Britt Lightning Talks Vixen, Guitar Solos, and Why You Need Rock N’ Roll Fantasy Camp

With her dazzling guitar-soloing skills, and badass onstage persona, Britt Lighting — lead guitarist for the all-woman glam-metal band Vixen — embodies the vision of success in an ultra-competitive industry.  

That’s why it was shocking to learn that she almost quit her career in 2012, finding herself on the edge of a broken heart after failing to land a gig for Lady Gaga’s tour (after making it to the final round).   

“I was like, ‘well, maybe I’m not supposed to be doing music,’” says Lightning (née Denaro) of the experience.

Then, just two weeks after swapping her electric guitar for a job with her family’s telecommunications business, Lightning got the call that would change her life. Someone who’d seen her perform at the Lady Gaga audition told her she’d be the perfect guitar player for another touring artist: Alejandro Sanz.

Lightning hadn’t heard of Sanz, and, after watching his YouTube videos, realized his musical style was slightly out of her rock n’ roll comfort zone. But she said “yes” anyway.

“I was like, ‘I will find a way to make this work, and I’m going to work really hard to do it,”’ she tells Rockmommy. “Not only did I get that gig and go on a great three-year tour with that artist and do some live albums and all sorts of stuff — that was just one of the best experiences ever — but then I continued to get gigs all from different people that saw me at that one audition.”

In March 2017, she scored her dream gig as the new lead guitarist for Vixen (original guitarist Jan Kuehnemund passed away in 2013), and soon after, a parallel career as the musical director for Rock N’ Roll Fantasy Camp,

Next month, she’ll oversee the third camp session specifically tailored to women — the Women Only Rock N’ Roll Fantasy Camp — to be held December 5-8, in Los Angeles. Rockmommy sat down with Britt Lightning to talk about Van Halen, why the camp is so good for the soul, and how she’s carrying on the legacy of Vixen.

The edited transcript is is an excerpt of the full YouTube interview (below), between Britt Lightning and Rockmommy editor and founder Marisa Torrieri Bloom.  

Rockmommy: At age 15, you heard “Eruption” being played for the first time, and you decide you want to play guitar. Can you take me back to that moment?

Britt Lightning: I had just moved to a different area of Massachusetts with my parents, and it was the summer before high school, and we were comforter shopping … buying things for the new house, whatever. And I was so bored out of my mind, and I just clearly remember zoning out, and then I heard “Eruption” over the loudspeakers of the store, outlet store, and it was, like, the most captivating thing!

It grabbed me like nothing else before. Prior that, I’d really listened to a lot of 90s hip hop and stuff like that. I was really not into rock and roll at all. And my parents, you know, my mom listened to some disco, and my dad listened like Hank Williams. They didn’t really introduce me to a whole lot. So this blew my mind.

I asked somebody that worked at the store, and they found out that it was Van Halen. So I said to my mom, ‘you know, I’ve been shopping with you all day long. I think you owe it to me take me to the Newberry Comics, the record store. It’s right down the street.”

And I bought Van Halen’s [first record] and 1984 and that just started my musical journey into rock and roll. That day, I decided I wanted to be able to play that on guitar. And I had no other goals musically. I didn’t think about being in a band anything. I was like, “I just want to be able to redo what he did there.”

Rockmommy: So when you started, so I am guessing, like the early 2000s, did you know many other girls or women who played guitar, not including celebrities?

Britt Lightning: No, I didn’t know anybody. But I was in high school, and I have a younger sister … and was like, “Oh, cool. I want to jam with you!” So she started playing drums. We played cover songs and stuff together. And then a friend of mine in high school played bass. It wasn’t too advanced, because she had, like, big acrylic nails and couldn’t really part with those, but, but we jammed for a while.

Right before college, there was this all-female rock band in Boston called Tootsie, and they were a power trio, and they were awesome, and they broke up. Their manager at the time kind of found me and connected the drummer [Hillary] and myself — and we started this all-female metal band called Jaded that we did out of Boston.

I’ve loved playing with all women from the very get go. I just think, like, I know I read a lot of those autobiographies and stuff growing up — you know, ‘The Dirt’ and Van Halen books and things like that — and it’s like, it’s kind of like, very male chauvinist … it’s definitely like a boys club. And I was like, I don’t know. I think girls are cooler than all this, and I want to have like this cool girl gang.

Rockmommy: This super resonates with me … I think I was in fourth grade when I saw the Vixen video for “Edge of a Broken Heart.”

Britt Lightning: My parents were pretty strict, and I was not allowed to watch MTV! So I didn’t get to see a lot of those videos. But early on, I was inspired by Vixen, because, like I’ve said, I, you know, Eddie Van Halen was the first thing that that got me going in music. And so then from there, I got into all the other bands and 80s music.

Rockmommy: So I want to fast forward. I know you had a lot of great experience at Northeastern but then you have this story about auditioning for Lady Gaga that kind of opened some really big doors for you. Could you tell us about that?

Britt Lightning: I had been playing around Boston and other parts of the country and overseas with Jaded and we were doing really great, but we always had issues with our singer, and I was, like, going on to replace the singer for, like, the third time, and I was just burnt out about it. And it’s just it’s hard to, you know, make money doing your own original band. We were very DIY, and it was cool, but it was hard. And so I was complaining to a friend of mine, my neighbor, and who was like, you know, “why don’t you just audition and be a gun for hire?” And I said, ‘Well, okay, I don’t even know what that entails.’

Like for me, it was, like, band mentality with everything, like ‘you’re in a band, you do one for all, for one, one for all, and you together at a band house, rehearse every night … So this idea of just coming in and just playing guitar, not working on writing songs, was like, foreign to me. And he said, ‘Lady Gaga is having an open call in New York next weekend. You should just go.’ And I was like, ‘well, you know, it’s not even the music that I’m really into playing, but I guess why not?’ I’ll see what this is all about.’

So I went down there and I got the call back, and I got the next call back and the next call back, and I ended up auditioning there almost a week, and kept going through these different rounds. And it was interesting, a lot of great players and then it got down to the wire between me and one other person. And at the end of that last day, she went with the other person. And I always wonder, really, why, because there were some funny moments where she’d be like, call me aside and say, ‘hey, I want you to just wear kitchen appliances on stage. Is that going to be cool?’ And I’d be like, ‘Sure.’

But regardless of that, when I didn’t get it, I was pretty upset, just because I was like, ‘well, maybe I’m not supposed to be doing music.’

My parents owned a telecommunications company in Massachusetts, and I grew up working for the business, learning all of it, so I committed to doing that. I was good at it, but obviously it wasn’t my passion. Two weeks into that, I got a call from somebody who said, ‘I saw you perform at the Lady Gaga auditions, and you’re great, and you’re perfect for this band that’s looking for a new guitar player. It’s a big world tour, but it’s a Spanish artist [Alejandro Sanz]. But check out the YouTube videos I’m going to send you and let me know if you’re interested.’

And I watch these YouTube videos, and like the crowd is singing along, screaming louder than the actual artist singing through the microphone of the PA. And it looked huge, like The Beatles or something. And I was, like, ‘Wow, how have I never heard of this artist?’ And so I did some research and I got that gig. From that, not only did I get that gig and go on a great three-year tour with that artist and do some live albums and all sorts of stuff — that was just one of the best experiences ever — but then I continued to get gigs all from different people that saw me at that one audition.

Rockmommy: So you auditioned for and joined Vixen [in 2017], a couple of years after one of their founders, the guitarist Janice [Kuehnemund], had passed away due to cancer. Knowing you had those big shoes to fill and that this was kind of a dream opportunity, like,how did that hit you? In what ways was that stressful or exciting?

Britt Lightning: I was super excited. You know, it wasn’t like anything that I ever expected, so I was kind of caught off guard. So I didn’t really have that much time to get too nervous. I was just like, ‘Yeah, let’s do this!’ I went to audition, learned the material, and it felt good right away. I love the other women in the band. They’re just all awesome.

And it brought me back to playing with all women again, which is what I really love to do, and, but I was definitely nervous, because Janice was a respected guitar player and, you know, the founder of the band, so I definitely wanted to do all her parts justice and stuff. And of course, I’m not her, and nobody can play exactly like somebody else. But I did work hard to make sure that I, you know, kept the integrity of all the songs and solos, of course, adding my own flair that you can’t avoid, because you’re your own person.

But I was really happy to be so warmly received by all the fans. It’s such a great community and I’ve loved meeting them all and touring, and I’ve been in the band for a good amount of years now, so it’s still going great and we’ve had a couple lineup changes since, and they’ve all been awesome. And I just love that the band continues to go on. And, you know, the more and more we play, especially, I keep seeing more younger people in the audience, and it’s just reaching a new generation now. And it’s very cool.

Rockmommy: I’d like to talk now, obviously, the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp and your role as the musical and artistic director. You’ve said in other interviews that before launching the all-women camp, there were only five or six women who attended the regular, the traditional camp. Why do you think that is?

Britt Lightning: I think rock and roll is just still kind of, you know, male dominated, unfortunately. I mean, even though it’s changed so much and it’s gotten so much better, I think, like you mean, you know, if I walk down the street carrying guitar with my boyfriend, people think I’m carrying his guitar like, you know, it just, it’s just the mindset of that rock and roll is kind of goes with mail. So it’s funny you ask that, because this week, so I interview every camper that signs up for camp, right to kind of assess their experience personality, so I can place them in a band.

So all day yesterday and all day today, I’m doing these Zoom interviews with campers, and I’m interviewing the women campers for this upcoming women’s camp, and many of them, say, ‘I’m so glad I found this and I can do this now, because I wouldn’t sign have signed up for this if it was co-ed.’

So why that is? I mean, I don’t know. I think it’s just a comfortability. And I have to say that all the rock camps are very supportive. And that’s like one of the huge you know things about the camp that is so special. It’s a real bonding experience and a great networking experience. And you just meet people and you guys, everybody stays together post camp and keeps in touch. And it’s like a big family, extended family. But with the women’s camp, it’s like that times 10 — it takes it to a whole other level of support and encouragement.

Rockmommy: And how long has the women’s Rock n’ Roll Fantasy camp been going on for? And who comes to the camp?

Britt Lightning: We started it in 2022 so the third annual one so we do one a year. This camp [December 5-8] is great. Nancy Wilson’s coming back for a second time. She’s doing another one again, because she loves it so much. And I think she’s even gonna get even more involved at the next one. We had Melissa Etheridge at the first one. She loved the concept. She loved it all female idea. We had Cathy Valentine, Orianthi, Vicki Petersen.

At this [upcoming] camp we have Nancy Wilson, we have Lita Ford, we have Nita Strauss, and we have Sheila E Rhonda Smith, and so many great counselors … we’’re going to have a panel of amazing guest speakers in the industry, rock and roll fashion show, a stage makeup tutorial from somebody from MAC makeup.

We’re going to have a big opening day party at the Gibson showroom, so we have a lot of festivities, and it’s going to be awesome.

But to get to your [second] question, the people that come so we have people from all over the world. Almost at every camp we have somebody that comes from either Australia or Japan or Sweden, South America. So we usually get a couple people that come from overseas, Canada …  and then all over the country. And we get people of all ages. We usually have range from like 10 to 75 and we have all different experience levels. We have people that just picked up a guitar during COVID and have never played outside of their bedroom, let alone jammed with another person or a band or stepped on a stage. And then we have people that play in, say, Heart tribute bands, that gig out every weekend.

So we have a complete, full spectrum. Everybody’s welcome. And no matter what level you’re at, always grow a lot of these camps.  

Rockmommy: I am very excited to learn more about the camp, and for our readers to learn more about the camp. Is there anything else you want to share with Rockmommy readers?

Britt Lightning: It’s a great bonding experience. If you have kids that are interested in music, you know, we have like, mom and daughters come …  We’ve had full family bands come, and it’s the greatest thing ever.

Anything’s possible, but camp is the best thing if you just need a break from daily life, if you need to be re inspired, if you’re going through something. I just spoke to a woman that signed up because she just beat breast cancer, and this is something she’s doing for herself. Somebody else just lost their mom, and so this is, like, this is, this is for them now, and after taking so much care their parent and you know, there’s always a good reason to come and you will always leave feeling re-energized and positive and with great new friends!

Marisa Torrieri Bloom is the editor and founder of Rockmommy.