NITA STRAUSS Says Her Debut Solo Album Will Feature 'One Really Exciting Special Guest'

Guitarist Nita Strauss (ALICE COOPER, WE START WARS) recently spoke to PureGrainAudio about her forthcoming debut solo album, "Controlled Chaos". You can now listen to the chat using the SoundCloud widget below.

Strauss ran a Kickstarter campaign to finance the making of "Controlled Chaos", which is tentatively due in September. In just 30 days, she raised more than $165,000.

"The solo album is really my way of branching out and doing my own thing," Nita said. "I'm mostly known for playing other people's music, so this is a way to just do something that is purely from my heart and my creativity. So it's really exciting."

Strauss added that she always intended to keep the production costs for her solo disc relatively low. "I'm not planning on making a 'Chinese Democracy' here," she said, referring to GUNS N' ROSES' last studio effort, which reportedly took more than a decade and cost in excess of ten million dollars to record. "It's an instrumental guitar record. I can make it on a good budget. I have a home studio, so the only thing I'll really need to spend the money on, as far as recording, is some equipment and, of course, drums, 'cause I don't wanna do drums at my house, and mixing and mastering. So the budget for the actual recording is fairly modest. And the rest of it already was planned to go towards a tour and towards publicity for the record and making it as cool as it could be. So now that we've reached the goal and then some, there will definitely be a tour. I actually just got the routing for the first tour a couple of days ago. And there will definitely be quite a few tours to support it."

Asked if she has given any thought as to whether she might use the same musicians that are playing on the album as her backing band on tour, Nita said: "I'll definitely use the same drummer; yeah, it my boyfriend [Josh Villalta]. He played drums on my single, 'Pandemonium', which came out last year. And besides it being really great to work with somebody that you have such great chemistry with, he's also the best drummer that I know, so it's a match made in heaven right there. And then as far as bass and second guitar, it really just depends who else is on the tour. I'm not gonna be putting really a band together for this project; it's really just gonna be me and the backing musicians, aside from the consistent drummer, of course, Josh. So I'll either be sharing a backing band with some of the other musicians on the tour or hiring people on a need-to-hire basis."

Nita also confirmed that "Controlled Chaos" will feature mostly her and her backing band. "I do have a guest guitarist on one track on the album," she said. "But I wanted this first album to just be me. I am known for playing with other musicians, so this is my first chance to get to go out and do something on my own, and I don't really want it to end up like, 'The album only sold well because she got X, Y and Z as special guests.' I really want this to happen on my own merits and on my own terms. That said, there is one really exciting special guest."

Strauss made her name with THE IRON MAIDENS, FEMME FATALE and LA Kiss prior to hooking up with Cooper.

Nita joined the legendary rocker's band in 2014 as the replacement for Orianthi.