Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss is making a bid to be the unofficial Queen of the NFL this season, shredding through her second halftime show in a number of weeks as the two Los Angeles sides faced off at the SoFi Stadium.
Strauss has spent much of 2026 on maternity leave after giving birth to her first child with her husband and solo band drummer, Josh Villalta. She handpicked her Cooper stand-in, the supremely talented Anna Cara, before taking a seven-month break. After playing at a couple of LA Rams games, she marked her return to the Cooper band by playing the halftime show at a Las Vegas Raiders game just under a month ago.
This time, the husband and wife duo took on a slew of rock classics, including Metallica’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, Iron Maiden’s The Trooper – a nod to her former gig in the Iron Maidens – and Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone.
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Foo Fighters anthem My Hero and Godsmack’s Awake gave ’90s and ’00s rock a look-in, with Steve Stevens’ iconic Top Gun licks also added to the occasion. The Ibanez-endorsed shredder wrapped up proceedings with a mashup of Queen’s perennial crowd-pleaser, We Will Rock You, and Metallica’s drop-tuned rager, Sad But True.
The pair’s young son, Max, was there to watch the whole thing, marking the first time he’s seen his parents strut their stuff on stage – he was napping during the Cooper show.
Strauss will be 40 next month, and speaking to Guitar World in a soon-to-be-published interview, the guitarist admitted motherhood was fast becoming a now-or-never situation. She wants to use her story to inspire other women into pursuing motherhood and their careers simultaneously; it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
“I feared being replaced and losing opportunities, but a career that’s built over decades doesn’t disappear because you take a step away; it just comes back in a different form,” she says. “Why can’t it be better?
“There’s something that fundamentally changes in a woman when you become a mother, and it’s a huge identity shift. So the challenge, and the exciting part, is bringing that new energy forward rather than trying to go back to the way that things were. I can be grateful for what I have, and still have ambition.”
Strauss is set to hit the road with Alice Cooper starting tomorrow (November 6), with a score of summer festival dates over in Europe also in the book. Her solo band will support Paul Gilbert and John 5 in January, and they have been confirmed for Sonic Temple 2027.
Max and Josh will be with her every step of the way as she juggles being a guitar hero and a mother like a boss.
