PipemanRadio Interviews Nita Strauss at Welcome To Rockville 2023

0:04 Hey, you love them too, that's sure. Come from four C Why for you, Why Up America, It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four C why dot com West Palm Beach is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man that it's the pipe Man here on the Adventures Place Man W four C Y Radio at Welcome to Rockville, and I'm here with the absolute shredder O. Thank you. My photographer who's out there right now, was like, man, she was telling her friend, you gotta check her out. She's a total shredder. She's like amazing, and it is true. That is so nice. I like when photographers say that because that means they'll take a lot of good pictures from me and doing the show. There you go, right, and it is so good to have you back with Alice. Thank you so much. I think I last time I saw was that health Fest. Yeah, and so I was like this fine health. Of all the euro festivals, I think health Fest

1:38 might be my favorite. It is so cool with all the like decorations and stuff. Yeah, the way they have the like you know, the pyro all the way to the back. Yeah, everybody, you know, even the people that aren't right up at the front can experience like what it's like being in the thick of it. Super cool and so I can't wait to see a shred here at Welcome to Rockville. So what else new has been going on that we want to tell the listeners about. Well, I just announced the release date for my new record, The Call of the Boyd. It's going to come out July seventh, and we dropped a single featuring Andrews Frieden of in Flames. In Flames is my first favorite band, nice so we've released a few different singles from it so far. We had Dead Inside with David Draymond. We had an instrumental song called Summerstorm. We did a song with Alice. But really this was a really really exciting one for me because I got to really work with the band that got me in the metal Wow, So how did that all come about? Is there a story there?

2:35 You know? We had so many different features on this record. It was you know, a lot of you know, two steps for on sep back kind of situation. But Andrews was really really great to work with, and we reached out through Mike Plotnikov, who produced who I'm Sorry, mixed my first record, Control Chaos, and he was into the song. We sent him the instrumental track and he wrote. He completely wrote and recorded the vocals himself, and it's great. Sounds like Old in Flames, which is my favorite. I love it. That's so cool. So basically, what would you want to tell people that are listening that don't know who you are? Which I find that hard to believe, but there's probably some what would you want them to know about Nita's Stress? Well, I have been playing guitar for as Cooper for the better part of a decade. I have a solo record that's out, another one it's about to come out. I have Lizzie Hale on my record, Chris Motionless. If there's a band that's out and active right now, chances are I've got your favorite singer on my record.

3:30 So I would love it if you guys come and check it out. We're also going on tour starting June tenth to promote the record with my solo band, So all the dates and everything else are on my website, Nita Stress dot com, or on Socialist at Hurricane Nita Nice. And So how does it feel when all these people just want to collaborate with you. It's a dream come true. I've been asked a lot why I don't sing, and I think this record is a perfect example of why not. Because why would I start singing when I have the opportunity to work with some of the most legendary singers in the business. And I think when you're a guitarist like you are, I don't know, I would think it would be hard to sing and do that at the same time. I don't, you know, honest, singing is kind of hard for me in general. I'm not a singer, right like, and I don't particularly it's I think it's one thing.

4:16 Like you know, you take Oriente, who is an incredible guitar player and also an amazing singer, like I see why she does it. I'm not a singer like her, So you know, why would I push myself to this limit that is so far out of reach for me when I can work with someone like Lizzie Hale or Dorothy you know, these incredible rock vocalists that will knock these songs out of the park every day. I think that's so smart too, because I don't care what business you're in. It doesn't have to be to music business. It's like I think people should specialize and what they're best at totally and team up and team up with other people that are great at what they're great at exactly. Look, if you want to sing, I think it's great. Yea, I just don't really want to. Well, see there it is right there. Why do it? If you don't want to do it. I'm not I'm not terrible. I sing a lot in the Alice Show, but like I'm not particularly amazing at it.

5:02 I don't particularly want to. I work with people that are incredible, that love it, that want to do it. That's a much better situation for me. There you go. So what was it that prompted that first time you picked up a guitar? My dad is a musician. My dad was a touring musician for many years. So he's the one that got me my first guitar and really taught me my first few chords and everything. And it was such a big influence on me actually that I named my signature guitar after his band, which is called Jeeva. So now there are five Ibanez Giva models around the world that I named for my dad's band. I love that as a dad, Like, I don't know if my kids would necessarily do that. They may, so I think it's totally cool that you just gave the total kudos to your dad. Oh yeah, well you gotta remember where you came from, where it all started. Absolutely. Are there any other festivals that you're doing this year? I think this is our only DWP festival. I'm going to do a club tour with my band, then Alice goes back out with my crew def Leppard for the stadium shows. Yeah, and then we have a co headline Alice Cooper Rob Zombie in the Fall.

6:05 Yeah. I heard about that too. And did you drive around the raceway yet? We did? Yes, we were here yesterday as fans saw a bunch of amazing bands, got to be in the golf cart go around the raceway pretty wild, right wild. The golf cart sadly could not go up on the bank, but we did ask every time. Yeah. I live in South Flora and I have a jeep and I was driving around. I'm like, my jeep would definitely flip. You don't realize how much that embankment is when you're seeing on TV. It's like, holy Moley. So I played the National Anthem at a NASCAR event in Fontana, near La, where I'm from, and we got to ride in the Pace car, and the Fontana track is completely different to the Daytona track, and not being I don't know that much about NASCAR, so I didn't understand how different it was until I got to ride on both tracks and I was like, oh my god.

6:56 You know, the Fontana was much flattered, seems like an easier I feel like, I feel like I could drive it in my car right like, absolutely not. I would not even attempt it. Is funny. I'll have my skateboard in the jeep, and I was thinking about, like, if I don't get in trouble bringing my skateboard out, well, I feel like getting up would be one thing, you know. I asked someone who's driving us yesterday if we were allowed to walk up Embankment, and she said, you can, but the problem is getting down. You can walk up, you know, it's it's a pretty sheer drop down. Somebody told me too that you you have to drive like fifty five miles per hour minimum just to make it without flipping. I could imagine. So yeah, I don't know, it's wild, but like, see that's what's cool about the Danny Wimmer festivals. There are always these like iconic venues, absolutely interesting places.

7:46 I know, right like Ink is coming up and that's at Shawshank Prison, which is like, Wow, my daughter, she she'll call me every time, like before a festival and she'll be so, are you excited. I'm like, I don't know if it excited. It's the word. I love doing it, but it's going to be hot when you do it every weekend, Like do you get excited? But then when it's at Ink for the first time years ago, called her up, I'm like, I'm sitting in the prison yard of Shawshank Wild I know, right, so crazy And this is these are these opportunities that you don't realize where music is going to bring you. When you first start playing guitar. You know, you're sitting in your bedroom, you're learning your in Toronto songs and you're going you know, you don't think that you're going to be standing on the track at Rtona or you know, at the Hollywood Bowl or you know these incredible places that we've had the opportunity to be just because music brings you there. Yeah, you know, it's so during COVID in Lockdown. Do you feel like it kind of helped you to get off the hamster wheel and like kind of really look at who you want be for the rest of the time as an artist.

8:52 I feel like COVID for me personally and my boyfriend Josh, who's also I'm a manager. It really was a good opportunity for us because we had you know, I've been a hired gun guitar player for many, many years. I've toured with a ton of different artists, you know, especially since twenty eighteen when my record come out came out. I've been juggling, playing with Alice, doing my solo music, playing with Demi, playing the Los Angeles Rams games, doing guitar clinics like you know, I only spent eighteen days home last year, yea, three sixty five. You know. So for us, it was a really really good opportunity to take a step back and take stock of, you know, what we could do if it all did end, you know, we were off the roader forever. So we launched an online guitar course called My Guitar Fundamentals, and we had already had it in the works, already planned to do it and so it was the perfect time to put it out to the world. And what separated mine, I think and why we did so well is it literally took people from picking up a guitar for the very first time and teaching them how to play it.

9:52 So instead of starting with what most people think are the basics, it literally starts with this is a guitar. These are called the strings. These are called the frets. So people that were ordering a guitar online for something to do in the downtime could really feel like they were being you know, handheld through every step of it. And nothing's like that just finding ways to connect. I started Patreon page, was able to connect with people that way, doing live streams and all that kind of stuff. So all in all, obviously it sucked, you know, not being on the road, not being able to do the shows, but all in all, it was a great experience because we had to learn, you know, we pivoted, and we found out that we could pivot if we needed to. See that's what's really cool, Like, I like looking at the positive of that whole shit storm to people, Yeah, you know, yeah, I was gonna say, I guess I shouldn't have said. All in all was a great experience because it was not a great experience, but we made the best of a bad experience. But I love that you said it was a great experience because you can pull something. Evan. I looked at as like for artists like you, you're on this hamster wheel forever and so you finally got a chance to like sit back and evaluate. I got to spend a whole year with my dogs. My dogs have never me for a whole year in their lives.

10:58 They probably were like, can you go out on the road like you much with my solo band, aims Thanks, I'm on the bus with us, so yeah, they I'm sure they don't know what's going on if they get me for longer than a couple of weeks. Well, it is amazing to have you here at Welcome to Rockville and man, I can't wait to see shred up there. And thank you for being on the Adventures of Pikeman. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipman. I'm w for CUI Radio.