Grace Bowers has quit YouTube, citing her discomfort at the demographic of her audience on the video sharing platform.
Bowers shot to six-string stardom a few years back, and in 2024 was voted by Guitar World readers as one of the standout guitarists of the year. In that year alone, she debuted on Jimmy Kimmel, released a record, covered SRV’s Lenny and Scuttle Buttin, and dropped a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Going to California.
More recently, she’s been rubbing shoulders with the biggest names in the music industry, playing at the Grammy’s with Chris Martin, receiving plaudits from Nancy Wilson, and meeting her biggest guitar hero, Slash.
Over the years, her presence has grown on social media, too. At the time of writing, her Instagram account has 428k followers, and her YouTube channel has 60k subscribers.
However, in a post published on her YouTube feed, Bowers voiced her discomfort at the growth of her YouTube channel, and spoke out against the “old ass creeps” who are making her feel uncomfortable.
“Bye YouTube,” she writes. “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 yall. Im done.
“Too many old ass creeps. To the people who were kind, sorry others ruined it, I appreciate u. I’m making music for my own generation now, quit comparing me to dead people of the past.”
Bowers’ artist YouTube account has since been wiped of all playing videos and now only audio tracks from her albums remain live on her channel.
Bowers has spoken out and attempted to distance herself from the blues on numerous occasions, repeatedly playing down the blues rock camp into which she felt she was pigeonholed when she first burst onto the scene.
Speaking earlier this year, 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.
“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.”
Instead, Bowers has voiced her intent to move towards more contemporary alternative music movements.
“I feel like there’s such a movement right now with hardcore and punk,” she says. “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.”
Bowers has already shown her pedigree beyond the blues. Last year unleashed her inner shredder with a searing tribute to Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads.