Nita Strauss’ stock has elevated to great heights in recent years, with many considering her the cream of the crop for female shredders. But despite her rising star, she still gets “nervous about” her guitar hero, Steve Vai.
They’ve forged a friendship over the years. and have even shared stages. Vai represents something of a father figure for her in the guitar world, and the Alice Cooper guitarist has earned more and more column space in guitar magazines as time has passed.
“He is so nice,” she says, speaking to Rock Antenne stage at Guitar Summit 2024. “Actually, he sends me emails every once in a while, and he'll be like, 'Look! What a great article about you in Guitar World.'
“So it's very surreal. But he's always been so, so complimentary, and so kind to me as a young artist sort of following in his footsteps. That's always been really, really cool.”
Strauss has previously revealed to Guitar Player that Steve Vai, and his iconic Crossroads performance, in particular, had cemented her infatuation with the electric guitar. That saw her “devour,” educational material as she set out on her path to stardom.
“When I was 13 years old, I saw Steve Vai in Crossroads. He was so cool and charismatic,” she recalls. “At the time, I had a guitar, but I hadn’t fallen in love with it yet. I remember watching Steve Vai and thinking, Why didn’t anybody tell me that you could do that with a guitar? That is so cool!”
Having Vai in her contacts book, then, and a supportive one at that, must be quite a shock to the system for the guitarist.
However, while Vai’s playing resonated with her, naturally she craved a guitarist to look up to that represented her. For the 38-year-old, hot-shot female players were hard to come by.
“It's important to act as a role model, even if you aren't one on a grand scale,” she expands during her chat at Guitar Summit. “But when I was growing up, there were not a lot of female guitar players in the scene, and it was hard to find somebody that sort of checked the boxes for me. For me, that person was Jennifer Batten.”
Batten is best known for having played on three world tours with Michael Jackson during the late ‘80s and ‘90s. She also starred on two Jeff Beck albums, 1999’s Who Else!, and its 2001 follow-up, You Had It Coming.
“Watching Jen on the biggest stage in the world, with the biggest star in the world, Michael Jackson, shredding, playing the Super Bowl, blazing solos faster than anybody that I'd ever seen,” Strauss reflects. “It was just amazing to see a girl up there doing that, and I think ‘If I can create that moment for some girls of the next generation, that's really special’.”
She’s quick to brush off the "female guitar player" tag too, believing there “are more important things to get offended about.”
“To be honest with you, that doesn't really bother me. I hear some people get offended by that saying, 'Oh, you should not be called the best female player. You should just be the best player.' I'm just happy to be in that conversation because I don't think I'm the best. I don't think I'm faster or more technical than anyone.”
Meanwhile, Strauss accidentally caused a guitarist merry-go-round in the Alice Cooper camp. She was forced to pull out of his ongoing U.S. tour due to solo touring commitments.
That made it possible for her predecessor, Orianthi, to return to Cooper's band, only for a freak injury to force her to pull out. The Godfather of shock rock then turned to former Guns N’ Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke, just days ahead of the tour.
It's not the first time that Strauss has stepped away for other commitments. She did so in 2022 to shred stages with pop singer-turned-rock star Demi Lovato, a move that Cooper wholly supported.
Speaking to GP about his “revolving door” of guitar players, he said he feels “lucky to have played with so many great ones”.
Strauss is expected to return to the fold ahead of the next tour.
“George said, ‘No, I’m playing rhythm. You’re playing lead.’” Peter Frampton recalled the shocking recording session that led him to perform on George Harrison's 'All Things Must Pass'
“It sounded like an angry wasp. It didn’t have any depth or articulation.” Brian May details his disastrous experiment with a Marshall stack — and how Jimi Hendrix showed him up with it
