“Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me: I’m 19!” Grace Bowers is determined to forge her own path
The music industry isn’t very good at understanding artists who don’t want to sit in a box, particularly strong young women. This is the story of Grace Bowers, and even we don’t have her figured out like we thought.
Today she is happily “doing nothing”, and her uber-chilled manner is exactly the same as it is when she’s playing before thousands or walking red carpets. ‘Would you say you’re an old soul?’ Guitar.com asks, expecting a resounding yes. While in some respects she agrees, Bowers feels she’s in the right place at the right time. None of this ‘born in the wrong generation’ schtick.
Grace Bowers on the Guitar.com Cover. Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
The proof in the pudding? Her winning combination of utilising social media and playing as many live shows as possible to get where she wanted to be. Now 19 years old, she’s shared stages with artists like Slash and Dolly Parton, has played the US national anthem at an NFL game, and even performed at the 2024 Grammy awards with Coldplay’s Chris Martin.
But Bowers doesn’t want to be defined as a guitar prodigy, or as any one thing at all. We’re about to meet a completely different version of her, and in another five years we’ll likely meet another. She’s excited about this, and is working on new music that is a huge departure from her 2024 funk-laden debut, Wine On Venus.
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
“I’m leaning very heavily on rock and punk, while also combining some pop elements. It’s more me. The stuff I was doing before, I got really into funk and was in this jam band world. I realised very quickly, ‘Oh, I do not fuck with this,’” she laughs.
“I feel like there’s such a movement right now with hardcore and punk. Rock bands are coming back. You have Geese and Yungblud… it’s super inspiring to me. I’m like, ‘What can I add to this?’ What I have is not straight ahead rock, it’s very modern sounding.”
“Nothing came naturally at first. I f**king sucked when I first started. It was years and years of non-stop practice”
Diving in
This is a woman with a mission, and one that’s been in her back pocket from her early gigs in dingy dive bars. Originally from a small town in the East Bay of Northern California, Bowers and her family moved to Nashville in the middle of the pandemic, when guitar became her core focus.
Her relationship with the instrument began far before then, just not as smoothly as you may think: “Nothing came naturally at first. I fucking sucked when I first started,” she confesses. “I was trash. It was years and years of non-stop practice.”
Bowers began playing at age nine, and with no other musical members of her family, she had to figure things out on her own. She once had dreams of becoming a football player, but stumbling upon Guns N’ Roses’ Welcome To The Jungle music video made her instantly want to learn her way around a guitar.
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
“When I first started I had a teacher and he taught from a church. I would always come to him asking to play AC/DC’s Highway To Hell. He was like, ‘No, that’s not Christian. I can’t teach you that.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, whatever,’ and I go home and learn it by ear,” she remembers.
Moving to Nashville wasn’t an intentional way for Bowers to chase music. Her family wanted a change, and it’s almost as if by destiny the sweet sounds of Music City became inescapable and influential. “I was immediately surrounded by music 24/7, I didn’t have a choice!” she says gleefully. “It definitely inspired me. Being able to go to shows and be around other musicians was something I never would have gotten where I used to live, so that honestly changed my life.”
Meanwhile, Bowers’ social media presence was burgeoning, and opportunities to play in front of real people began to land in her lap. Summarising the vibe of these early dive bar shows, Bowers treads carefully. “It’s kind of dirty, honestly. But you know what? Some of the most fun I’ve ever had has been on a cramped stage with people I just met. You have a musical freedom knowing that half these people aren’t listening. On the other side, maybe the other 50 per cent are listening, and you never know who’s in the crowd.
“I get people in my DMs all the time like, ‘How do I start doing what you did?’ Dude, go to open mics! Go see local bands, get connected. At the same time, keep posting your stuff on social media,” she urges.
“I feel like there’s such a movement right now with hardcore and punk. Rock bands are coming back”
On another planet
Bowers recorded her Wine On Venus album when she was 16. Produced by John Osborne and made with the Hodge Podge band formed off the back of various jam sessions, its sound naturally became a funkadelic melting pot of soul and blues. Now, over a year on from its release, her connection to the album has certainly changed.
“I can’t go back and listen to it,” she admits. “I had never written a song before and my agent was like, ‘I’m having trouble booking you because you don’t have music out.’ I’m super glad that I did it. It was an incredible experience, and there are songs on it that will always be near and dear to my heart because of what they were written about.” Its title track was dedicated to her grandmother, who lived to be 100 years old.
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
“At the same time, it’s not the kind of music I want to make anymore. I didn’t even know what kind of music I wanted to make when I was 16. I also don’t tour with that band anymore, so it definitely stands as a phase of my life that is documented. But I don’t really associate myself with it anymore.”
In line with the punky spirit Bowers is channeling within her new music, she’s becoming more and more in tune with what she wants, and has less time to care about what others want from her.
“Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me,” she says ardently. “I’m 19! The music I play now versus the music I played when I was 16 or 17 is vastly different. People get upset about that. I’m like, think about when you were 16… You were probably a different person. That’s what kind of sucks about being on social media all the time; I’ve grown up in front of so many people.”
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
There is one thing that has remained consistent across her career so far that will likely never waver: Bowers’ connection to the Gibson SG. Though she may occasionally dabble with a Stratocaster when in need of a different sound, it’s the SG she is most drawn to.
“First of all, they look cool,” she states. “I feel like I can get most of the things that I need out of the SG because it has a lot of versatility that people don’t realise. They probably see an SG and associate it with Angus Young or Tony Iommi. Really, it can be used for everything.”
Bowers’ pedalboard is “pretty bare”, but she never goes without a wah pedal (typically a Vox or Dunlop Cry Baby), keeps a highly-coveted Analog Man King Of Tone on constant, and occasionally uses a chorus pedal on a low setting. She’s not opposed to the idea of embracing an amp modeller to save on space, but right now, Bowers bleeds tube amp supremacy: “Fender Deluxe Reverb all the way. It has never done me wrong.”
“Some of the most fun I’ve ever had has been on a cramped stage with people I just met”
Reaching for the stars
Before we get out of Bowers’ signature curly blonde hair, we take some time to look back on the bedlam and beauty of all she has conquered. “If you told me five years ago, ‘You’re gonna play the Grammys one day,’ I’d be like, ‘Get out!’ I never would have thought that posting videos from my bedroom could lead to something like that. It’s trippy,” she says.
The trick to performing with world-famous artists and nailing it? “Don’t overthink it,” she replies. “For me, it goes better when I just let things happen. They’re asking you to play with them because they like what you do. So you shouldn’t all of a sudden start to change or overthink. They’re asking you for you, and not to sound like someone else.”
While at the Grammys, Bowers also got to meet Taylor Swift, who reassured her she knew exactly how she felt as someone who was also once the only teenager in the room. Elsewhere on her bucket list of dream collabs is Olivia Rodrigo, and she’s a big fan of trailblazing women in modern punk.
Image: Alanna Taylor for Guitar.com
“It would be a dream to open for her,” Bowers says dreamily. “There’s a lot of really awesome bands out right now. I just met The Linda Lindas – I’m a huge fan of them, and Amyl And The Sniffers, Lambrini Girls.”
With such a large and colourful career, she thankfully has outlets that allow her to switch off and stay in tune with herself outside of music. She works with a modelling agency and loves to experiment with style, “whether it’s high fashion or a really cool pair of blue jeans”. She skateboards, enjoys long drives in Tennessee, and has “an obsession” with exploring abandoned buildings – don’t say we didn’t tell you she’s full of surprises.
Bowers can put one word on her experience in music so far: “wild”.
“The hardest part about it is being away so much and missing out on normal teenager stuff. I stopped going to school midway through my sophomore year. The pros of it are that I get to travel the world and I’ve experienced so many things that I never would have experienced had I stayed in school, and I’m so glad I didn’t.”
“Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me: I’m 19!”
Bowers’ new goal? Blow all preconceived notions of her career out of the water. She doesn’t want to be ‘Gen-Z’s answer to’ your favourite formative blues-rocker, she doesn’t want to be ‘the next’ anyone. She’s the first Grace Bowers.
“I’ve never tried to copy anyone else. I don’t want to do something that someone’s already done before, and I feel like that sets me apart,” she declares. “People are either gonna appreciate the growth, or not be cool with that. I don’t care either way. That’s always been my thing. I’m gonna do what I want to do, and I’m not doing it to impress anyone else.”
Words: Rachel Roberts
Photography: Alanna Taylor
Photo Assistance: Mallory Lowery
Glam/Styling: Lisa Bowers
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