“This is the band that I always list as my favorite band”: Nita Strauss on the Swedish melodic death metal group she considers her “Beatles”

It goes without saying that Nita Strauss knows a thing or two about good guitar riffs, and recently the Alice Cooper electric guitar hero sat down with Guitar World to run through the five riffs that changed her life.

And, during her selection, Strauss named a cut from a Swedish melodic death metal group, whose music had the same informative and influential effect on her as The Beatles had on the wider musical population when the Fab Four burst onto the global scene in the 1960s.

Of course, countless artists – and casual music fans – cite the Beatles as being their biggest influence, and for good reason: their music forever changed the sound of rock music.

But, for Strauss, she had her own Beatles: In Flames – a Swedish outfit that first emerged in the 1990s, and that pioneered the melodic death metal scene worldwide.

“The next riff is by a band that I consider to be my Beatles, and that is Sweden's own In Flames,” Strauss says during the video. “In Flames is, you know, the band that I always list as my favorite band.

“When I was growing up getting into heavy music, I was always really drawn by these sort of inversions and chords that the Swedish melodic death metal bands use, and this is a song called Bullet Ride.”

Nita Strauss: Five guitar riffs that changed my life - YouTube

Watch On

Of course, Strauss dutifully gives us a quick taste of the pumping Bullet Ride riff, which she commends for its clever use of pedal tones and chord shape alterations.

“[It’s] really, really fun to play the dramatic shift of those chords with that pedal tone, and just using that root in the fifth in a different way, rather than just adding the tension with those different notes – I just think it's so cool.”

Strauss’ fondness of In Flames go beyond being a casual listener, though. In 2023, she tapped the band’s vocalist Anders Fridén for her solo record, The Call of The Void.

Head over to Guitar World’s YouTube channel to watch the full video.

In related news, Strauss recently revealed she received a call to audition for Michael Jackson, but ended up playing funk with his brother. She also looked back on what she described as the worst gig of her life, and reflected on what she learned from it.