Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss is featured in the latest episode of D'Addario's 'Guitar Power' video series, which you can check out below.
In the clip, which was posted yesterday, Strauss sits down with Alain Johannes for an interview and a bit of shredding.
Strauss discusses how she had to make the transition from shredder to rock guitarist when she accepted the gig with Cooper. She also mentions how she didn't spend a lot of time learning how to play blues guitar, not to mention the importance of her recent visit with Jason Becker.
Yes, her father bought her a guitar when she was 13, but she didn't find her calling with the instrument until seeing Crossroads.
"I remember watching [Steve] Vai come in, and he's just blazing. I sat bolt upright in my living room, like, 'Why didn't anybody tell me you could get those sounds out of a guitar?!' Up until then, I had been dinking away trying to play 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' But after Crossroads, it was a snowball down the hill into that whole shred world—everyone from Vai and Joe Satriani and Paul Gilbert to Marty Friedman and Becker."
The video ends with an, um, interesting bit of jamming by Strauss and Johannes.
“Walk Like an Egyptian was so silly. But solid players have asked, ‘What are you playing at the end?’” Vicki Peterson sees herself as “a bit of a hack player,” but she still made guitar-pop history with the Bangles – and guested with Tom Petty
“We had 15 minutes left, and it was time to go… I just started playing that riff. Then Lenny goes, ‘Whoa, what’s that?’” Lenny Kravitz guitarist Craig Ross reveals the serendipitous roots of a Kravitz classic
