Drummer Josh Villalta details how Diamond Dallas Page helped Nita Strauss secure an NFL gig.
Guitarist Nita Strauss’ ‘Dead Inside’ song is currently number one on the Mediabase Active Rock Chart. Nita has played at several WWE events including WrestleMania, NXT TakeOver and WWE’s all-women’s Evolution pay-per-view.
She appeared on Busted Open Radio alongside drummer and significant other Josh Villalta. Nita is promoting her album and on top of her music projects, she is also the in-house guitarist for the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams. Josh Villalta shared that it was Diamond Dallas Page who played a key role in Nita being able to secure that gig and here’s his recount of how DDP sped up the process:
Villalta: Somebody who helped give an interesting assist on that is wrestling-related, DDP. He helped with the [gig] with the Rams. So, he came in town for a — he called me up, ‘Hey bro, what are you doing on Tuesday?’ I’m like, ‘Uh, I don’t know, sitting around. What’s going on?’ ‘I’m coming to town for the Joe Rogan Show. I want you to bring me and I’m gonna wear your shirt on-air.’ I was like, ‘Cool.’ So you know, I had my Bryan Beverly Hills, I picked him up, he was wearing my ‘Ego Kills Talent’ shirt, we drive over there, he’s doing the show and he mentions the brand on the air which was great and so, I’m dropping him off back at his hotel and he’s like, ‘Hey,’ he’s like — I was like, ‘Hey, you wanna get some dinner with each other?’ He’s like, ‘I can’t. I’m meeting up with Todd Gurley to go have dinner.’ I’m like, ‘Who’s that?’ He goes, ‘He’s the Running Back for the Rams. He’s like a big star player.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ I go, ‘Dude, I’ve been working on something for the last few months. Maybe you can help me out. I’m trying to get a connect to the Rams to try to — I wanna get Nita a part of the organization’ and he’s like, ‘Call me at 8 PM. Call me twice and that’ll send me my reminder to ask him.’ Sure enough, later that night, he goes, ‘Hey, I talked to him. He said he’s gonna get me the contact and as soon as I get it, I’ll get it to you.’ A day later, he got it to me and that’s the [story] of knocking down barriers and I came in with the battery ram and Nita [Strauss] is out there kicking ass as a part of the organization a few years later.
As Nita is preparing to release her next project, she spoke about the pressures of having to follow up on having a number one charted single. She added that the goal is to always grow bigger and bigger and added that at one point, she did not think she’d be able to top playing at WrestleMania.
Strauss: You know, I think I will [start to feel the pressure to follow up on my #1 charted song]. Thankfully, the album is written. The album is — writing for this album is done so, I think next time, our goal is to always go bigger and better. I don’t know how we’re gonna top this one, but when we played WrestleMania, we, Josh [Villalta] had this moment in the hotel afterwards when you know, you open up the hotel curtain and you’re looking right at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome and Josh was having a really quiet moment and he says, ‘What are you thinking about?’ I said, ‘I just don’t know how we’re gonna top this. Like are we gonna go bigger and better than this?’ Because we’re always striving for bigger and better and then he looked at me right there, that day, the night after WrestleMania 34 and said, ‘It’s the NFL. The next big thing we’re gonna do is the NFL’ and we had no connection to the NFL, we didn’t have any person we could call up and say, ‘Hey, we want to Nita to play the game,’ and then the Rams came back to L.A., you know, Josh worked his magic and now I play at every L.A. Rams home game so now I don’t know how we’re gonna top that and I don’t know how we’re gonna top this single but we’re just enjoying the wave right now and looking forward to trying to top it somehow.
Nita played Shinsuke Nakamura to the ring at WrestleMania 34 and to hear POST Wrestling’s throwback review of that event, head over to this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Busted Open Radio with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
