Meet Daniel Profeta of Atlanta

Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Profeta.

Hi Daniel, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
There’s something driving me to create, animating and pushing me further towards some goal I don’t fully understand yet.

I’m Daniel Profeta, an independent artist based in Atlanta. At 22 y/o, I’ve survived a lot of weird things, and now I channel everything I’ve experienced into my work. With over 170,000 subscribers on my main youtube channel covering weird internet art and music, and over 150k streams on my most recent spotify stuff, the art I make permeates every element of my life.

Most recently I started a dark art collective here in Georgia with students from UNG and KSU, and we’ve started hosting exclusive pop up shows (if you’re ever in the area you should hit me up and join us!!). In addition to self producing 5 solo albums and 2 EPs of an experimental confessional crossover taking inspiration from folk, grunge, electronica, and hip hop; we’ve begun helping local artists produce their own records under our collective banner.

When I was around 10 or 11 or so I started writing songs. I didn’t even know how to play any instrument, I would scribble this asinine poetry and imagine a composition and melody around it. Around 14 my dad bought a guitar to try and learn how to play, and I sort of stole it. Not literally, I just ended up using it every day. I’m self taught on guitar and all the other instruments you’ll hear on my records.

Atlanta really changes the game for an independent artist, it’s a bustling hub of activity where anyone can find friends and community. The local venues here in Georgia changed my life, and took my ramblings from being only digital to being something I could share in person.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I didn’t have many friends when I was younger, lots of paranoia and religious issues. No church held our specific beliefs, so we only associated with a few other people. I grew up in Fort Lauderdale Florida, in a condo. Man upstairs who’d give high fives and pretend to be hurt by my 5 year old hand. Some kids moved in then out shortly after. I remember getting sick a lot. The recession hit while we were already doing poorly and sent us to Georgia. Moving from place to place, living with family. Youth group we stayed for a year, then left because they weren’t quite extreme enough in their beliefs. Study hall was on my basement floor, my mother a practical teacher. Conspiracies and religious fervor. Dilapidated churches that can’t fill a quarter of their lifeless corridors, massive and corrupted and holding the souls of hundreds captive beneath the shadow of the cross.

These experiences have shaped who I am as a person, I’ve been told I’m obsessive and that there’s no possible way I can be successful chasing what I’m chasing, but as time has gone on my motivation, unwavering belief in myself and the people I surround myself with, and driven passion for my work; has allowed me claw my way out of poverty and break out of the death traps that I internalized and learned as a kid. My music has a lot of depressive undertones, but it also attempts emotional intelligence and the growth of it. I see it all as catharsis, and people who were ever broken like I was will find a lot of comfort in knowing they aren’t alone.

One interesting thing about trying to create this life is the weird relationship most people have to it. Like, no one supports you unless you’re successful, yet it’s almost impossible to be successful without support. For example, I have a YouTube channel where I have uploaded nearly 2000 videos over the course of 3 years just called “daniel profeta”. In the last year or so I went from having 1000 subscribers to having over 170,000 subscribers! Overnight success is only real to people on the outside, people who don’t see the thousands of failed attempts. People who don’t hear the conversations where everyone close to you tells you to give up. Every step of the way there are opportunities to learn and grow and adapt, but you must be willing to block out the noise and get up every time you fall. That’s the realest thing people who make art will learn, not everyone will like what you’re doing. It takes time and effort to find YOUR people. But just know they’re out there, and never give up.

I never had formal training of any kind, for acting, writing, guitar, vocals, bass, piano, recording, editing, etc. I just didn’t have the equipment, connections, or resources that many others did, but that’s where you become resourceful. I’m fondly indebted to lo-fi music like Car Seat Headrest, Mitski, Bright Eyes, and Daniel Johnston, because without them I probably never would have had the courage to start. The ethos of DIY is one outside of gatekeeping and elitism, the ideas and community are open in mind and heart. We will “make it”, and we will do so on our own terms.

Your question was if my road was a smooth one, but I would say there really wasn’t a road at all. Just foreboding uncharted wilderness with a few guiding lights of inspiration to help me on the way to creating the life I hope to have. But the way I see it, each failing, each stumble, and each limitation are just blessings in disguise. Take my music for instance, I used to feel ashamed of the low recording quality of my early work, but now I see it like a badge. It’s honest, raw, and ultimately more powerful and unique. And the people I’ve met are some of the most driven and ambitious people in the world. We will make it, and when we do everyone who doubted us will hear us whether they like it or not.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My main thing right now is music, and I play all over Atlanta and the rest of Georgia (if any venues or people with cool basements reads this and wants to book me, hello) and I hope to start playing more states soon. I think music should speak for itself, people tell me they find a lot of personal connection to my work despite how rooted it is in my own experiences.

I am most proud of my recording efforts to be honest. The website Bandcamp is a blessed godsend. One of the only companies that fairly pays artists right now, Bandcamp is a place artists can upload music and people can directly support them. Last year I released “My Glass Materials”, my greatest album to date, a conceptual folk record about burning down a house and building a new one, the home being a life. I played a few cool shows, including Fool’s Fest in Toccoa last April.

I first garnered some attention online for writing short essays about strange art I love, then recording myself reading them to a camera. For example, I had this one video about “The Strange World Of Alex G” and in the video I’m just talking about my opinions and personal analysis of the indie musician Alex G’s first album. It’s really fun to do, I get a lot of joy out of digging into whatever I’m obsessed with at the time!

Everything I do is just sort of following my gut and whatever inspires me, I get lost and like I said “obsessed” pretty easily. I’m most proud of the fact that people seem to like what I’m doing. I’ve thought about it a lot, because I wouldn’t have expected an artist where everything sounds as raw and unpolished as my stuff would find much success, but I think the lo-fi nature of my work in conjunction with the fact that I do everything DIY, nourishes people to some extent. I make music entirely for myself and yet it finds these people, it’s crazy!

We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I’m a huge risk taker, I think my upbringing kinda shocked a sort of desperation into me, and unfortunately I have pretty much always found success outside my comfort zone. Even just to put out the stuff I do requires a level of thick headedness, a delusional confidence, a desire to try everything that exceeds my need to do the “correct” thing.

In the last year I started this dark art collective thing, and it has been the craziest thing I’ve ever done. You have to learn to rely on other people a lot where before you were trying to do everything yourself. I’ve put so many resources and sleepless nights into this project, but even now it’s already paying off. I’ve had the privilege of meeting so many amazing artists, and we’ve been figuring out ways to do everything DIY, even things that typically are only available to established acts with massive budgets.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://legion.you/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adanielprofeta/
• Twitter: https://x.com/dethstrok9
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@danielprofetabandcamp and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-m0ZQCOCX4QaNugbUAsTiA
• Soundcloud: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2wZZ3w1tzLGC9QGXv6Uxic
• Bandcamp: https://danielprofeta.bandcamp.com/album/my-glass-materials