Grace Bowers Was 'So Sick' of Singing Other People's Songs — So the Guitarist Put Out Her Own Album (Exclusive)

Grace Bowers didn’t write “Madame President” for Kamala Harris.

In fact, the beginnings of the song began long before the political upheaval that has Harris now running for the highest office in the land. Instead, the hopeful song Bowers co-created with Esther Okai-Tetteh and Maggie Rose simply contained their wishes for the world one day.

But that one day came quickly.

“When we got the news (of Vice President Harris’ presidential bid), we were like, ‘Well, dammit, ‘Madame President’ has a whole new meaning now,'” Bowers, 18, emphasized during an interview with PEOPLE. – You just never know.

Nonetheless, the song heralding Bowers’ music is sure to gain further notice in the turbulent months ahead. But with those blonde curls, she’s hard to ignore.

“If I showed you a picture of me three years ago, you’d be like, ‘Who’s that?'” says Bowers, whose curly locks have come out in full glory in just the past few years. “For a while, I didn’t even know I had curly hair, so I just ran it through it. It was not good. So it’s been a process of finding a routine that works. You just have to accept it.”

Grace Bowers.

David McClister

Certainly, the revolutionary guitarist, songwriter and band leader has been embraced by music for a long time, he first picked up the guitar at the age of 9 and finally fell in love with it four years later.

“I was sitting in my mom’s car flipping through the radio stations, and all of a sudden BB King came on and he played a song called ‘Sweet Little Angel,’ which is from his first album,” says Bowers, who became her Grand Ole Opry debut last month on his 18th birthday “It just hit me because I had never heard anything like that before. I immediately went home and started learning a lot about BB King.”

From there, the guitar playing continued, eventually reaching a place of mastery that had the music industry using words like ‘miracle’ to describe the California native.

“The word ‘miracle’ is often mentioned and there are definitely miracles, but I am not one of them,” admits Bowers, who is nominated for Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2024 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards this September. “I was terribly when I first started playing. There was nothing natural about it. I also don’t come from a musical family. It took years and years and hours and hours of practice to get me to where I am.”

ABC/Randy Holmes

Practice was also necessary when it came to songwriting, which Bowers is still trying to perfect. “I was doing a lot of session work and I just got tired of playing other people’s songs and sticking to the script and having other people tell me what to play,” she explains. “I wanted to play my songs and I wanted to have my own voice because I have something to say.”

And she says it all on her long-awaited debut album, Wine on Venus, produced by none other than John Osborne of Brother Osborne.

“When I went to John’s studio and we sat down and talked about the sound I wanted to get, I felt like he got it and would understand what I wanted,” says Bowers. “I knew as soon as I sat down with him that he was the one I wanted to work with. I can’t imagine doing it with anyone else.”

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Grace Bowers & Hodge Podge’s Wine on Venus.

Courtesy of Grace Bowers

Certainly, Osborne’s influence can be heard throughout the film Wine on Venusan album that delivers a similar pulsating electricity as Bowers delivers during his live performances.

“I used to do a lot of sessions and I usually hate it,” Bowers admits with a laugh. “So, before we went into the studio, I was very adamant about the sound I wanted. I wanted the band to be in the same room and making eye contact, and I wanted them to play their instruments live. I wanted to capture that energy.”

Energy comes to the fore even in the purely instrumental offering of the album. “‘Won No Teg’ was literally recorded live,” explains Bowers, who released the album’s first single, “Tell Me Why U Do That,” in May, and whose band Bowers and The Hodge Podge will continue touring this fall.

“It wasn’t something we wrote. It was like, let’s just sit down and play in the key of G and make something like a trip. What’s most important to me is the songs. I feel like there are a lot of bands that are playing I can play right now, but they don’t have songs.

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Source: HIS Education