But another instrument ultimately grabbed his attention, and he didn’t let it go. 

At 14, he and some friends went to a music store and all chipped in to buy an inexpensive guitar for a friend's birthday gift when it first caught his attention. “I remember seeing it in the store and thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, that thing looks amazing. I  wanna learn how to play it.’” Hearing Guns-N-Roses’ virtuosic guitarist Slash further cemented his love for the instrument, and he eventually bought and taught himself to play one of his own a  year later. “I went for it and haven’t put it down since,” he says. 

After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, Avarin was at crossroads. His infatuation with the new instrument began as an obsession, with him constantly working to improve his performance throughout high school. Eventually, obsession evolved into love.

In his twenties, Avarin followed his father's footsteps as an entrepreneur, “My dad did incredibly well for himself,” Avarin recalls proudly. “He ran a computer company in India that he  started in the seventies.” The singer also has an older brother who works on Wall Street, so a more traditional path was easy to follow. 

Combining his love for music and his family’s business acumen,  he began selling guitar amps and, eventually, a line of Bluetooth speakers. While the speaker business was very successful, he had a nagging desire to make music instead of selling musical equipment that never waned. 

He went back and forth to Nashville, TN in the U.S. to work on songs and learn from some of the best Music City had to offer while running the business back home. “I went around pros,  really some of the best musicians in the world, and I was like, ‘Okay, you’ve got a lot more work to do.” With one foot in and one foot out, his decision to become a full-time artist was spurred by necessity, not unlike his later decision to start singing. In the form of the Covid-19 pandemic, Fate forced him to confront his true purpose. 

Like many others, his business slowed down considerably in the face of the uncertainty of a global pandemic, so he decided to plunge into becoming a full-time artist. He extended his time in the US, spending time in Los Angeles and Nashville, recording his first true songs, shooting music videos, and catching other artists' performances.

However, this step was with adversity as he encountered artist development camps and other sharks trying to exploit his relative inexperience. Still, he learned a lot during this period and began his singing career in addition to growing as a guitarist and songwriter. 

He’s working on a new genre-bending brand of pop that combines all of the sensibilities that inspire him with his unique perspective. “I think I've got a pretty unique background between being born in Mumbai and my experiences worldwide. And I think somewhere in the madness of this journey, and my openness to take a risk with any kinds of styles  make me the artist that I am.”