Meet Nalani Proctor | Independent Musician and Twitch Streamer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nalani Proctor and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nalani, what do you attribute your success to?
The community that I have found on Twitch and the support net I have in my personal life have made it possible for me to continue to pursue music, art and content creation.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
In 2012, I quit my day job to become a full time musician, From then until about 2019, I struggled with what I was doing, because I wasn’t quite ready to be a full time musician, but it was a dream I was chasing, so I kept trying. I started teaching music lessons for income, took on a job as a church choir director for a couple years, and would play live shows when I could find the time. In the beginning, it was hard to grasp that I had to not only be the performer, but also the social media supervisor, the advertiser, the booking agent, the accountant, the list seemed endless. Nevertheless, I started pushing myself to go on longer tours around the US in 2019 and after my last one in January 2020, the tides changed, and just when I felt like I was finding my footing as a touring musician, it was time to change gears again. I didn’t realize that until August 2020 when I found Twitch and I could perform music live from my home, instead of lugging all my equipment around in a pandemic. It was eye opening when people from around the globe would happen upon my stream and share where they were from and what they were going through and we could commune with music. That year I also discovered a new passion for miniature diorama making, and painting. And that I could also share those on stream. Now that I’ve been streaming for 2 years, I feel like I’m really finding my footing as a “touring” musician. I have the joy of staying home (great for my introverted self) while still performing my own music or song covers that people from around the world love to hear and sing along to. There has been an evolution of the stream through these past two years. Figuring out the best schedules that work for me, learning about the necessary technology needed to make a stream interactive, or better in quality, learning about command prompts (I had very little tech schooling before getting into streaming), and now diving more into content creation in promotion of the stream and what I do there. My most recent achievement that I’m proud of was that I was nominated for theGameHERs Creative Stream of the Year 2022 awards voting, and although I didn’t make it through round 1, I felt honored to be named among so many talented streamers and content creators. I’m also very proud of my last full length album “Nothing”, an album that I wrote and produced, and put out on vinyl record.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh, this is tough, because I’m a homebody and don’t go out much. However, I enjoy entertaining at home, cooking meals for folks, watching movies or playing video games with them. Of course, I’d take them to the local Italian restaurant for wine and pasta, or the local coffee shop for a coffee and baked good. We’d also visit the various forest destinations that are around, or maybe we’d make a short road trip to see a roadside attraction.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My partner, Dustin, has been a constant support for many years. He’s an amazing musician and idea person and knows how to make me laugh or how to help me work through a problem, whether it be music, tech, streaming, or life related. I’d also like to shout out my friend Avo, who is a great idea and hype person. I can bounce ideas off them, and they often come to me with artwork ideas or community enrichment plans for my stream and community discord. I’m so lucky to know them both.

Website: www.nalaniproctor.com

Instagram: @nalaniproctor

Twitter: @nalaniproctor

Facebook: facebook.com/nalaniproctorband

Youtube: youtube.com/nalaniproctor

Other: twitch.tv/unfocusedinia tiktok – @unfocusednalani linktr.ee/nalaniproctor

Image Credits
The first photo of me and Dustin is by David Garcia. The black and white photo of me with acoustic guitar is by Canyon McCarty