Nita Strauss, the guitar shredder for the ALICE COOPER band, will play Olympic medalist and WBO super featherweight world boxing champion Mikaela Mayer to the ring for the historic title unification fight on ESPN Top Rank, the first-ever female world title main event in the four-plus-year history of the series. Mikaela faces current IBF champion Maiva Hamadouche in the huge unification clash in Las Vegas tonight (Friday, November 5).
Nita and Mikaela have been friends since they were teenagers, when they played and toured together in Los Angeles metal band LIA-FAIL. Once the short-lived act fell apart, both women went in separate directions with Mayer turning her focus to fighting and Strauss doubling down and further pursuing her career as a world-renowned guitarist, performer and solo artist. With both women now operating at the very top of their respective games, it makes sense that the time is right to once again reunite and take to the stage together once again when Nita soundtracks Mikaela's walk-out for her history-making bout.
"It's going to be a great, great feeling to look across a stage at her again," Strauss told ESPN. "I know that Mikaela-walking-on-stage face, and I can't wait to see it up close in person again."
LIA-FAIL made its live debut on September 6, 2003 as part of a pay-to-play gig at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California. In June 2004, they embarked on a four-show mini-tour in Arizona, Colorado, Utah and northern California. Throughout the 2004-05 school year, they played California shows, from Victorville to Canoga Park and the Whisky, before landing three shows as part of the Vans Warped Tour in 2005. They played a side stage, far from headliners AVENGED SEVENFOLD, DROPKICK MURPHYS, FALL OUT BOY and MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE. This was followed by a 15-show, 13-state tour after which Mayer got rid of her equipment and didn't play bass again.
"I was just done," Mayer told ESPN. "Like if I could go back and just tell my 14-year-old self just don't stop playing. Don't be in a band, but don't stop playing."
Last month, Nita shared "Dead Inside", her first new music since the release of her critically acclaimed debut solo album "Controlled Chaos" in 2018. The track is her first-ever solo collaboration with a vocalist, David Draiman, frontman of Grammy-nominated rock icons DISTURBED.
Strauss has 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 MĂTLEY CRĂE tour. She was recommended to Cooper by the legendary rocker's former bass player and WINGER frontman Kip Winger.
