The Daily Stoic - Guitarist Nita Strauss on Music and Philosophy

Episode Date: March 17, 2021

On today’s podcast, Ryan talks to musician Nita Strauss about their mutual love of Iron Maiden, how she uses Stoicism to approach life as a female musician, how she has had to pivot due to the pandemic, and more. Nita Strauss is a musician and is the current touring guitarist for Alice Cooper. She was the first female signature artist to sign a deal with Ibanez guitars and was also ranked No. 1 on Guitar World's list of "10 Female Guitar Players You Should Know."This episode is brought to you by LMNT, the maker of electrolyte drink mixes that help you stay active at home, work, the gym, or anywhere else. Electrolytes are a key part of a happy, healthy body. Right now you can receive a free LMNT Sample Pack for only $5 for shipping. To claim this exclusive deal you must go to drinkLMNT.com/dailystoic. Get your FREE Sample Pack now. If you don’t love it, they will refund your $5 no questions asked.This episode is brought to you by Public Goods, the one stop shop for sustainable, high quality everyday essentials made from clean ingredients at an affordable price. Everything from coffee to toilet paper & shampoo to pet food. Receive $15 off your first Public Goods order with no minimum purchase. Just go to publicgoods.com/STOIC or use code STOIC at checkout.This episode is also brought to you by Talkspace, the online and mobile therapy company. Talkspace lets you send and receive unlimited messages with your dedicated therapist in the Talkspace platform 24/7. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com or download the app. Make sure to use the code STOIC to get $100 off of your first month and show your support for the show.This episode is also brought to you by Literati Kids, a subscription book club that sends 5 beautiful children’s books to your door each month, handpicked by experts. Go to literati.com/stoic to get 25% off your first two orders and receive 5 incredible kids books, curated by experts, delivered to your door every month.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Nita Strauss:Homepage: https://www.hurricanenita.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/hurricanenita Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hurricanenita/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NitaStrauss YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/hurricanenita See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stood Podcast where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every everyday life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us dailystowup.com. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward.

Listen to business wars on Amazon music music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke podcast, given that this is a podcast about ancient philosophy, I don't get to do as often as I like something I really love doing, which is nerding out about one of my favorite bands. The pureless and utterly fantastic Iron Maiden, been a huge Iron Maiden fan since I accidentally downloaded one of their songs when I was a freshman in high school. I wrote about them a bunch, my book, Perennial Cellar, but I talk about them at the beginning

of this episode. You might not think that would have anything to do with philosophy, but bear with me. I talk about them quite a bit at the beginning of today's episode with my guests. Also the peerless and fantastic need a strouse. She currently tours the world. Well, she's not touring right now because of the pandemic, but she tours the world as the lead guitarist for Alice Cooper. She's regularly ranked not just as one of the best female guitar players in the world,

but one of the best guitar players in the world period. She plays the national anthem in all the on-field music for the Los Angeles Rams. We talked about this in the episode. She, this season because of the pandemic, they couldn't have anyone in the stadium, but they needed noise and music to pump up the athletes. She was plugged in directly to the sound system

at the new Los Angeles Rams stadium. What must have been a surreal experience. And on top of all this, she is a practicing student of Stook philosophy. And if her name didn't give it away, if her last name doesn't give it away, she comes from a long line of classical musicians and one of her ancestors is actually the renowned composer,

Johann Strauss. Today, I talk with Nita about ego. She was wearing a great shirt that said, ego kills talent. We talk about humility, we talk about ambition, we talk about artistry, and of course, our mutual love of Stoic philosophy and Iron Maiden. So this is a great episode, we talk about artistry, and of course, our mutual love of Stoke philosophy and Iron Maiden. So this is a great episode, you can check it out

and do follow Nida on Instagram. She's at Hurricane Nida. She's just awesome. She has a Patreon, you can check out at patreon.com slash Hurricane Nida. And she gives guitar lessons at I Wantguitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com.

She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com.

She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com.

She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. She's here on www.guitar.com. enjoy today's interview. All right, so my first question, and this is a question to which there's no right answer, but there's definitely a wrong answer, where there are wrong answers. What is the best Iron Maiden song? Ah, okay. In my personal and somewhat professional opinion, I always go with fear of the dark, but the live re-oversion, a fear in the dark, fear of the dark.

Yeah, you know what's interesting about that song is it's a very good song on the albums, or the album, but the intro that he does and the sort of the fan participation at the beginning of the song is better live. So it's almost as if you could listen to the studio version, but then plug in a live intro, it would be a perfect song. It would be a perfect song.

And from my time playing in Iron Maiden Triby band, that was always my favorite song to perform live because fans want that experience. I feel like people want to get into it and have that experience of being in the crowd singing along. So even, you know, we're in a small club playing to 200, 300 people, but it sounds like Rio in there because everyone's singing along and not gonna insult your listeners by trying to sing it.

But. No, there's that weird sort of like humming, like chant thing that goes at the beach I don't know what you would call it exactly, but it's weird that that it's not like it's not in the song either So I don't even know where it comes from, but it's this cool thing that's like kind of tacked on there Well, it's what's interesting is it's actually a guitar part. It's a quiet guitar part in the song and There's a couple songs that are like that. You know, there's everyone knows these big crowd participation songs, but it's normally quite a simple melody. You know, it's not something sort of this, this one is a difficult melody. I've experienced

this twice. I experienced this with that song. And I experienced the same thing when I performed at WrestleMania. I played a wrestler called Shinsuke Nakamura's theme song. And it's the same thing. It's like this really sort of complex melody with a lot of high notes and a lot of movement, but somehow it just grabs the crowd and they just gravitate toward it. Yeah, I was, if I was answering the question, I think I would go with Hallad B.I. Name,

which is another song that has sort of an extra component live. Maybe I do the trooper. My, what's your favorite Iron Maiden album? Oh, you know, I like the fear of the dark album too. I really do. Yeah, I find it kind of exciting to listen to. What's weird about that album is you have the quintessential 80s metal band. that album is you have sort of the quintessential 80s metal band and that album is like a mid 90s, like almost post-grunge metal album. It's pretty late in the catalog. Yeah, 92 and I know most people are sort of more into, you know, number the B's and, you know, kind of 80s stuff and I like somewhere in time a lot too, which is sort of like more interesting guitar-wise, you know, seventh son and somewhere in time,

and fear the dark like the sort of later years of, you know, sort of classic maiden before it gets into like the mid-90s and 2000s where it gets a little iffy. Well, so what's weird about that is I, I mean, they're probably my favorite band. What I think's weird about those 80s albums is they're all very good. Like, number of the beast is like a pretty flawless album.

Almost all the songs are good. But even those classic ones, like the classic ones like Power Slave and Seven Sun, they're good albums, but they're not like, Iron Maiden's been a band where like, quantity is how they've gotten to quality. Do you know what I mean? Oh, totally. Consistency. Yeah, like they're, they're, but they're great in that like, if you take that run of like

six or seven albums they did in the 80s and you put it together, that is a great catalog. But no, no, you're, I don't know if you just put on Power Slave and you're like, I'm going to listen to this whole album through and through you know actually power sleeve is the only album that during my time in the maidens I think I don't think we ever played it talked about them but I think that's the only album that we played all the songs during my time in the band interesting um because it just hits hit hit hit hit yeah the the other sleeper made now when you did you did say post the 2000 stuff is if he I think Brave New World is actually a pretty flawless album. The other stuff I've I've even listened to and they're sort of hit or miss but like to come in like 30 years after being a band and to put out that album is pretty, it's pretty damn good.

Oh, totally amazing. Actually, we're just listening to my boyfriend Josh and I were listening to Metallica this morning. And he goes, do you realize that they wrote these revs 40 years ago? You don't fight fire with fire. Like this sort of like classic, you know, Killmall, Metallica Revs, 40, 40 years ago, 1981. And I was just thinking about that, how timeless some of these songs are like. And we were sort of speculating our bands ever gonna come up with timeless material like that again,

because almost every big band, you take a band like Kiss, who is just an incredible legendary band, or you know, or my boss, Alice Cooper, totally legendary, but you can sort of date each of the time periods, you know, you take like 80s Alice Cooper and it's poison, it's very hair bandy, you know, and it sounds like the time that it's in. I wonder if bands are gonna be making

these super timeless albums like, you know, like made in a Metallica again. Yeah, I've had that question because I was thinking about it on my book, Perennial, is like, who, like, so you have even the rolling stones, like still selling out stadiums, Alice Cooper, still selling out, you know, arenas and such. Who's going to be doing that in 20 years? Is it hold play?

Like, you know, like, not to diss them, but because they almost certainly will be. But it's like who is going to continue to be huge for that long in the way that some of these bands from that other era have just kept going and going. I'm not sure. And who's going to transcend genre so much? You're not going to see the Kylie Jenners and know, it's completely disparate areas of life, walks of life wearing Metallica shirts, you know, you're not going to see that with a band like Coldplay or you

too, these bands that are massive, but you know, you're not going to see a guy in a metal band wearing a U-T shirt. It was funny. I did the Breakfast Club, like us last year, and I just decided at the beginning of my book tour for Stillness is the key. I was going to wear Iron Maiden shirt at every event that I did. I wore it when I went on the Breakfast Club, and then afterwards I did Charlemagne's podcast with Andrew Schultz, who's this great comedian. A couple of weeks later, somebody sent me a thing where he had done this like whole riff on me that he didn't, he was like calling me out for being someone who was wearing an iron made shirt. Like ironically,

nah, ironically, you know, that I've gotten it at like Walmart or something. No, no, this like a real shirt. But it is weird that these bands that originally, you know, Iron Maiden, you know, is sort of punished for their imagery. And then it becomes a fashion statement like decades later as this weird thing. Oh, totally. I mean, Iron Maiden, Danzig, Metallica, you know, it's just like Black Flag, misfits. Sometimes I think the imagery even transcends the band. I mean, you know, that misfits school is its own thing now. It's, I think that school is much bigger than just about any misfits song.

Yeah, I don't even know if I could, well, I guess there's, what's the one that Metallica covered? I guess they do. They do not die, die my darling maybe. Yes, yes, yes, there you go. Or yeah, Black Flag, I don't even know, Black Flag is probably more of an image and a brand than they are a musical group at this point. Yeah, I think so.

I would say so. Well, that should probably, I could probably nerd out with you about it for a very long time. But, you know, it was funny. I was talking to this, this poet that I had on the podcast recently, and we were talking about what I loved about Ironman, where, and I'm not sure I'd be talking to you if it hadn't happened, what I got from Ironman as just a random sort of kid in suburban America was an intro. It was sort of like, it was just much more interesting than history class, and it made, but it made me like history class. Like, from Iron Maiden, that's how I heard of the charge of the Leiprogate.

That's how what's interesting about Iron Maiden is that they sort of slip in all these historical lessons that Metallica doesn't really do, or even a lot of the other metal bands just don't do. Oh yeah, totally totally and there are some bands that do that you know there's a I just got turned on to this song recently as a band called Sabaton and they have this song called 82nd all the way and it's about you know the 82nd airborne and this incredible soldier and and I didn't know any of this story and then I had to go

like I go in this I'm not really as so much of an American history person per se like I don't go and read American history if you're for fun, but I was then I start reading about it. I was like, this is incredible. This, you know, this amazing, you know, this amazing soldier that went across these from Tennessee, went over to France and you know, then I wouldn't even even look into this if not for the lyrics of these songs.

So when I talked to you last time, we did that sort of email interview, you said something that stuck with me that I think is interesting about your experience, but I think it's true experience generally. You said one of the things you learn as a woman in heavy metal is that everybody has a strong opinion about you. And I just thought that was that's such a like one that's such a classy way to put it but it's it's it's just a like an attitude that makes sense which is that as you go do things in life whether you're a man or woman or white or black or you know you play heavy metal which some people think is weird or you do this or that people like people are gonna have strong opinions about you and you just got to become okay with

that. Yeah, and I mean, I think our guy, Marcus, really, is kind of said at first, you know, he says, choose not to be harmed and you won't be harmed, you know, and that's kind of where I took, you know, this direction in my career, thinking about myself as a female musician, everybody does have a strong opinion and some of them are amazing and some of them are terrible. You can go through life drifting around on the praise of all the people that say, you're a goddess, you're the best guitar player that ever lived and have this false sense of being the best in the world or you can get dragged down by the people that say, you're nothing, you don't deserve this. There are better musicians out there. There are hotter girls than you, you know, all this stuff.

And, you know, paying attention to either one of those things is not healthy from, you know, just from a mental point of view. So, I've sort of developed a very, you know, sort of modern, stoic approach to dealing with life as a professional musician in the industry, not just as a woman. Yeah, the one I like from Marcus Aurelius is he says, you know, we care about ourselves more than other people. And yet for some reason we value other people's opinions about us more than our more than our own. Yeah, absolutely. And it's funny because I think a lot of people can relate to this, you know, maybe you post a picture on your Instagram and people say, oh, this is a great picture,

you know, you look so great, you know, I look so happy and nothing but fine things. And then one person will say, wow, did you gain some weight in quarantine or something? And that's the one that sticks, you know. Sure. You know, 100 nice comments and one person says something caddy and that's the one that sort of sticks in your head And that's where you get into if you choose not to be harmed you won't be Right, or you do you take a picture you think the picture is good or you record something you think it's good or you write something You think it's good and you post it and you know not just you think it's good You know, it's good because you are the expert at whatever the thing you do is

know it's good because you are the expert at whatever the thing that you do is. Then you post it and it's met with crickets and then you have this almost existential crisis where you're like, wait, am I wrong? Do I suck? What is this resounding silence? Is this an indictment of me as a human being? Absolutely. I actually just experienced this a couple days ago myself and it's a really interesting thing. It's a really interesting dynamic that this sort of instant gratification of social media has led all of us to this point. I actually, I turned the thing off,

I set the thing up on my phone where it puts a limit on your time on social media. So I give myself an hour a day across all platforms. So it's basically 20 minutes on Instagram, 20 minutes on Twitter, 20 minutes on Facebook. And that has been a good, that's been a good healthy perspective for me. So I'm not sort of sitting aimlessly scrolling through other people's lives and going, oh, you know, so and so about their haircut, you know, so, so, cooked a nice dinner. And I'm sort of focusing more in on the things

that I need to be doing, which is this great pivot that we've all done in 2020, and now into 2021, and focusing on things I actually need to get done. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life.

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So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Well, it's weird too because, you know, like, let's say recording an album or, or let's say, like, you know, learning some really difficult song or just the journey you've been on to master your instrument, that is the art of delayed gratification. You might work on an album and nobody, but maybe the closest people you know has heard about it to you release it. I just sent in my newest book

to my publisher and like 10 people in the whole world have seen it, but I've been working on it for well over a year. So it's this, you know, it's that really difficult thing where you have to like find sort of internal motivation, you have to sort of go out in the wilderness and maybe it pays off, maybe it doesn't. And that's like a really hard muscle to have. And what social media is, is the opposite of that muscle. And I

got to imagine you see other musicians and people you know, like, you can, it's like, one muscle comes at the expense of the other. So it's like, if you spend your time, like sort of getting the validation from social media, you're not going to be as inclined to go spend a year where you're not getting any attention to do something for an uncertain payoff. And if you work for a year on something and the motivation is like, this is only worth it. If people like it, you've also set yourself up to be really vulnerable. Yeah. And vulnerability in this day and age is a terrifying thing, a really, really terrifying thing. I got a piece of advice recently,

which is that I need to do things in my life that I'm not good at. Like something way out of left field, like I was like, well, maybe I'll learn a different style of guitar in this person said, no, you need to do something like take a dance class. Like, you know, something that is just way out of left field because you need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. You need to do things, you know, whether it's in a literal sense, like, you know, taking a five-minute cold shower or a cold plan or something like that or just going out there and saying, you know what, I'm going to take a Zumba class, like, I don't know if I'll get that done. You know, but just something crazy, something like, you know what, I don't know how to paint.

I'm going to get a set of paints and I'm going to do something that I'm not great at. So I can, I don't know if Picasso is really considered a stoic, but one of my favorite Picasso quotes that I have about them is studios. I'm always doing things that I don't know how to do, and that's how I learn how to do them. Yeah, I think I talk about hobbies in stillness is the key. I think you want to have something. I think the benefit of it is not just the discomfort, but the humility from like, it's like,

okay, if you continue to pursue the guitar, you're, when you're already really good at it, and to the world gives you a lot of concessions because you are good at it. You know, like I noticed a few years ago, like it seemed like all the places I would go, I was going as me, the author. And so people were so happy to hear you.

You're here. Do you want us to send you a car? I was never the nobody in a room. And one of the things I think you get about, yeah, I'm going to get into model trains or something. Not just another loser at the train store. And that's a really good place to be. Exactly.

That's exactly the place I've been trying to find out how to put myself in. Because I realized actually, and a big part of this was sort of digesting stillness is the key, is that I haven't had a hobby in, I don't even know, ever, maybe, you know, since maybe playing guitar was a hobby which became my life when I was, you know, I dropped out of high school to pursue musical time that became my full time job. I don't think I've had a hobby, you know, ever. And that's, I don't think that's the healthiest way to live. I think you need to at some point have something, have something that's not a responsibility, like fixing

up the house or cooking or cleaning or doing things that you need to do. Not something that's your job, which even if I have the best job in the whole world, but it's still my job to store responsibility. You have to do something that there's no pressure, and it's just something where you're the loser of the train store. No, it's like your superpower was that you got a guitar, and whereas everyone else saw it as a hobby, or just this fun thing to do every once in a while,

some part of you became obsessed and mastered it, figured it out. And so on the one hand, that was an incredible gift because it turned an ordinary instrument into a vocation and a calling, And so on the one hand, that was an incredible gift because it turned an ordinary instrument into a vocation and a calling and this thing you've gotten to do all over the world. On the other hand, ironically,

it deprived you of the ability to just play a musical instrument. Totally. And even to the point that when I sit down, it's exactly like you said, it's a blessing and it's a curse. If I sit down and play guitar, I don't really just sit down, it's exactly what you said. It's a blessing and it's a curse. If I sit down to play guitar, I don't really just sit down to have fun anymore.

Every time I sit down, even if I don't have any specific goal in my mind, what I'm gonna accomplish in this practice session, I still find myself like, okay, this is what I need to get better at. This is what I'm working on. I wanna write it on with this and it's gonna let me improve on that.

It's hard to just switch off. I imagine it's probably the same for you as an author to maybe just follow a writing prompt or something. This is not going to be for a book. This is not going to be for a blog or a journal or an article. This is just me just sort of being creative. Yeah, for me, it's the inability to turn the mind off at all. So it's like, can I stand here and watch my kids play on this playground

and not be not have my mind go to the writing problem? I do this with exercise too. Like I love running and I've run for so long, but it's become merged with writing. Like that's where I'm thinking about it, right? And did you sort of have this this almost sort of discipline of practice that you're always doing and it's wonderful in one respect, but it can also become, I've got to imagine, it's similar, I'm not imagine, I know it's similar to the feeling that some people get when they're like, this is why I get high all the time. Like it's not as productive of a feeling, but part of it is to make the discomfort of not doing it go away. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely right. Well, so what was your journey like with guitar? I mean, lots of people pick up, lots of people are into music, lots of people pick up a guitar, very few people get to the level that you're at, very few people get to the level that you're at, was it just like an immediate connection or how does it become essentially an extension of you as a person? So I started playing just before I turned 13, my dad's musician and I saw a movie,

which is a kind of terrible movie, but it's called Crossroads. And it's a cool, yeah. Exactly. So it's like that of a kind of terrible movie, but it's called Crossroads. And it's a whole... Yeah, Steve I. Exactly. So it's like that cult movie of guitar players and people think they look at me, they go, is the Britney Spears one? It's like, no, the Steve final.

There are two Crossroads. And the earlier one was the one that I watched. And when I saw Steve I and Crossroads, that was this moment of like, oh, that's what I want to be doing. Because guitar, when you first pick it up, it's pretty boring. There's nothing fun about picking up a guitar

for the first 20 times. No one is good. No one is born good at playing guitar. You're terrible at it the first month or two. There's nothing fun about it. You just have to push through that phase of it. But I wanted to be Steve Vy and Crossroads so badly, you know, even by first few weeks of playing guitar, I had the little, you know,

a $99 Squire Strat with a little Annie Bar on it. And I was just pushing down a wavy bar with all my might trying to do these moves that Steve Vy was doing. And that was my motivation. I wish I had started with something a little bit simpler, but I was completely self-taught. I didn't have any lessons. I just wanted to be Steve Viacrossroads more than anything in the world. And so I just put all my focus into it. I was doing gymnastics from the time I could walk until the time I picked up each car. And I walked out, you know, went to the gym, picked up my stuff, never went back, and just focused all my energies into music. And I loved it so much that I was doing small tours throughout, like my junior and sophomore year and after my sophomore year of high school. I got my GED and just really threw myself really 100% into trying to do this full time.

I remember sort of before YouTube, I had downloaded on like Morpheus or something, the music video of Steve I's tender surrender, which may be one of the singular greatest guitar, like uninterrupted guitar performances ever. Absolutely. And I use that song as an example a lot for people that don't really listen to instrumental guitar music because they don't know what it's about. And I think people will have this conception that you need words to know what a song is about. And they go, if you listen to the tender surrender,

you know what that song is about immediately. Yeah, totally, totally. There's a, and then Joe Satriani has has a couple like that too, where you're just like, Oh, you, you're doing all the parts. Yeah, always with me, always with you is the most beautiful love song I know, you know, and it's there's not a single word to be said. It's just an incredibly beautiful love song and the love comes through in that song and there's the shreddy stuff too, you know, but sepsioni summer song, you know, you put that song on and you just want to drive down pcah with the top down, you know, you just get that summary beachy feeling and there's no words. There's

nothing that tells you this song is meant, you know to for you to feel like this is just sort of evocative of that emotion. Yeah, I saw G3 play when I was in high school. It was, it was a version of Joe Satriani, Steve Vy, and Inve Maumstein. It was pretty, it was pretty incredible. So many notes. Yes.

Well, so Mark, that's what I going to ask you, Mark Marin jokes about. He's like, there's guitar. And then there's guys like Inve Malamstein, where he's like, it's not guitar. It's math. Like, and, and I, I, I'd be curious what you think of that. Because when I think of Steve and Joe Saturani,

and then I contrast it to sort of, let's, let's call it the guitar players, like, not a level above that, but it's sort of even more technical. What I feel like they're missing is the sort of emotive, the sort of the bigger picture that might be technically more impressive, but it's sort of missing something that Tendor Cerender has.

But if we think of that as a spectrum, then there's also people who, you know, the guitar is not so much a thing to be mastered as like a way to express, like they're more, let's call them, we're songwriters than guitar players. Why do you think you went players. Why do you think you went towards the sort of lead guitar mastery side of the spectrum? Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And I think the important distinction there is that a lot of people miss is that anybody's same three notes are valid. We were talking about this on my Facebook the other day. I put a proposed and someone said, BB King's three notes were just as valid as Inves' three notes. If someone plays the three notes faster

or plays three notes that are farther apart on the neck, it's their way of expressing themselves. And the thing that I've always felt that I had to express as a guitar player, like that sort of emotion that I want to get off my chest is I grew up with a giant chip on my shoulder. I wanted to be better and faster and I didn't care that I was a girl and I didn't care where I was from and I didn't care how I look. I wanted to be in that club with the big boys playing the fast stuff.

That was sort of like, I write that sort of more angsty, aggressive, fast, technical music because like that's the emotion that I put out through there. And I write other stuff, you know, like all, you know, there's a couple of ballads on my last album. There will be a couple on the upcoming albums, but I think guitar players more than anything were writing from the point of view of what we have to say, you know, an English point of view is very ego driven. If you read his book, you will see. He is an ego driven guy. He's, you know, an Ingevay's point of view is very ego-driven. If he read his book, he will see. He is an ego-driven guy.

His, you know, on the fastest in the world, I beat everyone is what he literally says. And that's his thing, and that's what he's putting out there. And that's, you know, Steve Vise, the most created guitar player that I can think of. And, you know, he fasted for 10 days before he wrote for the love of God. Like, he's this sort of introspective, extremely technical,

but like he's more of like this spiritual approach to doing it. And then you take somebody like Prince or a BB King or these great players that maybe aren't the fastest in the world. They're not trying to beat anybody. They're just, you know, they're expressing themselves in their own way. Now, Prince is a good example because yeah, he's clearly an incredible guitar player,

but he's sort of focused more on the song, and then you almost didn't appreciate what a good guitar player he was until, if you see that rock and roll hall of fame performance on my guitar gently weeps, where he just whips out like one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. That's where I found out. I wouldn't have considered myself a huge prince fan and nothing whatsoever against his amazing music. It just wasn't what I was choosing to listen to on my time off. And I heard that and I was like, wait, that guy did that. He made note, you know, who was I think post Malone just blew my mind recently. He did an Eric Johnson song, Clifford Over, and I was like,

what the fuck, you know, no one told me. I was thinking, I remembered the satrionis on, for me, it's Stari Knight. I think that's like just an incredible song that feels like a complete song, even though it's missing what you would typically think would be in a modern rock song, which would be, you know, somebody singing. Somebody telling you what it needs to be about. That's no. And that's that's the thing that I tried to really capture when I write my song, my songs

are instrumental songs. There's no lyrics to them. And I really like when I'm choosing the notes, I'm going to play, I'm thinking about what note is gonna evoke that emotion. So I have a song on my album called Mariana Trench. And I called it that because it's the place in the earth that has the most pressure. And when I was writing this song, I was just feeling this immense amount of pressure. Like, as my first time as a solo artist,

I'm stepping out from the shelter of the bigger names I usually play with. I had done this really successful Kickstarter and now all these people were depending on me to deliver this product that was worth what they had put their faith in me. It was just a, you know, I was sort of a high pressure situation and I was writing this song from this place of like, I want to convey this feeling of being, you know, not being crushed under such a man's pressure. And finding a topic like that to really like focusing your writing on, as long as you can get there mentally,

I think you can get the audience there or get the listener there as well. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. We were talking about Cleanthi's one of the early stokes, and he was a big fan of poetry, and he would say that what poetry does

by nature of its constraints is it creates the beauty, right, if you could do whatever you want, it's limited. The fact that there's rules or structure is what he says the constraints or what create the art. And I've got to imagine that like, when you can do anything on a song, you know, when you have doing you can like, I'm just going to have the singer say what I mean here. It's not that it's easier, but that it allows you to be slightly more on the nose or literal about it creating instrumental songs like yours or Joe Satchel. It must force you to

put so much more emotion into every note and every gesture and every part of the song because you don't have the ability of just coming out and saying what you mean. Exactly, exactly. Like, you know, you take, I don't know, love in an elevator. Like they're telling you what the song is about. You know, I have another song on my album called Our Most Desperate Hour. And when I put the video out, I put a question up on my Instagram and I said, when you hear the song, what is this song about? Like what do you envision in your mind?

And I got tons of different answers. And one person said, I see a general leading their troops to battle. And it was a bloody war. And at the end of the war, they're surveying the carnage, but they're victorious, and they see their home in the distance. And they realize that they've won. And then another person said, I see a ship being tossed around

and a stormy in a storm. And they don't know how they're going to get home, and they don't know which ways I've been filing the storm clears, and they make it off the other side safely. And I was reading all these responses with tears in my eyes because I realized, obviously, I didn't write it about the captain of a ship or the general on the battlefield. But that is exactly what I wrote it about.

This sort of turmoil, the tumultuous time in my own life that I made it out to the other side of and found peace and love and understanding on the other side. And the fact that, you know, whatever the imagery was that I was able to off and you don't know if it's going to work. There is something so satisfying. It's not like the success, it's not the compensation. It's like, and it's weird because you're not supposed to care about other people's opinions. And you don't, but at the same time, when somebody, when, when their opinion matches with the opinion that you had when you made it, there's something very satisfying about that because you're like, oh, I did it. Like, I actually did it,

you know, like it landed where it was supposed to land. It worked. Yes, absolutely. Like, at Land of War was supposed to land and it wasn't just me saying, I think this is a good way of phrasing it. Like, worked. It's it's a good feeling because like you said it the so you know the creation process at least mine is is very solitary. I don't like a lot of external I don't work with producers generally I don't work with other songwriters like I really like I'm alone in a room doing this you know and so like you said getting getting that feeling of, I was alone, I did it, I said it exactly how I wanted to say it.

And it came out how it would come out, it's a nice feeling. So who is the best guitarist in Iron Man? And so on a normal band, you wouldn't have three people to choose from, but it's almost a caricature at this point. You know, they work so well as a unit. I don't think Dave by himself would be as exciting as Dave with Adrian. I don't, to be honest, here's a little bit of an unpopular

opinion. I don't think Dave and Adrian by themselves are as exciting as Dave, Adrian, and Yannick. I think they just work so nicely as a trio. And I'm so glad I get to be in a trio now in Alice Cooper and sort of create that feeling in what I do. Yeah, I think it's weird because a lot of the songs obviously only have two guitar parts originally and so one of the upsides to me of the of the new stuff like I love Passiondale, I think it's probably the best song that they've done as a group. You know, post what with three people and you're just like it just gives so much richness because there's three different guitar tones, there's three different styles. Like there's

just something very unique about that much layering. Definitely. You know, there's what we do, you know, we have three guitar players in the Alaskoop or Toine band and we sort of, we call it that wall of sound that we create, you know, three different styles, three different amps, three different guitars. You know I've got the sort of more modern style. Ryan Roxy's got that really classic you know the Gibson and the Marshall and you know and Tommy's got that more punk rock. You know he's got a bunch of crazy guitars, Ducinburgs and customs and you know all three of us playing through Marshall's with

different Marshall's and having that just creates, like you said, a really full rich tapestry of sounds that you don't get if it's just one guy one amp. Although I gotta imagine that makes it three times as complex to navigate from the ego point of view. Because now there's, it's not that there's less minutes, but there's certainly less stage, and nobody gets quite as much front and centerness.

You know, you would think that, but honestly in a band like with like Alice's, there's really hardly any ego to compete with because we're all there and a support capacity for Alice. Sure. You know, if it was like a band band and we were arguing over who was writing more and who was taking more solos and whatnot, like I'm sure we would deal with a lot more of that because we're a lot of big personalities in that band. But this is, you know, we're all there to elevate the Alice Cooper show. And if someone walks out of that show going, man, I want to see Alice Cooper again because of that guitar player, you know, or because of that drum or whatever, we're all doing our

job bringing people back to see Alice Cooper again, if that makes sense. Right. No, no, it does make sense. It's like because it's a larger hole, it naturally suppresses the ego in a way where it's like if everyone was on equal footing, then there'd be sort of tectonic plates jostling against each other. Definitely, and there would be. tectonic plates jostling against each other. Definitely, and there would be. Yeah, of course. No, of course. I've got to imagine for Iron Maiden, it's just like being that old and having done it that long.

It's probably nice to have a third guitarist because they're like, oh, I can rest a little bit. Yeah, and also, I've hung out with those guys a handful of times and they're so chill. I mean, I'm sure every band has their interpersonal conflicts know, interpersonal conflicts, but man, like the most literally every band member by a band that I've met is the most laid back down to earth. Cool people.

Like it's hard to imagine them getting heated over, you know, division of parts. Well, speaking of hobbies, did you see that Adrian Smith has a book? I didn't. Yeah, he has a book called of monsters and Rock, and it's about his obsession with fishing. He's like, he, it doesn't matter where they're going, he brings this fishing kit with them.

And he, he basically, it sounds like he only agrees to tour with the band at this point because it takes him to interesting fishing spots all over the world. That's like Alice and the golf. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, it was, it was, it was, That's like Alice in the Gulf. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, it was, it was, it's actually a really interesting book. Like, I don't really know anything about fishing, and I'm not that into it. And so my eyes were sort of would blur over when you would talk about like, whatever this

rig or this thing was. But it was, it was fascinating to watch somebody who's obviously obsessive and technically sort of oriented about the guitar in his off time Have to take that energy and focus it on a totally different thing where he has a lot less control And there's a lot more patience is required and the other interesting thing to go to the idea about being the idiot at the Train store. He's just this like other random old guy sitting out by pond as the fan is reporting an album in Florida. Yeah, and he's out there with the line sitting in the boat, putting his sunscreen on.

I don't see there. So I'm just speculating what, you know, what what happens on a fishing boat, but you know, hey, you know, having a couple beers, you know, hoping some fish swim by. I mean, that's, you know, it's a hobby. It's a hobby. And you said you have no control over if it's going to be good fishing or, you know, hoping some fish swim by. I mean, it's a hobby. It's a hobby. And as you said, you have no control over it. It's going to be good fishing or anything like that.

So good for Adrian. I'm going to read that book even though I don't know I think I'm finishing it. I think I think with like, all right. So I have one last heavy metal question. This is something I think a lot about as an artist. So I remember watching, well, I remember the album being written because they were like streaming it online as it was happening because I was like sort of just finishing high

school. And then obviously this comes out more in the documentary, some kind of monster. I think St. Angers, you know, sort of stands apart as one of the sort of most weird, not very good, heavy metal albums of all time, from one of the great bands. I would say, it's not that it's a bad album so much as very rarely does a band that good put out something that mismatched, right? And I remember watching the documentary,

and they had this big discussion about whether they should put guitar solos in the album or not. And it's fascinating to me now as a creator myself who gets to make my own decisions. You watch Kurt Kammett essentially talk himself out of putting guitar solos on the album. He's like, why should a heavy metal album have to have guitar solos? He's like, why should we be so wedded to the form? And he's thinking about it and it's kind of creative, it's like an interesting argument. And then you put on the album and you're like, where the fuck are the guitar solos? This is like on list and above without guitar solos, right? And so I think about that a lot as I'm making

decisions or questioning certain conventions in the medium. It's this tricky thing, right, where you want, you, nothing should be sacred. And at the same time, something should be sacred. And it's like, sometimes, it's like, I think they thought they were doing something not out of ego, right? Like they were like, well, why should we just do the same thing we've always done? Like, why don't we try something new? I think they thought it was like kind of this cathartic,

like, well, what does Metallica have to be? And the result is they ended up like accidentally doing the absolute wrong. It was like almost from humility they did the most egotistical thing they could do. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, until Lulu. Yeah, that's true. Then they did it again. That album is probably less excusable. It's like a band gets one crazy risk in their career. Yeah.

And then the second time, it's like, didn't anyone tell you that you're just repeating the same mistake the last time? You were being a terrible terrible battered. Yes, but I'm curious what you think about that because like I always go like, hey, why does this have to be here? I don't want to do it this way. And but what I'm always petrified of is like, am I doing this because I'm actually right or am I is actually my ego about to

strip my album of guitar solos? Yeah, it's it's an interesting perspective. And something I've been sort of grappling a lot with recently. And I think the most important thing as an artist is authenticity. And you know, if, and it's something I've had a lot of experience with, especially in my own career, because I have a lot of people

telling me what I shouldn't be. You know, you shouldn't, you shouldn't dress like this. You shouldn't act like this. You need to put a band together and get a singer if you want to have any success. You know, like this is what almost every record label told me when I was making control of chaos was that, you know, while if you put a band together, we'll definitely sign that. But no one was really interested in, need to straws instrumental fanfare. And that's why we ended up doing the Kickstarter.

And I think as soon as you can figure out who you authentically are and what you authentically want to say, that's when you find the most success. And when you start to say, well, maybe we should evolve in this way. Maybe we should evolve in that way. Maybe people want to hear this. Maybe my band doesn't need to be what we've always been. Then I think you're running the risk of, you know, are you running the risk of Lulu?

Right, no, because I've seen that on projects where sometimes it's like, you think you know that it's coming across as earnest questioning. But really, it's thinking you know more than everyone else. And that's that's the trickiness. It's like it's good to be experimental and try things, but is that actually what you're being or is there some sort of judgment or superiority in and that was probably the root of it. Like you can't be a heavy metal band without guitar solos. I mean, that's the genre. Like you know, but at the same time, you should be able to experiment. So it's a tricky, it's a tricky thing

that I haven't quite figured out myself. Yeah, I think that's just the artistic struggle that we all will have for the rest of our lives. There's something we just can't change. Well, and that album sort of haunts me in the sense that it's kind of what we're talking about earlier. Like you have to do it for you and you can't care about the audience. And you know, you have to be willing to blah blah blah blah. At the same time, it is possible also to shit the bed. And you don't want to do that. Not because it's embarrassing, but it's like

you only get to put out so many albums, do you want one of them to be a dud? Well, yeah, you know, you take, we were talking about Steve I and Joe Cetriani earlier, and both of those guys have released albums with them singing on it, with them singing awesome songs, and you know, maybe they,

maybe some people are like, yeah, I love Steve I singing voice, but more probably most people are like, okay, I love Steve I singing voice, but more probably most people are like, okay, you did that like back to the shredding. Right. Right. And it's tricky too because it's like, are you like, okay, is Iron Maiden actually heroic by like sort of sticking

in their lane and not being pulled? Or is there actually, is that can that partly be motivated by fear? Like could they have been a big, you know, Metallica's decision in the early 90s to go a little bit more commercial opens up the music to millions and millions and millions more people, you know, could Iron Maiden have done that

and they were afraid? You know, you can end up, it's like there's no right answer and you're kind of always concerned that you've made the wrong choice. Yes, yes, a thousand percent. And then, you know, you change your sound and then you're alienating your fans and then you don't change your sound and your ACDs can be written the same song for 30 years. You know, there's literally, there's just no, the only way to win is just authenticity

to say, this is what I wanted to do. And you know what, if nobody else likes it, I fucking like it. You know what? Yeah, right. And that's it. Well, and there's also the tricky thing is it's not just you anymore. There's also other people depending on you. And there's other people in your voice in your, you know, in your camp or on your team

that are like, you know what would be good, you should do this. There's also just all this other input you're getting that's either beating you a stray or keeping you stuck. Oh yeah, and that's where that stillness comes into play where you just say, I need to go in. I moved recently and I built a music studio, I'm actually in it right now, and the studio has five layers of wall and you can be, you know, Josh is back there sometimes, you know, beating the hell out of the drums and you can't hear it from two feet outside. And that's, you know, that's the space I need to be in to be creative because otherwise there's just too many distractions.

There's just too many people pulling you in one direction or another. And at the end of the day, you're not realizing the people in Instagram's vision or the record labels vision or the publisher's vision or anybody else's. People are buying the books or buying the records because they want to hear Brian Hott is vision because they want to hear a neatald is vision because they want to hear a G.D. is vision for what we do. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. When the end of the day, you have to own it.

So that I always try to tell people or I try to tell people and then also myself, it's like, look, I appreciate your advice, but you don't have any skin in the game. Like my name is on the cover of this. You know, my face is on the back of it. And so you are trying to push me into a thing that makes your job easier, but if you're wrong, your salary doesn't change for starters. But also if you're wrong, you don't have to live with this the rest of your life. So like my first book, I wanted to title it Confessions of Immediate Manipulator.

Because I wanted to present the book as Confessions and my publisher ended up pushing me towards Trust Me Online, which in commercial, it was a much better title. It did much better. But for the last 10 years, I've had to talk to people about why I'm a liar. So you end up making these decisions that you alone have to own. And that's so, so in some ways ego is adaptive because you can just not think about it.

You're just like, this is me, you know, I don't give a shit what you think, but ego is also really dangerous because you end up making these decisions that once made, they can never be unmade. Metallica can never unrelease St. Anger or Lulu. And so that's, you know, that's the cross they have to bear. Yeah. And then also letting that ego take a backseat enough to say, okay, you know, like, I read a really good book recently called Fit for Success. It's actually by a nutritionist named Nick Shaw, but he sort of approaches stoicism and ego from the fitness perspective. And he put a really good point in his book.

He said a brilliant inventor might have hundreds of amazing ideas, but if they're too lazy to expand on them and do the legwork to develop them, then that person will not achieve success. And part of putting that ego to the side, I think is just saying like, okay, I'm doing it, I'm putting the work in, but I'm also not gonna let my ego take over this project

so it's Chinese democracy. And eventually it will come out. At some point you have to say, the book is done, I can always do more editing on it. The album is done, I could always tweak little things and do little things, but at a certain point, it just has to be a snapshot of who you are in that moment and and let it be what it is and and don't listen to the thousands of people that will tell you well it's it's too long

It's too short you should write five more songs and then see which ones are the best and why didn't you get a singer? We told you to get a singer, you know like there's always going to be people one way or the other that are pulling you in a different direction It all just boils back down to authenticity. So speaking of authenticity and having to sort of sit with yourself, what's it been like for you, someone who was probably on the road, you know, 250 days a year for every year of your life, for many, many years in a row, to basically be forced to take a year off. What has that been like for you? You know, I would honestly say with no exaggeration

that this has been the busiest year of my life. It really has. Yes, and it's because, and I'm always busy, and you're right, I do tour about 10 months out of the year, usually, but that's kind of always the same thing. You know, I do my speaking engagements. I do my shows, I'll do photoshoots and endorsements and clinics

and all this kind of stuff. But then we get off the road and all of those things go away. And it's not just the thing I love to do, but it's my entire livelihood. We don't stay on salary. We're not paid or law off the road. So if I and Josh didn't find a way to pivot, I mean, that would be it.

That would be everything that I do. No one's making money on record sales, in 2020 and 2021. So finding these ways to pivot, we released an online guitar course, which we had actually already recorded and had this gamble and get it out there and go, okay, how can we create ways to make a living revenue streams?

And really putting the ego to the side because normally I just get to step out on stage and play guitar and people are cheering and it's fun and it's easy and I love it. And this is like, okay, let me figure out how to make a website that people can sign up and access video lessons on. You know, I don't know how to do any of that stuff. And just finding ways to pivot, it's been the year of the pivot for all of us finding ways to do something that's completely new,

completely out of your comfort zone, and have it make sense. And thankfully, between writing my second album, I moved out of California, I created this online guitar lessons. I have a Patreon group that I'm sharing, doing weekly live streams and teaching and all this kind of stuff. And it's ended up sort of, you know, I did another fitness challenge, two of them actually, one last year and then another one that just launched yesterday.

So it's really been a year of finding ways to make it work. And I've kind of, it's been really difficult, but it's also been really, really productive. Yeah, I've found that too where, you know, they're sort of the model. Like this is how you make a living in this profession or that profession. And like for authors, it's like,

hey, it's great if you can make money selling your books and your book advances and royalties, but like you make your money on the road. Yes. So if you had told me in January 2020 that I was not going to make any money on the road, I'd been like, well, that's not recoupable, right? And what I think has been interesting is like, oh, sure, it's not in some respects, but also what I wasn't calculating is the cost. Like, what are what are what are my capable of producing and making and where does that creative energy that was being

spent on the road go if I'm in one place. And so yeah, for me, I've been so much more productive. And then also just creative sort of entrepreneurial that it's actually going to be interesting to me. Once that stuff comes back on the table, like how much of it do you choose and what does that look like in the future? Yeah, I think it will be. I think it will be really interesting once things start to go back to normal, once you can go back and do speaking mentors and once I can go back on tour, it'll be really interesting to see how we all handle now these new responsibilities

that we've, you know, at least I have created for myself. And then all the responsibilities that I had before this. Yeah, because I think in music, like, you get into music to tour, right? Like that's the kind of the dream and some respects, right? Like the performing, not touring, but performing in front of large audiences. What's weird about writing is like, you get into writing to write and then they're like, but you got to go on the road. And so it's been interesting to be like, Oh, oh, yeah, I like writing. I don't like being on the road. And that if I spend all my energy on writing, I, you know,

there's considerable that you can, you can make justice, good at living, not doing those things. So it'll be interesting. It really will be. I'm excited though, honestly. Like I am the one really unstoic thing about the way I approach life is I'm the eternal optimist. I know that, you know,

a lot of the philosophy that I enjoy reading says, you should always look at, you know, what could go wrong and that I enjoy reading says, you should always look at what could go wrong and prepare yourself for it and imagine, remember that you're mortal, imagine that your death is coming. And I can't get into that. It's the only thing I just can't mentally get there. I've been saying that we're going to go on tour again in two or three months for a year. So the optimism is not unstuck.

I think a stoic is fundamentally optimistic because they believe that they can handle whatever the future brings, right? Marcus says like, oh, meet tomorrow with the same weapons that I have now. So I don't think optimism is anti-stoic. But the tricky thing, and I was actually just writing about this today, do you know what the stock I don't think, I don't think optimism is anti-stoic, but the tricky thing, and I was actually just writing about this today, do you know what the Stockdale paradox is?

No. So the Stockdale paradox is, he says like, in the prison camps of Vietnam, the worst, the people who fared the worst were the optimists. And he said, yeah, at the same time, I knew I would prevail in the end. So when he's talking about optimists, he's not talking about the belief that I'm going to survive. It's actually, he's saying that what you're doing is dangerous.

You're because how many months, how many times can you go? It's going to be in three months and that it doesn't happen before your heart breaks. So, you know, he was saying like the guys who said, oh, we're going to be home by Christmas. And Victor Frankl talks about this too. The person is like April 1st. That's when the allies are going to rescue us. Those people like, they would often like die on April 2nd. Like, it was like their body, their mind managed to convince their body to get to a certain point, but the point was a lie. And so if they had said, like, hey, I don't know how long it's going to be, but I'm going to hold out to the end because I know that what's coming is better than this.

That optimism works, whereas the sort of specific optimism is vulnerable. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It really does. And I think if all of us, myself included, could sort of adopt more of that philosophy of, hey, you know what, there's water in the glass. It doesn't matter if it's half empty or half full. There's water in it, and that's a good thing. You know, I think that's a much happier perspective.

I love that. So tell me, I had two quick questions, but what is it like to perform the national anthem to an empty stadium? Like that, like I always watch music documentaries. There's always something kind of beautiful about when the band is like doing the sound check in the stadium and there's no one there. is like doing the sound check in the stadium and there's no one there. There's a coolness to the sound, but that must be a surreal experience

because for people who don't know, you did the National Anthem for what every Rams home game this year? Yeah, and actually it wasn't just the National Anthem, I was playing throughout the whole game for every LA Rams home game. So it all came about a couple years ago. I started playing at a couple, a handful of Rams games.

I've played America the Beautiful, the Service Game. I played the Sunday Night Football Team for them. And this is back at the Coliseum when they still had fans and everything was normal. And so we had this grand plan for the 2020 season where I was going to come in and work with the DJ. They have on staff, DJ Mosky. And we was going to come in and work with the DJ they have on staff DJ Mosky and we were going to create this very cool like sort of Los Angeles atmosphere there because

Los Angeles is a rock town you know like there's a lot of people there that don't want to hear the the usual hip-hop music that they play at sports games like they want to hear some guitar they want to hear some Aussie they want to hear some Ironie, they want to hear Samaritan made, you know, like the audience is there. So they go, how can we make this stadium, the brand new stadium, so five stadium is incredible. And how can we make this atmosphere cool for fans? So that was sort of where I came in. And my role was to work with the DJ and create that atmosphere,

that big, big stadium atmosphere. And it ended up, I think, being a more important role, even then we had originally planned, because our players, every time they stepped in for the game, they would feel that energy would be loud. We would be blasting. I mean, it's the biggest, most state of the art PA in the whole world.

And it was just me and the DJ in there. And those guys, they weren't stepping into an empty stadium filled with fake canned crowd noise, a lot of the other stadiums and then I felt like they were stepping in with live music and loud noise and bass rumbling and feeling like they were stepping into a real game. And I think it helped, I got some feedback that it actually helped them play better because it sort of helped the energy in the room. But that must have been a strange experience for you because you would typically have the

relationship with the audience. So there's probably kind of a like, I don't want to say like last person in the world feeling, it must be strange to hear, to hear it coming back to yourself through an empty stadium. There must be kind of a haunting sort of beautifulness to that. Very, very well put. Yes, exactly. And last person in the world is not something I had thought of while I was there, but that's exactly how it felt.

You know, you're like, you played these riffs and you get done with it. And there's no thunderous applause. It's just, well, you know, it's not. No, we talked about validation. Like zero validation. Right. No, but you're plugged into the greatest sound system in the world. That must be so cool.

Totally amazing. Totally. And I can't, I still to this day cannot believe that I'm the only guitar player that's gotten to play through that PA. I mean, it's mind blowing. Right. No, you're right. You're the the only you're the only artist to perform at SoFi State. The only one. Yeah, me and DJ Mosky, where you are the only ones that get to do it, you know, the first one to make noise to that PA. I remember it was going to be Taylor Swift was going to be the first artist to perform there. And I know her guitar player, Max Bernstein, and I was like, man, like, I'm gonna have to ask him how that PA is. I've got it nice and warm, that the PA is all tuned up for them whenever they wanna go in there.

No, it's been cool because I know some folks over at the Rams and I know I connected you with Kara and Les, but yeah, that just must be, and then the audience was two professional football teams. At the same time. Two professional football teams and a skeleton staff. Yes. You could not have dreamed that as you were a little kid picking up the guitar that that would that would be where you would end up. You might have pictured

yourself performing at a football stadium in Los Angeles, but there's no way you could have possibly imagined that stadium in Los Angeles, but there's no way you could have possibly imagined that stadium in that context. No, never in a million years. And like what's even crazier is I was born 10 miles from that stadium. You know, I was born in Santa Monica City Hospital and you know, the only stadium we really have is the call of CM, which is where, you know, that's at USC where where the Trojans play and like, I would go to football games there, just college games growing up, and then getting to play there with the Rams and then getting to sort

of Chris and Sofie stadium, you know, this $5 billion stadium, you know, with everything brand new, stadium, the art, plastic still on all the chairs. It's still there right now. As I say this, you know, everything, you know, like the concession stand has never been used, the, you know, all the things, but, and I got to go in there and play guitar, and I played the first riff that I played through Speaker-Soviet P.A.

They got a video of it was, I played some Queen, I played We Will Rock You by Queen. And I ended up, it ended up getting to Brian May. I posted on my Instagram and he reposted it and just like it was the most surreal sequence of events to get to be in that stadium playing. The DJ was just making the beat as he went boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, I was there playing the guitar melody to nobody, you know, to 100,000 empty seats. And then for the man himself, Brian May to end up seeing it and enjoying it and sharing it.

I mean, it was just the, it's been a very surreal year all around, but especially when it comes to the L.A. Rams. That was my, the where I was going to close for me. I kind of do of a men to a more anything like, I know, yeah, you're just a meditator and your mortality. It's sort of a somber thing. But sometimes when you have a moment like that, I kind of just go like, all right, this is enough. Like, it does it.

Everything else from here is extra. And so it's not that time doesn't matter anymore, but that it's like, you can almost kind of cease the striving and the The sort of comparing and the yearning because you're like I did it like this this would be enough Like if that was your soul lifetime accomplishment, that would be pretty great like how many people would kill for that And do you ever just sort of go like like when you're on stage with Alice Cooper or you're hanging out with Steve Vier, something do you ever just go like, this is it, this is enough.

This is the thing, yeah, I did the thing, now I'm happy. But honestly, I guess I know. And I take a lot of this from Josh, who's my boyfriend and also my manager. I remember when I played at WrestleMania a couple years ago, and that was at the St. Stadium in New Orleans, you know. The Superdome. Yeah, the Superdome. 80,000 people, you know, millions upon millions,

watching at home, you know, and we got back to our hotel, and I was just buzzing. I was so excited, and we could see the Superdome from our hotel window, and I looked out the window, and I was so happy, and he was just quiet and I said, why are you so quiet? He goes, I just don't know how we're gonna top this. And I was like, well, why do we enjoy it right now?

Well, it's happened. He was like, I just don't know what we're gonna do next. And then he looked at me, said, the NFL is next. And sure enough, I think it was by the end of that year, I played at my first Rams game at the Coliseum. So I think there's there's a balance to be found there between enjoying and appreciating that moment, you know, they always say if this was your last day, what would you do? And I don't think I don't think that means necessarily like, oh, I would go out and get hammered and you know, eat all

the fattening foods and tell every, you know, quit my job and tell my boss a second or, you know, anything like that. I think I would think of that more from a perspective of like, if this was my last day, if I didn't wake up tomorrow, would I be happy with what I did on my last day? And I think that's that's sort of where I take that memento morey, like remember that you're immortal.

And this, if this was your last day, just make each day something that you could put in the bank and be proud of. That's, that's beautifully said. Nita, thank you so much. Thank you so much. I wore my ego kills talent shirt for the occasion, I feel like I did it justice today. Thank you for listening to The Daily Stoke Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it.

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