Blues-Rock Grit. BOLD Guitar.
REAL FIRE.
Ali Handal is a Los Angeles–based guitarist, singer, and songwriter whose music fuses blues-rock grit, bold guitar work, melodic fire, and emotionally honest songwriting. Her voice can cut and soothe in the same breath, and her songs carry swagger, wit, and real emotional weight.
Praised by Vintage Guitar, Guitar Player, Guitar World, and American Songwriter, Ali has earned recognition for her big riffs, expressive solos, and powerhouse voice. Her song "Shut Your Mouth and Do Something" was featured on Spotify’s Nu-Blues and Women of the Blues playlists, as well as Joe Bonamassa’s Cutting Edge Blues playlist.
Across four albums, Ali has cracked the Billboard album charts and built an international following with performances in the U.S., Australia, Japan, and beyond. She is currently preparing to release her fifth album, Slow Burn, produced by four-time Grammy winner Seth Atkins Horan and mixed by five-time Grammy winner Ross Hogarth.
"I envisioned a dingy future laid out in front of me — one of churning out paint-by-numbers papers while my stomach was tied in knots, knowing I was ignoring my true calling to be a professional musician. I was an artist struggling to be born." - Ali Handal
Backstory
Ali Handal was a straight-A psychology student at UCLA when she had to stop ignoring her truth: she was meant to be a musician. She walked away from the expected path, picked up a guitar, and never looked back. What followed was a career built on raw talent, relentless hustle, and an unwillingness to settle — a philosophy that became the title of one of her most beloved songs.
ROCK SIREN
Ali has long been a voice for women in rock — not by talking about it, but by doing it. She plays the solos. She writes the riffs. She fronts the band. She co-founded a music licensing compnay. And her advocacy isn't branding — it's personal. A self-described ardent feminist, she's been candid about initially having mixed feelings about creating a guitar method "for girls" at all, until she recognized how often confidence gaps, social pressure, and fear of embarrassment keep girls from the very experiences that build musicians. Her songs have been featured on Spotify's "Women of the Blues" and "Nu-Blues" playlists, but her deeper mission runs beneath all of it: push back on the pattern, take up space, and show that rock 'n' roll has always had room for women — it just needed more of them to walk through the door. Sooner.
She put that mission into print with Guitar for Girls, her Hal Leonard method book written for every girl who was ever told — or quietly convinced herself — that the guitar wasn't for her.
EndorsementS
Venus Guitars
Jim Dunlop Picks
D'Addario Strings
