Nita Strauss recently sat down with ‘Rock Hard Greece’ to talk about her previous tenure with Demi Lovato. When asked if she faced any difficulties adapting to Demi’s modern take on rock after playing with Alice Cooper for many years, the guitarist admitted that she sometimes feels like Demi is more modern rock than Alice:
“I wouldn’t say it was too challenging, the solo stuff is definitely a lot more challenging. The Demi [Lovato] set, it’s not as different as you might think. It was a very rock show and actually more of that modern rock than what we do with Alice Cooper. I think I played even a little bit more like myself at certain points in Demi’s shows because I didn’t have the constraints of staying within that classic rock style.”
Strauss pointed out that Coopers’ set are filled with rock classics so she doesn’t and add her spin instead sticks to the original. She added:
“When you’re playing a song like ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ let’s say, there’s no room for sweep arpeggios or tapping, you know, like any modern fancy stuff. You want to play the song as it’s intended; you know the way it was written, the way that Alice Cooper fans expect to hear it.
Demi recently released her album ‘Revamped,’ which consists of her all-time classics but in rock form. Besides working with Nita on the rock version of ‘La La Land,’ she also collaborated with Slash on ‘Sorry Not Sorry’ for this rock album.
During the interview, the guitarist also pointed out that with Demi’s tracks, she had more room to add her modern touches on stage. She said:
“So when someone like Demi does a rock arrangement of a song like ‘Sorry Not Sorry’ one of her big hits and says here’s the solo, do whatever you want. There’s a lot more room for expression, you know, like you could sort of be creative and go all out. Because you don’t have the original song to pay respect to that people have been listening to for 40-50 years.”
You can watch Nita Strauss’ interview with ‘Rock Hard Greece’ and listen to ‘Revamped’ below.
