“When I heard Anna play, I thought, ‘How the hell is that sound coming out of a22-year-old’s fingers?’” Alice Cooper’s guitar trio on how a wunderkind from England replaced Nita Strauss – and tackled the Godfather of Shock Rock’s most challenging tracks

Ryan Roxie, Tommy Henriksen, Anna Cara.

For Anna Cara, a 22-year-old guitarist from Newcastle, England, temporarily replacing Nita Strauss in the Alice Cooper Band is daunting. The music Cara covers with Cooper was laid down by greats like Dick Wagner, Steve Hunter, Kane Roberts, Vinnie Moore, Orianthi and, of course, the out-on-maternity-leave Strauss, making the gig even weightier.

But Cara isn’t alone. She has help in the form of guitarists Ryan Roxie – who has played with Cooper since 1996 – and Tommy Henriksen, who joined Cooper’s ranks in 2012. That experience, along with their collective forays beside the likes of Slash and Joe Perry, makes them the perfect partners in guitar-related crime for Cara, who has watched the band’s antics all her life.