Tushar Apte is a songwriter and record producer hailing from Newcastle, Australia. He is currently based in Los Angeles and signed to Warner Chappell Music.
Although Apte was born into an academic family where his father was a chemical engineer and his mother was a doctor and medical researcher, he was still surrounded by strong musical influences from the likes of prolific Indian singer Kishore Kumar to pop-legend Michael Jackson from a young age. Despite achieving an Undergraduate degree in Psychology, a Masters degree in Journalism to then follow on to doing a job in IT, his passion for music ultimately prevailed. As a result, his parents sent him to have piano lessons and supported his decision to change the direction of his life and pursue a career in music.
After doing small-time gigs in Sydney for a while, Apte relocated to LA with no former connections, nor prior experience in the music industry. Often, he found himself naturally introducing himself to other artists and from there he played in a few small bands for American Idol’s Randy Jackson.
During an October 2020 interview with KPOP HIGH INDIA, Apte confessed:
When I moved to LA, to be honest, I didn’t even know that I would be doing production and songwriting…I didn’t even know it was a thing you could do full-time!
In addition, he received support from the Director of APRA AMCOS; from there, he was sent into a high-profile writing camp. This is where he created his first hit track, Chris Brown’s September 2015 single, “Zero.” Apte then went on to work with a range of famous artists, such as BTS, BLACKPINK, Steve Aoki, Zayn Malik, Nicki Minaj and more. When speaking on the creative process in the same interview, Apte explained:
When I am composing and writing, I see music in colours so that is kind of how I feel like I put things together. When I hear it, I can hear a colour so that’s how I build the songs out.
Not only has he collaborated with other artists, Apte has also produced music which featured in The London 2012 Summer Olympics. Furthermore, he is an accomplished short television series and film composer, having worked on projects for channels such as ITV, NBC and BET, including the award-winning The Bobby Brown Story on the latter channel.
Finally, during the aforementioned interview, when talking of the impact on the Indian community of being a prominent artist, Apte stated:
I am so proud of the Indian fandom where they are just so proud to see an Indian name next to one of these artists that they like. Representation is so important and I’m happy and really proud to provide that and it probably wouldn’t be the same if I had a different producer name too.
