Anna Cara's guitar and strings: Ibanez Xiphos and her S.I.T. 10-52 gauge
Anna Cara, the Newcastle guitarist covering Nita Strauss's touring slot in Alice Cooper's band, plays Ibanez Xiphos guitars and a S.I.T. Strings .010-.052 gauge.
Alice Cooper · reviewed by the Change Your Strings editorial team ·
Anna Cara is a 22-year-old guitarist from Newcastle, England, covering Nita Strauss's touring chair in Alice Cooper's band since April 2026. She plays Ibanez X Series guitars and a Gibson Les Paul borrowed from Alice Cooper's son Dash Cooper, running S.I.T. Strings' .010-.052 gauge she calls 'incredibly smooth and consistent.' Cara goes by the nickname Blackthorn, which she says made the Ibanez's thorn-like shape feel like a natural match. Bandmates Ryan Roxie and Tommy Henriksen complete Cooper's three-guitar lineup, all three running Kemper profilers live.
Anna Cara is a guitarist from Newcastle upon Tyne, England, who went from self-taught bedroom covers to Alice Cooper's touring band inside a few years. She joined Tommy Henriksen's band Crossbone Skully at 19 in 2022, its debut album Evil World Machine earning millions of streams, and by 22 had also become lead guitarist for Storace, fronted by Krokus vocalist Marc Storace alongside Pat Aeby, Dom Favez, and Emi Meyer. In April 2026, Alice Cooper introduced her as the guitarist covering Nita Strauss's touring chair while Strauss took maternity leave, a slot Strauss herself recommended Cara for. As of an August 2026 Guitar World interview, Cara is 22.
Guitars
GuitarPlayer's reporting on Cara's rise documents her playing a collection of X-shaped Ibanez guitars on stage with Cooper's band, a shape Ibanez calls the Xiphos. Cara calls them her "X Series" guitars in her own interviews. No formal Ibanez sponsorship is publicly confirmed; this is a cited sighting from a guitar-press Rig-style report, not a claimed endorsement deal.
Cara has a nickname of her own, Blackthorn. In an August 2026 Guitar World interview alongside bandmates Ryan Roxie and Tommy Henriksen, she explained that when Henriksen sent her a photo of the Ibanez before she had played it in person, its pointed, thorn-like body made the pairing feel like a perfect match.
She is not playing Ibanez exclusively on this run. Cara grew up on Gibson, and she has kept one close by:
On keeping a Gibson on hand alongside the Ibanez:
I got my Les Paul from Alice's son, Dash Cooper. He's letting me use it for this run, and it's been fun to have that classic sound.
Guitarist, Alice Cooper Band
Dash Cooper is Alice Cooper's son. The loan gives Cara a second, more traditional tone option next to the Ibanez's brighter attack, which means her live rig on this run mixes two very different guitars rather than leaning on one.
Strings
Cara is listed on S.I.T. Strings' own artist roster. Her page quotes her directly on her setup: "I'm using 10-52s and they feel incredibly smooth and consistent. I can always rely on them whether I'm recording or on stage!" That's a .010-.052 hybrid gauge, a standard light top paired with a heavier bottom three, sized for E standard tuning, the tuning most of Alice Cooper's catalog uses. If you are not sure what those numbers mean, CYS's guitar string gauge guide breaks down what each digit controls and how a hybrid set like hers differs from a straight set.
CYS does not carry S.I.T.'s own line, but the Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottom Slinky Cobalt ships the identical .010-.052 layout, a straightforward way to match her numbers on a widely available, currently sold set. That's a gauge match only, not a documented claim that Cara plays Ernie Ball strings.
Match her .010-.052 gauge on AmazonAlice Cooper's guitar trio
Cara is not the only guitarist on stage. Alice Cooper tours with a three-guitar lineup: Cara, Ryan Roxie (with Cooper since 1996), and Tommy Henriksen (since 2012, the same guitarist who discovered Cara for Crossbone Skully). All three spoke to Guitar World together in August 2026 about their own rigs and how the songs get split between them.
On his own guitar choices:
I grew up on Gibsons, and I've always tried to represent those classic, iconic shapes.
Guitarist, Alice Cooper Band (with Cooper since 1996)
Henriksen plays B.C. Rich, a Bich and a Mockingbird he bought secondhand for five thousand dollars combined from their original owner, who had acquired them in 1980, plus an '80s Warlock, run through the band's built-in amp effects. Roxie is no longer a Gibson clinician, so he now plays guitars from Rock N Roll Relics, a boutique builder owned by Billy Rowe, and has a Van Halen-style boost pedal called the Pin Sound coming out through a collaboration with pedal maker Citadel. For acoustic parts, Roxie credits Alvarez.
Live, none of the three run traditional tube amp heads. Cara was quick to credit Henriksen for the band's shared approach:
On the band's live amp setup:
We're all using Kempers live. I've got to give Tommy credit for the tones on that.
Guitarist, Alice Cooper Band
A three-guitar band standardized on Kemper profilers instead of a wall of tube amps is a modeling-first setup, the kind more touring acts are leaning on for a consistent tone night after night across a long run of dates.
Cara returns to Alice Cooper's band in September 2026, while continuing to tour with Storace through the summer and into December. Her setup underlines just how temporary the gig is: Nita Strauss tours on signature Ibanez models built around her own specs, while Cara is covering the chair on an Ibanez she only recently received and a Les Paul on loan. That's not a knock on the playing. By every account here, it's the opposite. It's just a reminder of how different a fill-in run looks from a permanent seat.