The couple met back in 2011 and tied the knot in 2023
Alice Cooper and Demi Lovato guitarist Nita Strauss has announced that she is expecting her first child with husband Josh Villalta, her longtime manager and drummer in her solo band.
Check out photos that Nita and Josh shared for the announcement below.
Through 2023 and 2024, Nita Strauss was on the road performing headlining shows and select dates alongside Mammoth WVH. She released her latest album The Call to The Void in 2023 through Sumerian Records. The lead single “Dead Inside” featuring Disturbed’s David Draiman arrived in 2021 and shot straight to No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. The instrumental “Summer Storm” followed, and then “The Wolf You Feed” featuring Arch Enemy’s Alissa White-Gluz. The official video for the track has amassed 8.5 million views on YouTube. Three more singles – “The Golden Trail” with In Flames’ Anders Fridén, “Victorious” with Dorothy Martin, and “Winner Takes All” with long time collaborator Alice Cooper have all garnered favorable attention from fans.
“The response has been amazing,” Strauss said of fans’ reaction to the record at her live shows on our Talk This Way Podcast. “It’s especially special for me because, you know, this technically was a pandemic album for me. You know, I wrote and recorded most of this during the quarantine period and it’s taken a long time to come out. We’ve got a lot of guests, a lot of sort of ‘red tape’ to get through with having this many people feature on a record. And, for me, the album was already feeling like it was gone, like it was over and done before it even came out. And being out on the road playing these songs live and hearing people’s reactions to hearing them for the first time, it’s reinvigorated my excitement and my fire for this upcoming record. It’s coming out in eight days from the day that we’re doing this interview, and I have this renewed fire and excitement of, ‘Yes, I cannot wait for the world to hear this record.’”
Nita Strauss has carved out one of the most distinctive modern careers in hard rock and metal, becoming a rare breakout instrumental guitarist in an era dominated by vocal-driven artists. Born in Los Angeles in 1986, she was raised in a deeply musical family—her father is the late classical guitarist and educator Eric Strauss—and she picked up the guitar at age 13 after seeing KISS in concert, instantly gravitating toward heavy metal. Strauss attended the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, where her technical precision and relentless practice ethic quickly made her a standout. Her early professional years were spent in all-female metal bands such as The Iron Maidens, a high-profile Iron Maiden tribute act that gained national attention, before she was tapped in 2014 to join Alice Cooper’s touring band. That move transformed her profile overnight: she became a permanent fixture in Cooper’s live lineup, known for her blazing solos, high-energy stage presence, and ability to hold her own alongside rock veterans, helping her become one of the most visible female guitar heroes in the world.
Parallel to her work with Cooper, Strauss built a formidable solo career that cemented her as more than a sideman. She released her debut solo album Controlled Chaos in 2018, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top New Artist Albums chart and cracked the Top 10 of the Hard Rock Albums chart, an extraordinary feat for an instrumental shred record. Her follow-up album, The Call of the Void in 2023, pushed her into the mainstream, featuring guest appearances from artists such as David Draiman, Lzzy Hale, Alissa White-Gluz, and Chris Motionless, and scoring active-rock radio hits like “Dead Inside” and “Victorious.” Beyond her own music, Strauss has also toured with Demi Lovato, stepping into a pop-rock arena that introduced her virtuosity to an even broader audience, while maintaining endorsement deals with Ibanez, Marshall, and other major brands that recognize her as a generational ambassador for guitar.
Away from the spotlight, Strauss’s personal life has become an inspiring part of her story, particularly her relationship with her longtime manager and drummer, Josh Villalta. Villalta has been an integral behind-the-scenes force in her career, helping manage tours, logistics, and her growing business empire while also performing as her touring drummer. The two developed a close partnership that naturally evolved into a romantic relationship, and in 2023 Strauss revealed that she and Villalta had married, marking a new chapter both personally and professionally. Their marriage symbolizes the tight-knit nature of Strauss’s creative world—blurring the line between band, management, and family—and has been widely celebrated by fans as a testament to her grounded, hard-working ethos. Together, Nita Strauss and Josh Villalta represent a modern rock power couple, building a career that blends technical mastery, mainstream success, and a fiercely loyal inner circle that continues to propel her forward as one of the most important guitarists of her generation.
