OML started as a hobby when Vijay needed a concrete reason to drop out of college (Back in 2002). With an offer from Acquired Funk Syndrome (AFS) turning out to be his legitimate excuse, he took the plunge and went on the road with the 4 boys from Pune establishing themselves as a top act in the rock music circuit. Soon, Vijay started managing Zero, followed by a 5 minute coffee table conversation with Vishal Dadlani, where Pentagram came on board. Pin Drop Violence (PDV) was the next act on the roster and by 2003, we were the first artist management company on the block focussing on indie acts.

Over the next few years, we evolved into an organized setup with a larger team and many more acts in our roster. Between 2002 and 2005, we managed to set up a solid network of colleges, clubs, promoters who would regularly book indie acts. By 2005, we were booking for over 100 events in a year. Pentagram managed to tour Estonia and Glastonbury and became one of the first indian bands to breakthough and establish a footprint in the European market. PDV became the only metal act to perform and headline mainstream college rock festivals. A common thread among all these bands was their commitment to original music, which also became an integral part of OML.

On a brief hiatus form his entertainment law career Girish Talwar, better known as ‘Bobby from Zero’ came on board to help out with a few projects. The projects must have been a lot of fun, because the law career took a backseat and Bobby and Vijay took OML to the next level by giving it a professional structure and OML was established as a company. OML also started producing concerts on their own and became a serious player in the event industry, working with some of the biggest brands in Mumbai. Projects kept coming in, the variety of it added to our experience and helped us bring in our event management experience into the indie scene as well.

The team began expanding and our luck with finding some of the best people to work with was beginning to surface. Samira Kanwar, who was also on a hiatus, joined OML at a time when we were bombarded with assorted event management and below the line projects from multiple clients. Most people know us as artist managers and wouldn’t believe the scale of operations we were involved in, but yeah, we had a temporary work force of upto 200 people at a point of time working on launching some of the premium brands in Mumbai. Once we had our share of BTL experience, Samira and OML teamed up to start Babblefish Productions (BF) aiming to fill the void of “visual content” that had been long prevalent in the indie scene. In its first year itself Babblefish worked with some of the best known and emerging artists to create music videos, documentaries, podcasts. Keeping up with the “DIY” bit, BF has setup its own editing setup at OML HQ, and is actively working on creating more and more visual content.

In 2008, we also expanded and looked beyond our comfort zone of “Rock Music” and teamed up with Vishal and Shekhar music to launch Raghu Dixit. Raghu’s outstanding talent and passion gave OML an opportunity to explore folk rock as a genre and helped us prove a point that we were at a stage where we could actively compete with major labels and give emerging artists a platform that’s at par with superstars backed by major labels. We also signed up Indigo Children (formerly known as Superfuzz) and Bangalore based Swarathma in the same year.

We expanded into a fairly large team and today have Naveen, Nikhil, Anu, Vivek and Sidd as part of our team - managing artists, executing events, partying more than is warranted. Afzal Vadgama joined the team and helped us setup a licensing arm for events in Mumbai.

We started operations in Delhi and have recently set up a small office in Bangalore. We hope to be present across the country in major metros and are always looking for artists who will help us learn the business better. That’s been the story so far, but this page will be frequently updated.

Ajay, after having spent five years sampling various professions including business consulting, investment banking and most recently private equity investing decided that Only Much Louder was much more fun. He joined us in the beginning of 2010.