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NITA STRAUSS to undergo surgery for torn meniscus

25-11-2022

Former Alice Cooper and current Demi Lovato guitarist Nita Strauss will undergo surgery for a torn meniscus in late December. The procedure will take place seven months after she first sustained the injury while on the road with Cooper.

Earlier today, Strauss, who has been the in-house guitarist for Los Angeles Rams football games since the team moved to SoFi Stadium in 2020, took to her Instagram to share a video update on her injury. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I have a little knee update, for those who’ve been wondering. I did have my pre-op last week, and, unfortunately, it didn’t go exactly as I hoped it would. According to my doctor, eight months of performing on a torn meniscus did not do my any favors. The injury has not improved; unfortunately, it’s gotten worse. So surgery has had to be pushed to the end of the year — after Christmas, after the last Rams game — and then it’ll be a full month before I can do anything at all again. So no shows, no performing, no nothing. I’m super disappointed at that; I was hoping to already be on the mend by now. But it is what it is.”

Nita previously discussed her torn meniscus in October in an interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station. At the time she said: “I’m babying myself right now because I’ve been touring with a torn meniscus since May. So I’m actually not as injury prone as I usually would be, because I’m taking it a little easier. I have surgery scheduled at the end of this tour, between Rams games and everything else I have going on. So right now I’ve been playing through the most serious injury I’ve ever had and really just trying to take care of that, make sure it doesn’t get worse before it gets better.”

Asked if she has had to take cortisone shots in order to deal with the pain while performing on stage in recent months, Nita said: “I’ve had two. I now can’t have any more because it’s too close to my surgery date. It’s getting tough now, but we’re making it through.

“All I can really do is keep it under control,” she explained. “It’s just the realities of running around on stage for 20 years; every once in a while you’re gonna get hurt.”

Nita made her live debut with Demi on July 14 with a performance of Lovato‘s new single, “Substance” on ABC‘s Emmy Award-winning late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”.

Strauss had been playing with Cooper since 2014 when she replaced Australian musician and former Michael Jackson player Orianthi. She joined Alice in time for a mammoth MÖTLEY CRÜE tour. She was recommended to Cooper by the legendary rocker’s former bass player and WINGER frontman Kip Winger.

Back in February, Nita told SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” about her upcoming LP: “It’s gonna be half and half — six tracks with vocalists and six tracks of instrumental music. We’ve been doing ‘Dead Inside’ live on the solo tour and it’s been getting a super-good reaction from our crowds. So I think the next single will be instrumental — kind of go back to the roots — and then another radio single after that.”

Asked if she could talk about some of the other guests that appear on her new solo album, Nita said: “Not just yet. I will say that we’ve got a really, really cool blend of some legacy people as well as some new singers that I’m really excited about, and some amazing male vocalists and some incredible female vocalists as well.”

In early December, Nita told “The Mistress Carrie Podcast” about her decision to make the upcoming LP half vocal songs and half instrumental: “I did feel, and the label and everybody agreed, it’s still important for me to keep my identity as a guitar player and not just branch off too much and go, ‘Okay, well, now it’s just guests.’ Let me still have a little of what makes me me, which is the instrumental shred stuff. And the instrumental pieces that I’ve written on this record are, I think, better than anything I did on the first one — definitely more… I don’t know if it could be more emotional but they’re very emotional pieces of music and I think a little better crafted this time around. So I think all the songs in general are more well thought out, better put together this time around. And I do have some of my absolute favorite singers guesting on it. I have three amazing powerhouse female vocalists on this album so far.”

Nita also participates in health stimulation, with her Nita Strauss “BODY SHRED!” fitness challenge. From lifting weights to Muay Thai and Jiu Jitsu and having her very own 90 day ‘Body Shred’ Fitness Challenge, she has built a community of support and accountability for music enthusiasts to get fit. She furthermore states she will never drink alcohol ever again, which she stopped in 2015.  Nita was also the first ever female guitar player to have her own signature model at Ibanez Guitars.

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