Though guitarist Nita Strauss is best known for touring with shock rock legend Alice Cooper and more recently pop and rock songstress Demi Lovato, football fans may recognize her from shredding in between plays and at halftime at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood as the official in-house guitarist for the Los Angeles Rams.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Strauss has been a lifelong Rams fan and had been asked to play several times during games since the team returned to the area in 2016. After the Rams’ new home at SoFi Stadium was complete in 2020, she became the guitarist of the NFL team and rocked the Rams through a Super Bowl victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in 2022.
That winning season seems like a blur to Strauss now, she admits, noting that she was extremely busy in 2021. In all of 2022, she said she was only home for a total of 18 days — most of which she spent doing laundry — due to a jam-packed touring schedule with Cooper, Lovato, her own solo gigs and countless red-eye flights to LAX after late night shows to perform at the Rams home games. However, her dedication to her craft and her favorite football team paid off in the form of a giant, custom, bling-filled Super Bowl LVI ring.
“I would play a gig, sleep at the airport hotel until 3:30 in the morning, fly to (LAX) and head straight to the stadium, play the game and get right back to the airport to play a show in the next city,” Strauss said during a recent phone interview, adding that a steady football stadium job is a dream scenario for a guitar player. “It was a grueling season for me — and the team! So, it was cool to get this sort of bucket list accolade at the end of all of that. I got a ring and I got some frequent flyer miles. It was all worth it.”
During our call earlier this month, Strauss was preparing to live out another dream: finally releasing her sophomore solo album, “The Call of the Void” on Sumerian Records, with a special show at the Whisky a Go-Go in West Hollywood. The now-36-year-old said she remembers playing the iconic venue as a teenager with her metal band Lia-Fail, which also featured now Olympian and world champion boxer Mikaela Mayer on bass.
It’s the perfect spot, she said, to live debut her new songs, which include several instrumentals as well as collaborations with vocalists like Motionless in White’s Chris Motionless on “Digital Bullets,” Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale on “Through the Noise,” L.A.-based singer-songwriter Dorothy on “Victorious,” Disturbed’s David Draiman with “Dead Inside” and she brought in Cooper for “Winner Takes All.”
“I’ve had the crazy opportunity to work with Alice now on two records — on my record and his upcoming ‘Road’ record — and it was cool getting to know someone I’ve known musically for a long time in this new sense, because people in the studio are very different creatively,” she said. “He was super receptive for the ideas I had for his record and, obviously, he knocked his performance out of the park on my record because he’s a pro’s pro. It was really cool sharing this new chapter of the journey with him in that way.”
Working on her second album was much different than her first, 2018’s fully instrumental “Controlled Chaos.” With that initial effort, Strauss said she felt unsure if fans would even want to hear her own music or just wanted her to stick to the stuff she played with Cooper or parts from her time in the all-female Iron Maiden cover band, The Iron Maidens. She sought funding to support the album through a Kickstarter crowdfunding page to gauge interest. The initial pledge was for $20,000 to get the recording going, but by the end of the campaign, her fans had gifted her more than $165,000 to create her solo debut.
“It was very intimidating,” she said when the numbers were tallied. “It might not have been for others, but for me it was a life-changing amount of money. I was like ‘Oh my God’ and it was a lot of pressure because I had to deliver. It was no longer about me at that point, it was for all the people who put their money where their mouths were and said ‘We believe in you and we want this record.’ I had to make it happen at that point.”
Strauss said that knowing that supportive audience was there was also the confidence boost she needed heading into “The Call of the Void.”
“This record was an amazing experience,” she said. “With the first record, I didn’t really collaborate with anyone. It was my boyfriend and my best friend playing with me and they knew and understood me better than anyone and knew what my vision was and when we were done, we put the album out and that was it, that was the process. On this route, there was a lot more to learn in working with these incredible artists who have their own careers and labels and management, which made things a lot more complicated, but in terms of the artistic part of it, that was such a great experience for me.”
On the album, Strauss said she’s perfectly fine just shredding on guitar and letting the pro vocalists do their thing.
“The more amazing singers I work with, the less I want to get on the microphone,” she said with a laugh. “I’m working with these absolutely phenomenal vocalists and I can sing a little and anyone that comes and sees me will see me do some backups here and there. I’ll do what I love, which is to play guitar and let these wonderful vocalists do what they love and I think it’s better that way.”
While she’s graced the cover of countless guitar and rock-focused magazines and has been named on several best guitarist lists, she’s also accomplished many other impressive feats. “Dead Inside” off of the new record, topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart earlier this year, making her the first female solo artist in more then three decades to top that chart. The last time was Alannah Myles’ “Black Velvet,” according to Billboard.
Of course, there have been been other female-fronted bands that have topped that chart including The Pretty Reckless and Halestorm.
“I definitely think it’s long overdue,” Strauss said of being the first solo artist to achieve that honor in so long. “That’s not to say that women aren’t out there doing it. There are a lot of female-fronted bands that have done it, so it’s not as dire as it may sound at first. That being said, there were a lot of women who blazed the trail for me to get to this point today and I hope what I’m doing is continuing to move the needle in the right direction.”
Strauss was also the first female to create a signature guitar with Japanese instrument makers Ibanez.
“I got to design my dream guitar and not only play it myself, but have other people play it, too,” she said of the collaboration. “I see people at meet-and-greets and on social media making my guitar their new favorite guitar and that is one of the most gratifying things I’ve ever experienced.”
She has no idea how many days she’ll end up being able to spend at home in 2023. She hasn’t had many days off work so far and will be out this month for a few more solo dates, then the Rams return to SoFi for preseason games in August. She’ll be back on the road in the late summer and early fall with Alice Cooper as that band teams up with Rob Zombie to launch the Freaks on Parade Tour, which comes to Honda Center in Anaheim on Saturday, Sept. 23.
“Last year was a lot; it was crazy,” she said. “But honestly, it’s a year every guitar player dreams of. Getting to play some of the biggest stadiums and festivals all over the world, working with a NFL team, working with a rock legend and a more mainstream, younger legend-in-the-making with Demi, touring with my own band and doing my own music with my friends. I don’t know what more I could have asked for.
“Except for maybe a few more days to do laundry,” she swiftly added.
Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper: Freaks on Parade Tour
With: Ministry and Filter
When: 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23
Where: Honda Center, 2695 East Katella Ave., Anaheim
Tickets: Starting at $39.50 at Ticketmaster.com
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