photo: Cedrick Jones

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Grace Bowers has enjoyed some epic birthdays as of late.

On July 30, 2023, upon turning 17, she appeared at the renowned Newport Folk Festival, performing her first-ever live gig with her own band.

Exactly one year later, she celebrated her 18th circle around the sun by debuting at the storied Grand Ole Opry.

The festivities then continued over the days to follow, with the release of the guitarist’s first studio record, Wine on Venus.

Produced by John Osborne of the Brothers Osborne, the new album defies expectations, as it is not a country record, nor does it hew closely to the blues idiom that initially animated Bowers. Instead, Wine on Venus is a raucous expression of soul and funk from Bowers and her group The Hodge Podge. In addition to eight dynamic original tunes, which include two kinetic segued sequences, the collective also offers a rousing take on Sly & the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music.”

Bowers first gained notoriety during the COVID lockdown, as a young Bay Area teenager posting videos of her practice sessions to social media. As her adroitness and enthusiasm continued to accelerate, Bowers’ family relocated to Nashville in order to foster connections with other like-minded musicians. She quickly distinguished herself and began performing as a guest guitarist in numerous contexts. Wine on Venus expands her trajectory of creative expression, as an artist who can write, perform and sculpt her own sound in the studio setting.

The palette of tones on the album also represents her ongoing development. Bowers notes, “I heard Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain for the first time maybe a year ago. I fell in love with it and it’s one of my favorite records of all time. At that point, I was into classic rock, but I feel like modern, classic rock and blues-rock is so oversaturated right now. But hearing Maggot Brain inspired me to write outside of the box a bit. From there, I got into Sly & the Family Stone. I also love Buddy Miles and more of the funk and soul side of things. I fell totally in love with it and kind of based our record off of that.”

Osborne recalls his initial discovery of her music. “The algorithmic overlord, if you will, showed it to me on my Instagram page,” he laughs. “I saw this young girl playing guitar, and I was like, ‘Let’s see if she’s any good.’ I hit play and I was like, ‘Damn, she’s really good. And not only is she really good, she’s exceptionally good.’ I thought it was so cool because some people think that guitar is a dying art, and here was this young girl—at the time she might’ve been 16—playing great old-style blues guitar. So I became a fan that way. I was like, ‘OK, the future is in good hands.’”

By the time they began working together, after one of Osborne’s friends made an introduction—knowing that he had recently built a studio near his home and was selectively taking on projects—Bowers had refined her vision of how the album would sound.

“I went into this with the idea that people should listen to it from top to bottom,” she says. “On the first Santana album, which is another one of my favorite records, those specific songs were made to be listened to from top to bottom. Songs will fade into other songs or the end of a song will run into the start of another. I think that’s so cool. People still definitely do it, but not as much anymore because people stream music now. You don’t have to listen to it on a record player, you can just skip around to wherever you want, which is great, but I still find myself listening to things top to bottom. Some of my favorite records were intended to be listened to that way and I definitely wanted to have that aspect of it on this. I told John about it and then the two instrumentals on there were all improv. With the first track ‘Won No Teg,’ we just went in there and jammed into the next song.”

That next song was “Get On Now,” which accounts for the title of ‘Won No Teg,” as it is “Get On Now” spelled backward. There are any number of similar playful moments across the record and Osborne makes a point to credit Bowers for her hand in creating and fostering them.

“She showed up at our first meeting with the concept,” he says. “She knew what she wanted to do, and my job was to execute that as well as I could as a producer in that setting. For being young—she was 17 when we cut it—she was not afraid to tell you if she liked something or not. But it was never about her, it was about the vision that she had for things. I really appreciated that because the alternative is no feedback, and that is much harder because the scope becomes far too broad. For her, it was also all about wanting to share the spotlight with the musicians around her. She wants it to feel like a band. It’s actually quite inspiring. She’s doing at 17 what all of us guitar players wish that we were doing at 17, and she’s actually executing it.”

Bowers has continued to distinguish herself. She was nominated as Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2024 Americana Music Awards and has performed with Dolly Parton, Tyler Childers, Lainey Wilson and Devon Allman, among others. Her headlining gigs and festival slots will ramp up into the fall.

One side effect of this is that it has altered people’s initial impressions of her. Bowers acknowledges, “When I first started playing shows, people would look at me and because of my age and especially being a girl, they would underestimate me from the get-go. It definitely bothered me, but it also fueled me. There’s such a lack of female representation in the type of music I play, which has been a blessing and a curse at the same time. I take the good with the bad, although I do feel like it’s getting better. The more I play out, the more people show respect to me rather than just making assumptions based off of what I look like or how old I am.”

As for what’s to follow, she asserts, “I have specific goals. There are hopes and dreams, but at the same time, I try not to pressure myself to do anything or feel down if I don’t do something. I really like to stay in the moment.”

What initially drew you to the guitar?

When I was 9, I saw a video of Slash and that’s what led me to ask my mom for a guitar. I didn’t find a true passion for it until I was 13, though. COVID had just started, and I lived in California at the time, so we were very much still in lockdown. Up until that point, I liked playing the guitar, but I treated it more like a hobby. I wasn’t set on the idea of, “This is what I want to do” until one day when I was sitting in my mom’s car, flipping through radio stations, and B.B. King came on playing “Sweet Little Angel,” which is off of his very first album [Singin’ the Blues].

I had never heard anything like that before. Up until then, I was super into hair metal. No one was around to show me anything else, so that’s all I listened to. It was cool and I still like it, but hearing B.B. play those five notes said more than any metal shredder ever could. That really struck me because I hadn’t heard anything like that before. What drew me in was just how expressive it could be.

That day I went home, I started learning B.B.’s licks and fell in love with that style of playing. So I started when I was 9 and then I really found the passion for it when I was 13.

During lockdown—well before you played your first live gig at a club—you built a very supportive following. How did that come about?

It took me a while. I used to be very shy and self-conscious about myself. I remember during COVID, while I was really getting into playing guitar, I was seeing all these other kids my age or younger posting videos of themselves—just killing it on guitar. I wanted to do that too but I was super self-conscious and I was scared to even show my face on a video. So I posted a few to YouTube without my face showing and then got nervous about it and deleted them.

But then something led me to push myself outside my comfort zone, so I started posting videos to Reddit. If you’re a 13-year-old girl, you probably should not be on Reddit. It’s kind of a weird place to be. [Laughs.] But regardless, I started posting on Reddit, and Reddit used to have a live streaming feature that a lot of musicians used during the pandemic.

I remember I was practicing in my room, and all of a sudden, I decided, “I’m going to livestream my practice session right now.” I was expecting maybe to get five views or something like that. So I set it up, and 10 minutes into it, the viewers went from 20 to 10,000. It spiked just like that. I was sitting there looking at the screen, freaking out in my head because that was a lot of people to me at the time. I was sitting alone in my room with my guitar practicing and I didn’t know what else to do.

So I just kept going and people started following me and I kept livestreaming. The more I did it, the more I kind of built this fan base. Then I migrated over to Instagram and it kept building from there.

After playing in your room, you eventually moved out into the live setting. Was there a concert you’d previously attended that helped to inspire your approach?

There were a couple of shows back when I was 10 or 11, and my parents started taking me out to my first concerts. One of the first ones was Zakk Wylde in a very dingy little bar in San Francisco that I probably should not have been in. [Laughs.] I have a vivid memory of that.

Then the other one, a bit later, was Slash and Myles Kennedy at The Warfield in San Francisco. Especially with that Slash show, I was so enthralled watching these people play. I don’t necessarily love that kind of shred guitar music quite as much anymore, but I remember going home and, even though it was super late, I immediately picked up my guitar because I wanted to be able to play like that someday.

You just appeared on Slash’s S.E.R.P.E.N.T. Festival. What did that feel like?

It was just a full-circle moment. There was a cool lineup, too. Right after we played, Robert Randolph played, who is insane and has an incredible band. So that was really cool and inspiring to watch.

Then, of course, I got to sit side stage and watch Slash play. Beyond him inspiring me to play more, he’s just a super nice and genuine person. We got to talk for a little bit. People say, “Don’t meet your heroes,” but he’s pretty cool.

In terms of your own live performances, what did you take away from your Newport Folk appearance?

That’s a show that I’ll never forget. Even though I was playing on a tiny stage, the amount of people who were watching was kind of crazy for me. It was also the first time I ever did a show under my own name, with my own band. Before that, I played guitar for other people and was playing other people’s songs. That was great practice and a great experience for me, but I knew, deep down, that I didn’t want to be stuck being someone else’s guitar player for the rest of my life.

So when I got booked on that show, I was kind of freaking out—“I’ve never done this before. I don’t even have a band.” But then, obviously, it worked out. I got some great players to join me and Josh [Blaylock], who was on keys that day, is still playing keys for me now, so that’s awesome.

I was fairly nervous to get up there because it was the first show I ever played and I didn’t know what people were expecting. I don’t even think I said anything, we just played. It also was my birthday—I turned 17. So it was just a really special day that I’m never going to forget.

Jumping ahead exactly one year to this past July, you celebrated your 18th birthday on stage at the Grand Ole Opry.

Yeah, that was really cool and it was another full-circle moment for me because the first show my family ever went to when we first moved out here was at the Grand Ole Opry. Ever since then, it had been at the top of my bucket list to play there.

It was especially cool since I got to bring my band too, which they don’t normally let you do. But I insisted that it was important and they agreed. It was definitely a milestone for me because it’s such an iconic venue.

How did your band The Hodge Podge come together?

The Hodge Podge is like the Avengers. [Laughs.] They’re all monster musicians, and I’m so honored to be able to play with them, and especially to be able to go out on the road with them and do it live. It’s just a totally different experience that I love so much.

I met my singer, AC [Esther Okai-Tetteh], three years ago. When I first moved to Nashville [in 2021], I had no friends, so my mom made me do a rock band summer camp. It happened to be at her old high school. She was doing the camp too, and we kind of stayed in touch. Then everyone else I met playing around Nashville. It’s called The Hodge Podge because for a while, the lineup was always changing. I couldn’t solidify players and people would book me for stuff, so I would call up a bunch of random people I knew in Nashville to essentially be a band for a night. It started out as a bit of a shit show, but eventually I found who I loved playing with and it all worked out.

The cool thing about the band is that everyone has such different influences, but at the same time, they’re able to come together so beautifully. Our singer definitely has more of an R&B, soul and gospel background, while our keyboard player has more of a funk-fusion background. Even though those are different genres, there’s such a mixture in between those styles that—especially when we’re writing and those different styles come out of people—it can make something really unique. I think it’d be boring if we all had the exact same influences and played the exact same things. So it’s definitely cool getting to hear little bits of other genres or other inspirations peeking out from everyone’s playing.

Songwriting is another skill set altogether. At what point did you begin to do that?

The first song I ever really wrote is called “Holding Onto Something.” It’s on Wine on Venus, but the riff you hear when the song starts was actually written two or three years ago. Again, I don’t come from a musical background, so I never had anyone pushing me to do anything until I moved to Nashville. Writing wasn’t something that came naturally to me and I just never thought to do it.

But one day, I was noodling around and I came up with this cool riff. I hung onto it and I recorded it for a project that didn’t work out. I used the riff but the rest of it didn’t feel like it sounded like me, so I didn’t love it, and it didn’t end up getting put out.

I clung onto this riff, though, and never forgot it. Then maybe a year ago, when I was writing with AC and my buddy Miles—not Buddy Miles, my friend Miles [Laughs]—I brought up this riff that I had, and we started writing. It’s written about a certain kind of older, jaded musician who you encounter in Nashville. So we ended up writing the song about that, and it was more or less the first song I ever wrote.

What led you to work with John Osborne on this album?

I first met John at an after-party at the Grand Ole Opry maybe two years ago. I got his contact info, but we didn’t really talk after that.

Then a year later, I got this idea to make this record that was super-duper inspired by Santana’s first record. I wanted to make something in the vein of that. So I was looking for different producers, and I met with a lot of different people who were all amazing and great. But when I sat down with John to talk about it, he just understood what I wanted to do immediately. I knew that day, “This is who I want to work with.”

A lot of producers have a sound, and they like to make everyone sound like their sound. That’s especially true in Nashville, and that works for some people, but I didn’t want someone to mold me into what they thought I should be. But what I love about John is that he didn’t have a sound he thought I should sound like. He definitely had a lot of input and a lot of say, but at the same time, it was a collaborative process all the way through. I think you can really hear that because I think it sounds like us. That’s what I loved about working with him.

Was there a specific composition you brought in that you felt would help define the tone and feel of the album?

Yeah, there were a few. That song I mentioned before, “Holding Onto Something,” was one that I felt really confident about and I wanted to base some other songs off of that song. When I first worked on it, it was more on the rockier side of things, but I reworked it to make it a bit funkier, and I think we nailed it.

So there was that one, and at the same time, there’s a song called “Lucy,” which is straight-up Americana. Then “Wine on Venus” is more in the soul, bluesy realm of things. So there were a lot of different inspirations I had on it that came together and came out in those songs.

After you began recording, was there a song you worked on, where it seemed like you were on the right path, given your initial goals?

I think it was “Madame President,” which we recorded on our first day in the studio. Then we had horn players come in on it, and as soon as they laid down those horns, I was like, “Damn, this is exactly what I’ve been hearing in my head.” So definitely the moment we recorded that song, and then when the horns started playing, it just kind of sealed the deal for me.

That one feels like it’s built for this moment in time.

It’s funny because that song was written months ago with my good friend Maggie Rose. Initially, when we sat down to write it, the idea was to write about things that we want to change that haven’t changed. So it’s called “Madame President,” but there’s only one line that mentions a Madame President. But I do feel like that’s a very powerful line, especially right now. I feel like we kind of predicted the future with that one, which is cool. [Laughs.]

But at the same time, the song is really about wanting a change. There are other things mentioned in there, including not being able to afford a house and homeless problems. So it’s about a lot of different things.

In June, you hosted your second annual Grace Bowers and Friends show at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville. Both shows have served as benefits to support MusiCares and to raise funds and awareness of issues related to gun violence. Can you talk about your decision to use your platform and speak out in this context?

That kind of stuff is very important to me. My Grace Bowers and Friends charity show started after the shooting happened at The Covenant School. It was 20 minutes away from me and it destroyed me. It was so horrible. And honestly, it destroyed Nashville for that month after it.

I remember there were a bunch of protests at the state capitol that I would go to. When I was there looking around me, I saw so many kids who were my age or younger. At the time, I was 16 and looking around, I was like, “We can’t do anything about this. We are not old enough to vote yet. What are we going to do?”

So I put together that show and the money we made off of it went straight to Covenant. Nashville showed up in such a huge way. The show was packed, we got a bunch of donations and I decided that I wanted to do this every year.

Doing stuff like that is important because it’s something I believe in. So even if I get backlash for it online, that’s never going to stop me.

This all began with you practicing by yourself at home. What does live performance represent to you these days?

My favorite thing to do is play live, beyond recording and making videos and stuff like that. It’s been a totally different experience this past year because I’ve been on the road playing songs I wrote, not just playing guitar for another artist and playing their songs. It’s a totally different feeling to see how your songs can impact people.

We’ve been closing our show with “Wine on Venus,” and that song hits everyone differently. People come up to me after and tell me stories like, “Oh, this song reminded me of my grandma.” Or they’ll say, “Your song brought me to tears.” That’s the highest compliment you can receive, knowing that your song has resonated with someone. That’s just been so cool to see.