For Indian American heavy metal artist and record company owner Anand Bhatt, this year's Grammys were "very classy" and "one of the best" especially when Joan Rivers told him he looked "fabulous" in his silver and grey sherwani.

Bhatt, 29, who founded and runs SonicWave International, is among the 1,000 or so members who voted the winners of the prestigious Grammy. Like each of the voters, he got to vote in 13 of the 107 categories, among them Rock, Metal, R&B, and Rap.

Bhatt is excited that he voted in some of the winners.

"I voted for Ray Charles and Norah Jones and they got there. I voted a few times for Norah Jones and she got a few of them," the Chicago-based Bhatt said.

"I voted for the 'Blind Boys of Alabama', a gospel album that was produced by the rock artist Ben Harper, and they got the award. They were sitting right next to me and it felt really good when they got up to accept their award," Bhatt recalls.

But he did vote for the heavy metal band Cradle of Filth, which did not make it.

"It's the first time a heavy metal band reached the short list and I was really hoping they would win," Bhatt said.

Bhatt, like every Grammy voter first got a long list of performers to vote on. Then there was a second round of short listed artists that he received from the Grammy board back in October last year. He got a few weeks to select the ones he wanted to win and felt his choices were vindicated.

Bhatt, whose parents like most Indian parents, had expected he would go into some traditional profession, instead played the guitar and performed in local Chicago clubs before starting SonicWave a decade ago.

Now he is finishing a live album of his own solo performances that he said will be coming out later this year. He is also producing a record for multi-platinum artist Knocturnal, who used to be a writer and rapper for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog.

Knocturnal left Electra Records to join up with Bhatt's SonicWave International.

"I've been in the market for only a decade while Electra has been around since 1940s," Bhatt said, "But we have the same marketing avenues and some artists prefer to deal with smaller companies because we pay them more," reasoned Bhatt.

The standard payment to an artist is eight percent of royalties, but Bhatt has signed 15 percent for Knocturnal. "When a big artiste comes to an independent, they are treated with more respect. Knocturnal is going to be one of my best sellers so it makes sense to give him higher percentage of the royalties," Bhatt said. Bhatt has been voting in the Grammy's for two years now.