Grace Bowers has pulled her music videos from YouTube, complaining of “old-ass creeps” who have been following her channel.
The 19-year-old guitarist has seen her star rise quickly in recent years. After first gaining traction on social media, she earned fans among established and iconic players including Brian May, Peter Frampton, Eric Clapton and many others.
But now she says she has had enough of a certain facet of her audience.
“Bye, YouTube,” Bowers wrote in a now-deleted post. “I’m deeply uncomfortable with the amount of old men here. I’m no longer interested in playing blues or whatever the hell keeps attracting y’all. I’m done.
“Too many old-ass creeps. To the people who were kind, sorry others ruined it. I appreciate you. I’m making music for my own generation now — quit comparing me to dead people of the past.”
The guitarist has removed everything but the audio tracks from her 2025 debut album, Wine on Venus and her singles.
Bowers has had an at times rocky road to fame. In 2024 she complained that she felt dismissed by some due to her gender and youth.
“I get disrespected before I even play,” she told Guitar World. “People take one look at me, a young female, and immediately get a thought in their head of what I am, and they don’t take me as seriously as they should.”
“For the most part, I feel equal,” she added. “But there’s been a lot of times when I feel disrespected or lesser, which is not cool. At the same time, being young and a girl is an advantage. There’s a lot of other people who are in that position, so I view it as an advantage — and a disadvantage.”
More recently, the guitarist — whose main electric is a Gibson Murphy Lab SG she plays through a modest pedalboard — announced she is shifting her sound away from the funk, soul and blues-tinged tunes of her debut.
“I can’t go back and listen to it,” she told Guitar.com of Wine on Venus. “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.”
Bowers no longer tours with the band with whom she made the album.
What’s clear is that she is firmly in charge of her career and its direction — and not to be underestimated. Speaking with Guitar.com, she said: “Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me. I’m 19! The music I play now versus the music I played when I was 16 or 17 is vastly different.
“I’m gonna do what I want to do.”
