When it comes to choosing guitarists, Alice Cooper has shockingly good instincts.
BY GARY GRAFF
AS ALICE COOPER explains, there was no great angst when Nita Strauss left his band last year to tour with Demi Lovato. And Nita received a warm welcome when she returned for this year’s activities.
“I have a revolving-door kind of policy at the Alice Cooper show,” the veteran shock rocker says. “When a musician has an opportunity to do something, I say, ‘See ya! Come back any time you can.’ If they see an opportunity or something that they really want to do, go for it. I look at it as a leave of absence. There’s never any bad blood about stuff like that.”
As for Strauss, “I told her, ‘You should do this!’ ” Cooper recalls. “I said, ‘The Alice Cooper show is gonna go on and on and on, God willing, but you’re always welcome back.’ And now she is.”
In the meantime, Cooper adds, he had his own opportunity for a blast from the past, bringing back Kane Roberts, his lead guitarist and primary co-writer for his late ’80s comeback with the Constrictor and Raise Your Fist albums and attendant tours. “The very first person everybody thought of was Kane,” he says. “That was the obvious choice for all of us. I called him up and he said, ‘Yeah, sure. What do I have to do?’ I said, ‘Just be Kane,’ and it worked out great.
“It was a little more masculine, definitely a little more macho,” Cooper says about the muscular Roberts’ return for the fall 2022 tour. “Kane brings this, y’know, ‘The beast is back’ kind of thing. We already have a pretty powerful sound, but when he gets into it, all of a sudden you have this other sound of a guitar. Ryan [Roxie]’s guitar has a certain sound, and Nita has a certain style of playing, more of a shredding kind of style, and so does Tommy [Henr
