On The Record: Nita Strauss on albums, auditions & Alice Cooper

Nita Strauss discusses her upcoming solo tour and her new album "Call of the Void". She talks about the maturity of her new album compared to her previous one and the collaborations with different vocalists. She also talks about finding the vocalist for her tour and her experience auditioning for Alice Cooper. Nita shares her approach to recording and the importance of embracing imperfections. She reflects on her growth as an artist and talks about her inspirations, including Steve Vai and Marty Friedman. So good to see you again, Mita. Thank you so much for having me on. Are you back home now? It looks like you are. I am. Yeah, I'm in my studio at home. I haven't been here all year, so it's kind of crazy to actually, like, be in my house with my dogs. But I'm trying not to get used to it, because I'm not going to be here very long, heading out on tour in about a week and a half, so just enjoying it while it's here. And that'll be your solo tour as well, right? Yes, yes, with my solo band. We'll get into all that. Of course, Call of the Void comes out July 7th, I believe. Yeah, 7-7. Yeah. What are you most excited for people to hear? Is there a riff or a song that you're really proud of, really stoked for fans to hear? I think just overall, the album has more maturity, I think, than my first record. When I was making Control of Chaos, it was really just, like, just spewing ideas and emotions out. And this one, I definitely approached from a much more well-thought-out standpoint. The songs are better crafted. It's not just like, this is what I'm feeling, and this is what I'm pouring into my session, into my protocol session. It's more like, we took a lot of time, we crafted the songs well. Obviously, there's a lot of different guests, different vocalists, even, I guess, by one of my absolute guitar heroes, Marty Friedman, on the record. So just excited to unleash the full product in the world. Yeah, this one had a lot of guests on it. Have some of those collaborations been in the works for a long time, or was it some of them kind of spontaneous? It was all fairly spontaneous, like, during the recording process of the record. The record took a long time to make, just because there were so many moving pieces. Again, I only have the one previous solo record to reference from, so I don't have a huge frame of reference for this. But when I made Control of Chaos, it was just me and my boyfriend and my best friend, and when we finished it, we released it. And now, with these different vocalists and labels and management and everything else, there was a lot to figure out. So it all took a little longer than I would have expected. But I've known the majority of these guests for a long time. Of course, you know, I've been playing with Alice Cooper almost a decade. We did a tour together, Hailstorm Motionless and White, Alice Cooper in 2019, so the three of us all knew each other from that tour. Alisa from Arch Enemy is one of my dear friends and favorite vocalists of all time. Same thing with Dorothy. So it's really, it's all been a long time coming, and just glad it came together. Was the writing process a bit different? Do you write songs differently when you have vocal parts to contend with as a guitarist? A lot differently, yeah. I find that guitar music is just easy in a way, because there's nothing really to think about. You know, you're not worrying about, is the song going to fit a radio format, or is the song going to be too high or too low for this vocalist, or does this chorus have the right amount of measures, and can this rhyme with that? You're able to create a little bit more freely, I find, where once you get a vocalist in the mix, then you've sort of got all those parameters and constraints to think about. You're thinking about, do we want the song to go to radio, is it too long, is it too short, is this note going to be too high, is this tempo going to be too fast, and so there's, it's like writing a haiku, kind of, where it's like you've got this format then to fit into, and I personally find it more complicated to write, but I think as I get used to it, I'll probably, I'll get the hang of it a little more. And how involved were the various guests in the writing of the songs? You know, were the lyrics pretty well-developed when they came into the fold? Depends on the guest, really, and depends on the song. Some of them were fairly well-developed. I did try to at least give most of the guests, at least, like, hey, do you want to write the verses, or do you want to write lyrics for this part, or a bridge, or something, just so we had sort of a collaborative spirit. There were some that we wrote completely, and just handed them, you know, sort of a fairly finished product, and said, put your spin on this, and then there were some that wrote their parts from scratch. David Draymond wrote all of his vocal lyrics, melody, everything, same thing with Anders from In Flames, wrote that one completely, which, thank God, I would have had no idea how to do what he does, you know, and same thing with David, so it was a fairly different process across the board. And as you hit the road with, I mean, there's such a diverse group of vocalists there. You have a new vocalist, who has a very demanding job, and a very diverse bunch of ranges to cover. How did you come by her? So, the great Kasey Carlson will be coming on tour with us, and you couldn't be more right. I mean, diverse is the perfect term for the type of vocalist I have on my record, you know. I have Queen singing, I have growls, I have girls, I have, you know, boy songs, I have, you know, Alice Cooper, to David Draymond, to Anders Frieden, to Lizzie Hale, to Dorothy, to Chris Motion. It's like, how do you find one person that can sing all that? So I found Kasey on social media, and she is truly a chameleon. She's known for doing covers, you know, she's very big on TikTok, which I just discovered TikTok sort of, so I'm still figuring out even how to navigate it. But I was looking at these covers of Kasey's, and, you know, she is the transformer of metal vocalists. She can really sing anything, so that is exactly what we were looking for. So lucky that we caught her between shows. She has a band called Deadlands, which is, you know, getting bigger and bigger, booking festivals and stuff. So I'm just glad that she had that month free to come on tour with me. And you found her on social media, so is that something you were seeking out? Were you kind of exploring the virtual land of social media for a vocalist, or was she suggested to you? I was looking, but she was also suggested to me. It was actually my content creator, photographer, and videographer, Anna Massard, who first said, hey, you know, he should get it. Because I always ask my team around me, like, hey, this is what I'm looking for. If somebody's going to know whether you need a merch person, whether you need, you know, a tech or anything like that, I feel like it's best to start in your circle and get good references of people that your team knows and then branch out after that. So as I was looking, you know, I was kind of thinking that I was going to find somebody from a busy band, you know, like, let's see what, you know, somebody that's already an experienced touring musician in a big band is doing and see if they will take a step back and do this with me. And Anna was like, well, have you seen Casey Carlson on TikTok? And I don't know. My TikTok is all like baby videos and like five things to order at Starbucks. And I don't have anything music related on there. So I was not familiar with her. And then I started watching her videos, totally blown away. She's such a talent, you know, very young, like pretty new in the industry is going to be her first tour, which is crazy. And we're just excited to get her out on the road and show the world what she can do. Auditions are always a bit of a complicated thing when you're trying to put a band together. And I recently heard that when you auditioned for Alice Cooper, you had never met him at that point. You auditioned by video. Is that correct? That's true. Yeah. What was that like? Was it kind of a series of you sending videos or was it like live video chat? I don't know what the technology was like 10 years ago. Yeah, I know. It's funny thinking that now we could have just zoomed and they could have given me notes like right there. But no, it was a series of sending videos back and forth and then sort of giving me notes and sending it back. And it was a big learning experience for me because I, you know, when I was making those first videos, like the first round of audition videos, I pulled out every stop, every trick in the book, you know, I was over it, over the next thing, sweeps, tapping, all this kind of stuff. And the harsh critique that I got was, have you ever heard an Alice Cooper song? Do you know what these songs sound like? And I realized it wasn't a technique audition, you know, they wanted to see if I could play Alice Cooper songs the way that Alice Cooper fans wanted to hear them. So it was a cool learning experience. And if it hadn't been by video, like if I had been in the room with 10 other guitar players, I very well might not have gotten it because of that reason. So all things considered, I'm lucky it happened the way it did. Well, I mean, you're talented enough to kind of blend into whatever style you're doing as well, you know, doing stuff with Demi. What were some of the things that you had to learn, either from a technical standpoint or just being in that world as opposed to the rock world? What were some of the important lessons that you learned from your time with her? I got so lucky with the Demi gig because she wanted to do a rock tour. You know, she put together an all-female rock band and we did a rock show. So I wish I had more of that pop, you know, I wish I had a good story about being in the pop world to tell everybody like, oh, it was so different and it was so regimented or this or that. But like, we really just went out and did our thing. You know, we had a good time. We threw it down every night and we had a blast. We all in that band got very lucky because we were hired because she liked us. She liked our personality and our performance style. So there wasn't like, you know, don't go too far here or don't play like this. Like we were there to to be ourselves and create this rock show with her. So that's what we did. I wanted to get into some of the songs I was able to listen to called Void. Fantastic record all the way. I'm so glad. There's some really cool stuff coming out. Thank you. Kintsugi is a song that that surprised me a bit from you. I was wondering if you could kind of tell me how that song came together. It seemed to be a bit of a departure from the shreddy stuff that, you know, we know it makes me really happy to to hear you talk about that one, because it is such a departure. And it's one of my favorite songs on the record, so much so that actually I almost named the album that because I liked it so much. And the concept of Kintsugi is it's a Japanese concept where you take a broken piece of pottery and you put it back together with gold, with real gold. And what it symbolizes is that just because something is broken, it doesn't mean that it's not more valuable. You know, once you've been broken, you're stronger because of it. A lot of people are just quick to say, well, something's broken, just throw it away and discard it. And this sort of tells you that once it's broken and put back together, it's stronger and more beautiful because of that. And that concept really resonated with me. And when we were crafting that song, I really just tried to make note choices and sonic decisions that reinforced that concept. So, you know, there's no distortion. There's not a lot of effects on the guitars. We didn't do a ton of takes. You know, it's a bit raw. I can hear how it's imperfect, which is in line with the theme of the song. It's just me and Cat Scarlet, who's my best friend and my keyboard player on the record band, live in the Scylla band, and we're just sort of having a musical conversation about that concept. Yeah, it's really cool. And the melodies are very interesting. They flow in a way that really captures the ear. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. Do you have any advice for people that get stuck in that trench of perfection where they feel like I'm recording this, this is forever, it needs to be perfect? How have you been able to embrace recording in the moment and not getting bogged down into being a perfectionist? Oh, it's the worst. I wish I had better advice. Honestly, it's just it's so frustrating. It's why, probably why I don't make more albums, to be honest with you. You know, like I love playing live because you're there in the moment and you're giving the audience an experience. And there is this whole added level of stress, you know, knowing that one of these takes is going to be it and you're never going to get a chance to do it over again, you know, in the studio. But I got a really good piece of advice when I was making Control Chaos from Neely Brosh, who is an incredible solo artist. She's toured with Tony McAlpine. She plays in Cirque du Soleil. She's playing now with Danny Elfman, incredible guitar player. And Neely had made a few of her own solo records before I even made one. And we were having coffee and I told her, I just don't think I'm good enough to make the record I want to make. I don't think I'm the guitar player that I want to be yet in order to make the record that I hear in my head. And Neely said, well, you're never going to be the best you're ever going to be. I'm paraphrasing a bit. But she said each record is a snapshot of the musician that you are right now. And then when you make the next one, it'll be a snapshot of who you are then. And so that's kind of what I try to keep in mind where I go, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Like, I'm not trying to make a Steve Vai record or a Tony McAlpine record, you know, anything like that. I'm just trying to make a record that says who I am as a player and as an artist at this point in time. And then another thing was also to, you know, there's always a temptation in the studio to sort of use the studio magic and, you know, record above your skill level. And you just like make the craziest, you know, you hear these programmed beats and like all this crazy stuff that's happening now. And like for me, it all has to be playable live. I've toured with this stuff. So you also have to resist the temptation to use too much studio magic and really, you know, craft songs that are right at your skill level and not too far, so far above that you're not going to be able to execute it live. You're so right. When you talk about music being this evolutionary process, what would you say is the biggest difference between Nita doing Controlled Chaos and Nita today putting out Call of the Void as an artist? I think I'm a lot less frustrated now than I was making Controlled Chaos, you know, as my first solo record after, you know, at the time, I guess it had been like 15, 16 years mostly spent as a hired gun. I had been spending so many years executing other people's visions of what they wanted their music to sound like that. I was like, I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. I don't want I don't want to engineer in the room. I don't want a producer on the record. I don't want like nobody is going to hear anything I play until mix, because I don't know how to mix. If I knew how to mix it, I would have mixed it myself. But thank God I don't, because, you know, it was it was just such a temper tantrum of an album, if that makes sense. You know, I recorded all the drums myself. Do I know how to record drums? No, I don't at all. But I watched a lot of YouTube videos and you can hear that I didn't know how to do it from the record, you know, like it could have sounded a lot better. So this time around, I sort of I got it out of my system. I approached it with a much more, as I said, beginning sort of much more mature standpoint, thought everything through a little bit more, you know, worked with different people to make sure the songs were crafted as well as they could be. And I think the record is better for it. There must have been an interesting role reversal in the studio, having Alice guest on your record now. What was that like to have him? Did you did you direct him around a bit? Well, he actually did it remotely, so I was not there for the recording of his vocal parts. And that's how it was actually for the majority of the guests on this record. You know, it's just it's sort of the way of the world right now. I was there for was there for a few, but not as many as I would have liked to be. You know, Elisa was in Germany. Alice was in Phoenix. Anders was in Sweden. You know, everybody's just spread across the globe. So I wasn't able to be there. But I also think that if I had been, I don't think I would have directed him too much, because that was one of the vocal parts that we gave, you know, that Tommy Henrickson from Alice's band. And I wrote for Alice and sort of handed him the finished thing and said, hey, here's here's the idea. Do your thing on it. And the song we crafted really was sort of an Alice Cooper song. You know, we weren't reinventing the wheel. We weren't having him sing any long, high sustained notes or anything. We gave, you know, we sort of tailor made him an Alice Cooper song, but on a bit of a heavier track, you know, a bit of a more modern hard rock metal song instead of more of that classic rock that he usually sings over. So he sang it exactly as I imagined he would. If I had been there in the room, I don't think I would have given him a single note because he's he's a pro. He knows what to do. And he executed. And he did a fantastic job on that on that record. I don't know that I heard an acoustic guitar on that record. Do you still not own an acoustic guitar? I think I talked to you like a couple of years ago and and you didn't have one. And that surprised me a bit. I have one now. I do have one now. I didn't I don't believe I used one on the record, but actually I did use one on the Demi tour. So I do own a really nice Ibanez acoustic now. So 2024 Nita Strauss acoustic record, right? Ah, I'll have to learn how to play it well first. I still play an acoustic like an electric guitar player playing an acoustic. You know, I I do believe that to play an acoustic really well, you know, like your Marsons or your Tommy Emmanuel's, you know, these guys. Angel Vivaldi is a perfect example of someone who can play incredible acoustic guitar and shred all of our faces off on the electric guitar. So I think for me to make an acoustic record, I would have to perfect that art a little bit more. But we'll see. You never know. Is there some aversion to acoustic or what just what keeps drawing you back to the electric guitar? I wouldn't say an aversion as much. An electric guitar is definitely more comfortable to play. You know, I have a repetitive stress injury in my left hand, so it is hard to press down the thicker strings that are farther off the neck for a long period of time. And the type of music I listen to doesn't use a lot of acoustic guitar. So just for me personally, it doesn't inspire me as much as sitting down and practicing my favorite songs on an electric guitar. So, again, you know, I never say never. And I think that someday there will be a chapter in my life where I find, you know, that I want to pick up the acoustic and play it. But right now I'll just take the Jeeva and I'll plug it into a Boss AC-2 and that'll be my acoustic. Who are some of the artists that inspire you now? And are they the same artists that inspired you when you were starting out? I think that my original heroes, you know, the Steve Vai's, the Satriani's, the Jennifer Batten, Marty Friedman will continue to inspire me always because they never stop innovating. You know, if you listen to what Steve Vai is doing now, if you listen to what Marty Friedman is doing now, like it's the cutting edge of guitar. So how cool that it was the cutting edge of guitar, you know, the year I was born, you know, and these guys are still at the forefront innovating now. I love listening to the newer artists. I love listening to Polyphia and Yvette Young, my Ibanez signature sister, Tosin. I think it's so cool what this generation of musicians is doing with the instrument. Like really taking it to these new heights that I, as a guitar player, could barely even conceive of. A couple of years ago at NAMM, Yvette Young and I had signature models come out on the same day and we were at an Ibanez event at NAMM and I said, hey, can I play your guitar? And she's like, yeah, only if I can play your guitar. So we traded guitars and we noodled around on each other's guitar for a second and then we handed it back. We're like, ew, no. It's just, you know, the style is so different and the setup is so different. And she was like, I wouldn't even know how to play your guitar. And I was like, I wouldn't even know how to play your guitar. And I think that was a really telling moment, you know, of just like how much innovation is happening in this instrument. You know, you think like, oh, Nita and Yvette, both Ibanez girls, you know, must be pretty similar, like literally like couldn't be more disparate musicians, you know. And I just think it's so cool. It's such a cool time to be a guitar player right now. It really is. And you're part of the reason for that. You've been very inspiring to a whole crop of new guitar players that come to Ultimate Guitar. They look up your tabs and I just want to thank you for doing that. Well, that is crazy, because as you know, I have been an Ultimate Guitar user since the very beginning, like looking up tabs myself and looking at my studio computer behind this one right now. And I have so many Guitar Pro tabs that I've downloaded from your site, like staring me in the face right now. So still a user, like weekly user and a fan for sure. Are there some songs you're looking up to cover on Ultimate Guitar right now? There is not something I'm looking to cover like right now, but these are songs that I had actually saved that I was thinking about incorporating little some pieces into my solo and the Alice Cooper tour. So I was like, oh, let me learn this. Let me learn that piece. And I was like, maybe I'll I didn't wind up using it, but I was learning a little bit that Paganini piece from Crossroads. And I was like, maybe I'll incorporate that and didn't end up doing it. But I did think about it. And that's full circle for you as well. I recall from previous conversations, that was kind of one of the things that inspired you to pick up a guitar in the first place. Oh, 100 percent. Yeah. Like big time, biggest influence, you know, the reason that I picked up a guitar was seeing that movie. And honestly, I really would have used that piece in this solo. But then once we got the set list for the Alice Cooper show and they said, hey, your solo is going to be the Black Widow jam. I was like, oh, well, I mean, it's such a different vibe. You know, it starts with this very dark Vincent Price monologue. And they're like, they really wanted like dark and spooky as a vibe. So the neoclassical idea I had just kind of this like bouncy, major neoclassical thing just didn't fit at all. So I did learn it. So maybe we'll fit it in somewhere someday. But I am the tab is making me feel guilty about it now. Sitting there unused. Yeah, yeah, it is. No, no fun. And and the part that Steve Vai messes up in the movie is the part that I always mess up. So I don't know if this is like a psychosomatic thing or if that actually is the hardest part of the song. But like, boy, that that one phrase gets me every time. How do you define success as an artist? I think success as an artist is doing the things that you love to do on your terms and being content and happy with it. Great answer. You're never going to be able to please everybody. Right. Like I put out a song with David Draymond and I put out a song with Elisa White Gloves. And you look at the comments on these two songs and, you know, on the Draymond song, people are like, oh, this song sucks. You know, you should do more songs like the song with Elisa. And then I thought the song was like, oh, this sucks. I hate all this screaming stuff. You should do more stuff with, you know, you should make a whole album with David Draymond. And like, there's always going to be people telling you how you should like how I should be Nita Strauss, what I should what Nita Strauss should do next. And I think as long as I'm happy and content with the way that my career is going and the people around me are happy and content with the way that things are happening, you know, a rising tide lifts all boats. Everybody should come up together. And I think as long as you're doing your thing on your own terms, remaining true to who you are, that's success. There's always going to be haters out there, right? Yeah, there will be. What else does 2020. What year is it? I don't know, Justin. I literally like if you would have said 2024, I would not have said boo. I don't know what year. Are you going to be hitting the studio with Alice Cooper? Will there be some more stuff with Demi coming up? Is there anything else that you're excited about that's coming up? I know you got your tour and everything with that and going out with Coop again in the fall. So you're busy. Oh, my gosh. So let's see. The new Alice record is finished, actually. We went in the studio and recorded that as a band last year, maybe a little over a year ago. So the Alice Cooper Road album will be coming at some point in the hopefully near future. I don't have the release info on that. But hopefully soon. That was an awesome experience to actually get to be in the studio with Alice and the band and Bob Ezrin and make an Alice Cooper record, which is still mind blowing to me that I got to do that. I've got the upcoming tour with my solo band, which starts June 12th, goes through July 14th and then straight back out with Alice on the Motley Crue Def Leppard tour, then Alice Rob Zombie, which will be a lot of fun. And then we will see what Coop's plans for the fall, like late fall and winter are. If he's not working, I just got such a cool opportunity for my solo band to go on tour as a support band, actually. So regardless of what happens, I will be super busy. Whichever tour it is, looks like we're going to be working until the end of the year. So looking forward to all of that. You're not going to tell me who the band you're possibly supporting is, are you? I cannot. It was it was in bold in the contract to not talk about it. And then I forgot the most important one, which is the record comes out July 7th, which is still mind blowing to me that it's actually going to be out and be out in the world. Because it's been such a long time in the works. And I'm sure any fan of guitar playing or guitar music is going to love this record. So I'm really excited for people to hear it. I hope so. It means a lot that you liked it. Well, thank you so much for all that you do and for all the people that you inspire with your music. And please keep doing it. That means a lot, Justin. Thank you so much. And again, as a longtime Ultimate Guitar fan, like I'm always excited when I see this on my interview list. So thank you very much again for having me.