Though guitarist Nita Strauss is best known for touring with shock rock legend Alice Cooper and more recently pop and rock songstress Demi Lovato, football fans may recognize her from shredding in between plays and at halftime at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood as the official in-house guitarist for the Los Angeles Rams.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Strauss has been a lifelong Rams fan and had been asked to play several times during games since the team returned to the area in 2016. After the Rams’ new home at SoFi Stadium was complete in 2020, she became the guitarist of the NFL team and rocked the Rams through a Super Bowl victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in 2022.
That winning season seems like a blur to Strauss now, she admits, noting that she was extremely busy in 2021. In all of 2022, she said she was only home for a total of 18 days — most of which she spent doing laundry — due to a jam-packed touring schedule with Cooper, Lovato, her own solo gigs and countless red-eye flights to LAX after late night shows to perform at the Rams home games. However, her dedication to her craft and her favorite football team paid off in the form of a giant, custom, bling-filled Super Bowl LVI ring.
“I would play a gig, sleep at the airport hotel until 3:30 in the morning, fly to (LAX) and head straight to the stadium, play the game and get right back to the airport to play a show in the next city,” Strauss said during a recent phone interview, adding that a steady football stadium job is a dream scenario for a guitar player. “It was a grueling season for me — and the team! So, it was cool to get this sort of bucket list accolade at the end of all of that. I got a ring and I got some frequent flyer miles. It was all worth it.”
During our call earlier this month, Strauss was preparing to live out another dream: finally releasing her sophomore solo album, “The Call of the Void” on Sumerian Records, with a special show at the Whisky a Go-Go in West…
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