Nita Strauss has been on a Columbus stadium stage before. In May 2017 she played "The Star Spangled Banner" on guitar to open the main stage at Rock on the Range, the festival Sonic Temple replaced. By then she had been Alice Cooper's touring guitarist for three years, a job that started in 2014 and has mostly lasted, apart from a 2022 stint playing for Demi Lovato. Her solo career runs alongside it. Controlled Chaos came out in 2018, and The Call of the Void followed in 2023. Before that album came out, its single "Dead Inside," with Disturbed's David Draiman on vocals, went to No. 1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Airplay chart in January 2022. Billboard said that made her the first solo woman to top the chart as lead artist since Alannah Myles' "Black Velvet" in 1990.
She has a parallel career in wrestling, too. She played Shinsuke Nakamura's entrance live at WrestleMania 34, and the performance was released as a single. In 2026 she took maternity leave from Cooper's band, with British guitarist Anna Cara filling in from April. By late in the year she was back on stage with Cooper, starting with a halftime set at a Raiders-Chiefs game at Allegiant Stadium, and Guitar World reported a full return to the lineup was coming.