Nita Strauss on lighting Demi Lovato’s guitar fire and how fresh tones – and the 2nd position – are helping her introduce shredding solos to new audiences

Nita Strauss
(Image credit: Katja Ogrin/Redferns via Getty)

“It’s nice to be home for a couple of days. I haven’t been here since January,” grins Nita Strauss when she connects with Guitar World via video link. It's been a whirlwind year for Strauss, who has well and truly been living up to her Hurricane nickname – touring American and European arenas with Alice Cooper, and then heading out with her solo band whenever a gap in her schedule presented itself. 

But the big news came in July, when she dropped the bombshell that she would be not be performing on the shock rock veteran’s fall tour, and even going as far as canceling all of her own solo dates. “I’ll be on stage again much sooner than you think,” she teased, adding, “but that’s news for another day”.

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Amit Sharma

Amit has been writing for titles like Total GuitarMusicRadar and Guitar World for over a decade and counts Richie Kotzen, Guthrie Govan and Jeff Beck among his primary influences as a guitar player. He's worked for magazines like Kerrang!Metal HammerClassic RockProgRecord CollectorPlanet RockRhythm and Bass Player, as well as newspapers like Metro and The Independent, interviewing everyone from Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy to Slash and Jimmy Page, and once even traded solos with a member of Slayer on a track released internationally. As a session guitarist, he's played alongside members of Judas Priest and Uriah Heep in London ensemble Metalworks, as well as handled lead guitars for legends like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, The Faces) and Stu Hamm (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, G3).