Not too long ago, Bella Rayne was telling her Deadhead parents, “I’ll never like the Grateful Dead and you can’t make me like it.” Now the 18-year-old Northern California guitarist can be found performing at Dead-friendly festivals and sitting in with Dead tribute acts in between leading her own band.
After discovering her mom’s old guitar in the family garage, Rayne began teaching herself ’90s grunge tunes by groups like Mother Love Bone and Pearl Jam — the “opposite” of her parents’ music, she says. But when she posted some videos of her playing on YouTube, a Dead tribute act in the Bay Area reached out to invite her to sit in. She turned them down, but after they dared her to do it, she showed up.
“I went and it just spiraled from there, and it kind of felt like a full-circle moment. I met so many people that I still play with to this day, some of who who are even playing in my band. So it kind of was where I got thrown into it and just had to sink or swim, I guess.”
We chatted with Rayne on a Zoom call earlier this month before she was about to perform at the Fairfax Festival in Marin County, Northern California.
Do you think there’s something in particular that is making people notice you and book you for festivals, headline gigs and sit-ins?
I wonder the same thing all the time, and I have these moments where I’m like, well, why do people like me? And I’m like, if future me could go back in time and tell me now, something I would hope that it would be like, don’t be so hard on yourself. Don’t beat yourself up and be down on yourself. But I am always like, well, what? What is it that’s like the draw for people? And honestly, I’m not totally sure. But some things that are important to me and that I want people to know about myself is just like, obviously authenticity is like a super important thing to me. And I feel like that’s a big part of my identity outside of music and inside of music. And then just I do think I have a little bit of an edge. Despite the music that I play now, I was pretty much raised up on from anywhere from Grateful Dead to ’90s grunge. I definitely love grunge and some more alternative stuff, so I have an edge there. And I don’t know if people pick up on that, and then I’m just a little bit different than everybody.
You’ve only been playing professionally for a short time but you’ve performed with some prominent people. What are some of the highlights?
Honestly, I never could have imagined that I’d be doing any of this right now. And there’s so, so many people to choose from. But just off the top of my head, I’d say people like Melvin Seals, Jackie Greene, I’ve played with a ton of amazing jam band players and guitarists and awesome, awesome women, which is super, super cool. I love that there’s more and more women. And with my band, I think we have four women in my band right now, which is a really, really cool thing. And let’s see, in December, I actually sat in at the Allman Betts Family Revival, so I got to play with a bunch of heavy hitters there, you name it. And just so many amazing experiences. So, so super, super happy to have jammed with all those people.
Did you have to make any changes to your life as far as schooling or anything like that because of your pursuit of music?
For me, luckily, nothing changed too drastically. I’ve actually been online school my whole life, which is funny, because when we moved here, we moved to obviously a super, super rural, rural, rural town. And we just said, well, screw it, we’ll try online school for a year or two. And then we traveled a ton. So it just made sense to stay online. I could move at my own pace. I could do A, B and C, and I was also super, super involved in other creative outlets and extracurricular activities that I love. Before playing music, I was super, super into visual arts, and I think that if I wasn’t playing music that that’s kind of another passion that I want to pursue, and I’m always trying to find ways to connect the two things. I’ve started making posters for myself and others recently, which is kind of cool. But it’s the only other thing that really feels like an escape and a way to express myself.
How has your your family been involved with your career?
My parents are like, my number one fans, I’d have to say. And I can’t blame them because they love this music just as much as I do. I feel super, super lucky to have such a great support system with my family, my crew, my team, my band. But yeah, they’ve made it to every show. They cart me around everywhere. From hotels, sleepless nights up all night driving, 10-hour drives. So yeah, they’re my number ones.
You’ve mentioned that you’ve been taking some time to write new music.
Yeah, I’ve got a couple things myself in the process and just trying to get those out there pretty soon, hopefully. I’m hoping to have some stuff released by fall, and I’ve been working with a couple different people. It’s been cool so far, because songwriting, especially singing, these are things that I never thought that I would ever be saying that I was doing at all. And I feel like it’s coming really naturally with just like getting myself out there more and playing more shows. I feel like the next step is naturally original music and stuff, and that’s kind of the place I’m in right now. So I’m just taking a little bit of time to like, explore myself and my surroundings and what inspires me to write and all these things. And I know that I’m young and there’s all these people that are like, well, what’s a 17-year-old, 18-year-old going to write about? So I am figuring that out. But we’re just working on singing, songwriting, development stuff I want to do with my playing. So everybody stay tuned for that.
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