It was Slash, the top-hatted, sunglasses-wearing guitarist for Guns N’ Roses, who inspired Grace Bowers to pick up a guitar at age 9. But it wasn’t until she heard B.B. King on the radio playing “Sweet Little Angel” that she realized her passion for the instrument. “That’s the song that made me realize I love this, that I want to do this forever,” she says.
When she was 13, COVID hit and, like most of the world, Bowers was confined to her house. She spent five hours a day practicing guitar, live-streaming her sessions on Reddit. “I remember the first time I did it, I had like 20 people watching,” she says. “And all of a sudden there were 20,000, and I just remember sitting there freaking out. But I couldn’t stop because there were 20,000 people watching.”
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That was a confidence booster for Bowers, to say the least. After moving from California to Nashville with her family, she began playing in as many clubs as she could, despite being underage. “I think I’ve probably played every single venue there is in Nashville at this point,” she says. “I definitely got myself into a lot of situations I probably shouldn’t have been in. And I saw a lot of things that I was definitely too young to see. But at the same time, that was the best way for me to learn…just, like, throw myself on a stage.”
Thanks to that experience, musicians began asking Bowers to sit in on sets. Not only was her online presence growing, but so was her stage presence. She always felt like someone else’s guitar player, she says, but deep down, that’s not what she wanted to do. “I always knew I wanted to make my own songs and do my own thing. Because, you know, I have my own voice and things to say.”
Now at age 18, Bowers not only debuted at the Grand Ole Opry earlier this year, but she’s also played with Dolly Parton, Lainey Wilson, and Gary Clark, Jr., among other talented and famous musicians. Recently she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! with her own band, Grace Bowers and the Hodge Podge.
(Credit: David McClister)
She and her band also have a new album, Wine on Venus, which was inspired, Bowers says, by her love of Funkadelic (“…specifically their first three albums”) as well as Buddy Miles and Sly and the Family Stone. “It sounds like a bit of a throwback for sure,” she says. “One song on there is the first riff I ever wrote. So they’re songs that I’ve kind of had in my back pocket for quite a bit. So it just feels nice to have them out there.”
The album’s title, along with its eponymous first single, was inspired by her “nana,” who passed away a little over a year ago. “She was 100 years old, and before she died she would tell everyone in the family not to worry about her because she’d be drinking wine on Venus because it’s the brightest star. I just think that’s the coolest thing ever.”
On October 15 Bowers will play WhyHunger’s Amplified: Annual Hungerthon Kickoff Concert with the Roots, and in November she’ll begin another tour starting in Japan. This will be Bowers’ first time traveling internationally. “I’m excited…also a bit nervous,” she says. “I don’t know how that’s going to go, but it’ll be cool for sure.”
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