Gretchen Peters

Grammy-nominated Nashville singer-songwriter, Gretchen Peters, on the MAC stage as part of her 2020 tour.

Her most recent album 'Dancing with the Beast' puts female characters at the fore, from teenage girls to old women. With the 2017 Women's March and #MeToo Movement as bookends to her writing time, Peters knew that a feminist perspective would be the critical core of the record: “You can trace the feminist DNA in my songwriting back to 'Independence Day' and probably before. The thing that 2017 did is just put it front and centre. It was very easy to kind of go to sleep for a while and just not think about that stuff because we were lulled into complacency for eight years.”

Though Peters doesn't consider herself a political writer, she is politically minded and, therefore, knew she had to address the 2016 election and all that has happened since...but in her own way.

Beauty tempered by dread, sorrow buoyed by hope, these are the ever-present tugs of war that make life worth living and songs worth writing. And they are the over-riding themes that make Gretchen Peters one of her generation's most compelling singer/songwriters.