Nita Strauss was 15 years old when she went on tour for the first time. She knew it would be tough, but she never expected to have to outrun a tornado. “We were playing somewhere in Tornado Alley,” she says, referring to an area in the Southern USA where storms are common. “We were just packing up when someone said, ‘You better go right now, there’s a tornado coming.’ As we were on the highway, we could actually see this thing out of the side of the car! That was crazy.”
The subsequent 20-odd years have been no less eventful. The LA-born guitarist’s CV reads like the most random festival bill ever; she’s played with everyone from Alice Cooper and Demi Lovato to Jermaine ‘Brother Of Michael’ Jackson and NFL team the LA Rams, as well as releasing a pair of solo albums – the most recent of which, The Call Of The Void, came out in 2023.
There have been a few bumps along the way, not least a dependency on alcohol that led her to get sober in 2015. But today, as she sits in a well-appointed West London hotel, sipping bottled water, she exudes positivity. “When I think about what I’ve done,” she says, “it just blows my mind.”
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Did you grow up in a musical household?
“My dad was a touring musician. He was in a 70s rock band called Jiva, who were signed to [Beatles guitarist] George Harrison’s label. My parents both understood the touring lifestyle better than most people, which made it really convenient for me to start touring at a young age.”
There’s a story that you’re descended from the composer Johann Strauss. Is that true?
“Well, I grew up being told it was. My dad always told me, ‘You have musical royalty in your blood.’ But then a couple of years ago someone did a deep dive into the genealogy side of things and said it wasn’t true. My dad says, ‘I don’t know what this guy’s talking about.’ But even if it ends up not being real, I’m glad I grew up thinking it – it gives you a sense of purpose, the idea you’re part of this lineage.”
Why pick up the guitar? Why not sing?
“First of all, I’m a terrible singer. Some people are born with the gift. I was not. Ha ha! My first instrument was the drums, then the bass, but when I was about 13, my dad showed me a movie called Crossroads, where Steve Vai played the Devil’s guitar player. That completely opened my eyes, how he was emoting and telling stories through the guitar.
“I dove into anything I could find like that. I was deep into shred stuff. But for me, seeing [guitarist] Jennifer Batten playing with Michael Jackson at the [1993] Super Bowl was a life-changing moment. The stuff I was listening to was a dude-fest. Seeing her up there, just shredding, with her blonde hair flying, I was, like [makes awestruck noise]. It was like finding a Barbie that looks like you: ‘I can do this.’”
Can you remember the first gig you ever played?
“I was 13 and it was in a Battle Of The Bands in this all-ages venue in the San Fernando Valley, where I grew up. There was a local three-piece death metal band and they needed a bass player. We were called O.D.A., which stood for Overt Display Of Anger – a ridiculous name. In LA, it’s really common to pay to play – you have to sell 10 tickets at 10 dollars each, then bring the money to the promoter. We sold a grand total of three tickets, so my dad had to buy the rest of the tickets so I could play.”
Did you ever pay him back?
“You know what? I have not. I should take him out to dinner: ‘This is for that show.’”
You toured for the very first time at the age of 15. That’s starting early.
“Yeah, I had an all-female band called Lia-Fail. We won another Battle Of The Bands – we did a lot of them – and the prize was to play four or five shows on the Warped Tour. So, in our infinite wisdom, we thought, ‘Well, we’re already borrowing a van and trailer – we should go on and do our own tour.’”
What was that like?
“It was rough. We made no money, we were hungry and thirsty and tired. Two of the girls were old enough to drive, so they took turns while the other two of us navigated. We had no crew members, it was just four girls slugging it out on the road. We were eating food from gas stations, cramming into hotel rooms, outrunning tornados…”
And your parents were OK with this?
“They were. They understood the idea of paying your dues. The other girls’ parents… maybe a little bit less! Ha ha ha! It was difficult, but it’s still the most fun experience I’ve ever had.”
What kind of person were you like at that age?
“I was painfully, painfully shy. I was the kid at school who would go and sit by myself at lunch and play guitar by myself. I didn’t have a boyfriend until I was in my 20s. But I had a realisation when I started playing shows at such an early age that my method of communication was playing guitar. That’s how I related to people. I could perform and emote onstage in a way that I was completely uncomfortable doing on a one-on-one basis.
“That’s also why I started drinking so much at a young age. Drinking meant I could relate to older kids on the scene. No one wanted to hang out with a 15-year-old girl who was brand new to the scene, but alcohol was the equaliser: ‘Yeah, she’s young but she’s drinking so she’s cool.’ That’s how I started using alcohol as a crutch for so many years.”
How did you make ends meet in your late teens and early 20s while you were waiting for your big break?
“I was working at the MAC make-up counter at the mall and taking any gigs I could get my hands on. I’d do shows around LA with little bands or play with singer-songwriters who needed an accompanist. I had one gig where I’d go to a hip-hop studio and play guitar riffs that they’d turn into beats and try to sell to rappers. I put this band together called Kill Slowly – I’d always wanted a female metal supergroup. I’d done it with Lia-Fail. I’m still trying to do it today.”
In 2010, you played some shows in Africa with Jermaine Jackson. How the hell did you end up in Michael Jackson’s brother’s band?
“Kill Slowly had recorded something that was engineered by a guy named Michael Prince, who worked with Michael Jackson for many, many years. At one point, he called and said, ‘Would you have any interest in auditioning for Michael Jackson?’ I was like, ‘Oh my god, yes!’ The audition never happened, but then he called and said Jermaine wanted to do some tribute shows for his brother after he died, and did I want to do it? I remember flying into Senegal airport, listening to my iPod Nano. The guy next to me said, ‘Are you listening to Africa by Toto?’ I was totally emotional about it.”
You went from Jermaine Jackson to Iron Maiden tribute band The Iron Maidens to Alice Cooper’s band. That’s a hell of a CV.
“I had this shotgun approach where I’d play with anyone who’d have me. I met [Winger frontman/former Alice Cooper bassist] Kip Winger on a rock cruise and a couple of months later he said, ‘What are you up to this summer? There’s an Alice Cooper/Mötley Crüe tour, and Alice is looking for someone…’ It took me a fraction of a second to say, ‘I’m totally available!’
“In my very first rehearsal, Alice said: ‘When you’re in my band, I can promise you three things: ‘You’re going to see the world, you’re going to get paid and you’re going to get stitches.’ I’ve been whipped by the whip during Go To Hell, I’ve been stabbed by the sword during Billion Dollar Babies, I tore my meniscus coming down the stairs and had to have surgery. Most recently, I got licked on the tongue by his snake. Luckily it wasn’t poisonous, but I was like, ‘You said see the world, you didn’t say anything about tongue-kissing a snake.’”
You got sober the year after joining Alice’s band. How bad did things get for you?
“I wouldn’t say I hit rock bottom – I’m not like Nikki Sixx – but I was a dangerous addict, because whether I was doing drugs or drinking, I was very highly functional. I was doing all these things that could have got me in trouble, but I never played a bad show, I was never falling-down sloppy. But it was really insidious, because it was bleeding into my personal life. Some of the guys in the band had noticed it, but it took my partner Josh, who is now my husband, saying to me: ‘If you’re gonna be like this, I don’t know how long I’m going to be with you. I can’t watch you destroy your life like this.’ This was the highest point of my professional career so far, and it just seemed unfair – I couldn’t understand why I was getting picked on, and why I had to be boring and go to sleep early.”
Did you go to rehab or Alcoholics Anonymous, or did you kick it yourself?
“I was way too shy to do the [AA] meetings. I really just white-knuckled it.”
Is it difficult to maintain your sobriety?
“It is difficult, it really is. My husband still drinks, my friends still drink, Alice has been sober a long time but he doesn’t mind if people drink, so there’s bottles of wine in the dressing room and bourbon on the tour bus. The only thing we do differently on my [solo] tour is that we don’t put alcohol on the rider and don’t stock it on the bus. People can have a beer on the bus, but I say, ‘Please don’t keep a bunch of beer on the bus.’ But it’s hard. It puts your ethics and morals into perspective – I have every opportunity to drink and no one would know, but sobriety, for me, is what you do when no one’s looking.”
Who’s been the biggest celebrity you’ve met since you joined Alice’s band?
“There was a benefit show in Hawaii that Alice’s manager does, and Jim Carrey got onstage with us in full Alice make-up to sing No More Mr. Nice Guy. Afterwards, we ended up talking to him about Cannibal Corpse. Josh said, ‘I hear you were the one that got Cannibal Corpse in Ace Ventura.’ And Jim said, ‘That is true, I love that band.’ That was pretty surreal.”
You temporarily left Alice’s band in 2022 to tour with Demi Lovato. What was it like stepping into that world?
“It wasn’t as big a departure as I thought it would be. Demi made a really cool rock album, so they hired a rock band to do a rock show. Demi’s a metalhead at heart. I’d walk past her dressing room and she’d be listening to Megadeth. She turned me onto this great deathcore band called Bodysnatcher. She’s the real deal.”
It sounds like her fans welcomed you in a way that some metal fans didn’t welcome the idea of Demi Lovato making a rock album…
“Her fans are so dedicated, they’ll follow her whatever she does. The thing about the rock and metal world – which I love and is my home – is that it’s a bunch of whiny, complainy babies. If a band do a slight departure from what they’ve done before, the fanbase cries about it: ‘Everything they’re doing is terrible now!’ Metallica are the biggest band in the world and people still shit on their new stuff.
“I think a big part of that is because everybody feels like they have to protect our scene and keep it safe – no external people can get in, which I think is crazy. If a pop artist wants to make a rock album, great. If a rock artist wants to make an R’n’B album, great. Music is for everyone.”
You became the first female solo artist to have a No.1 on rock radio with your 2021 single Dead Inside. That’s some achievement, but that’s a long time for that milestone to have been reached.
“I’ve had a few achievements in my career where it’s mind-blowing to me that I got there first, because it seemed like something that should have been done a long time ago, like becoming Ibanez guitars’ first female signature artist in 2018. It made me think, ‘How is it possible that no one has done this yet?’”
Why do you think those kind of things took so long to happen?
“I think it’s just the state of the scene. When I was growing up, there were so few female guitar players to look up to. People like Lita Ford and [Heart’s] Nancy Wilson and Jennifer Batten and Phantom Blue and Orianthi paved the way for us. Now there are so many could I name. We’re in a golden age of guitar players – you have a hero for anybody and everybody. You have female guitar heroes and Black guitar heroes and Asian guitar heroes and gay and trans guitar heroes. Everybody has that representation. Back then it was so rare.
“On the Demi tour, not only was it an all-female band, we had so many women on the crew – female lighting designer, female showrunner. Not just VIP and merch, but in power positions on the tour. I have a female tour manager, a female photographer, a female content creator. It’s cool to see women being elevated in all parts of the touring world.”
Do you feel like a role model?
“I do, and it’s kind of intimidating. But it makes everything worthwhile when I get a comment on my Instagram or someone comes to a meet and greet and says, ‘My daughter saw you play with Demi Lovato and now she’s asked for a guitar for her birthday.’ I was that kid who saw a guitar player that they loved and wanted to pick up a guitar because of it. If I can help create that for the next generation, that’s what it’s all about.”
It’s been a long journey to get to this point. Would you have done anything differently to speed things up?
“I would not trade anything. I have achieved things I had never even thought of. Everything I did my whole life brought me here.”
The Call Of The Void is out now via Sumerian.