M33Access presents

July 19

On stage at 8 p.m.

25-Cent Beer front man oozes charisma,
destined for Nashville

Lucky for Steve “Dollar Bill” Armstrong that his new bride, Denise, appreciates the importance of stage presence in a performer’s career. Armstrong has it in spades, seducing his audiences with a strong, versatile voice and uncommonly charismatic performances.

In fact, it was a group of Denise’s friends who lent Armstrong his nickname by stuffing his jeans with greenbacks as he circulates the floor of club, crooning country ballads that had them swooning.

“That boy needs to be in Nashville someplace,” said Mike Sheets, a career stage performer and the head judge in last fall’s “Mid-Michigan Idol” contest that Armstrong won in a rout. “I’ve worked with a lot of guys in the past, and I’d put him right up there.

“That kid, he’s got what it takes. He really does. He’s got it all in a nutshell.”

And he’ll be returning to the M33 Access stage on July 19, when the band he fronts, “25-Cent-Beer” takes the stage for an encore performance at 8 p.m. at the 9th Annual Customer Appreciation Day Festival and Concert. The group proved so popular playing in the afternoon, that M33 Access President Glenn Wilson felt they deserved to be features in a prime time slot.

“We’re so happy to be back,” Armstrong said. “We had so much fun there last year. I’ll tell you this: If we hadn’t been invited back, I would have been there in the crowd with everyone else because that’s such a fun event. But we’re really grateful to be returning for a night-time concert in front of all those people.”

Weaned on country music and All-American, blue-collar family values in a small Michigan town, Armstrong, 34, said he’s enjoyed music and singing as far back as his memory will take him. But he fell in love with country music watching his parents square-dancing and becoming mesmerized by the callers.

He’s been kicking around with various bands for the last 10 years, most recently fronting 25-Cent Beer, a Bay City, Michigan band with a great name and a better sound. And everything he does on stage is purely instinctive. He’s never had an ounce of formal training.

“I guess you can say even I don’t know what I’m going to do up there,” Armstrong says of his stage performances. “I just do it. Somebody can’t show you how to do that. You do it or you don’t. You feel it or you don’t.”

With a guitar in his hands and wired for sound, Armstrong feels it. So do those who watch him. When he sings, he simultaneously flashes a smile and makes eye contact. Men in the audience feel like beer buds who’d been cavorting the night before. And women? Well, they just reach for their wallets.

“He’s interactive, playful,” said O.J. Cunningham, publisher of mybaycity.com, who chronicled the Mid-Michigan Idol contest for the readers of his Web site, and who saw Armstrong entertain thousands at a public concert in Bay City this summer.

“He held the big stage like he owned it,” Cunningham said. “Not everybody can do that. Some have to learn it. Or fake it.”

Armstrong says it seems to come naturally for him.

“It’s not something I do consciously, at all,” he said. “The songs I pick when I do a gig are songs that I like, and I like them because they make me feel certain things.

“When happens is you start singing the song and you kind of get wrapped up in it. It’s not that I’m trying to sell it to anybody else. I’m just into that song. And if somebody else happens to join me in getting into it, well, that’s cool.”

For Armstrong, performing is about having fun, for him and his audience.

“I get excited, and that’s just what comes across,” he said, adding that he’s done plenty of market research on the subject over time.

“Years ago, when I was with a different band, we’d go around and see a lot of other bands,” he said. “And they’d stand there on stage and sing their songs, and when they were done they’d go sit at a table and that was it.

“Well, that’s not real entertaining. So we thought, ‘OK, we’ve got to liven the place up a little bit.’ What we’d do is get our wireless gear on and walk around, maybe stand on a chair at a table and sing. People seemed to like that

A lot. That’s when women started getting generous with their spare dollar bills – and more.

Armstrong recalls performing at a Toys for Tots benefit at a bar when he was up on a stage and seemed to get a rise out of an elderly woman at the table.

“She was probably in her late ‘70s,” he said. “Sometimes the older ones are the worst. “I don’t know if she didn’t have any dollars or jus thought it would be funny, but she put a potato in my pants.”

That’s what Steve Armstrong brings to the table.

An artist who draws frequent comparisons to Kenny Chesney (in appearance) and Garth Brooks (in performance), Armstrong counts among his strongest influences John Conlee, Ronnie Milsap, Johnny Cash, George Strait and Merle Haggard. He’s especially partial to Conlee. His favorite songs to perform include “The Chair,” by Strait, and “Old Red,” by Blake Shelton.

Off the stage, Armstrong is as comfortable rumbling down the road on his Harley-Davidson Ultra Classic as he is under the hood of an old Mopar with a wrench in his hand. He’s an auto mechanic by trade, and isn’t quite ready to sell his toolbox for what still feels like an impossible dream.

“It’s always in the back of your mind,” he said. “You think, ‘Maybe I can do this.’ Then you think about going to Nashville, and it probably doesn’t matter what bar you go in there’s all kinds of people there who are every bit as good or better than you are.

“It’s such a gamble. So I’m just trying to be cautious right now and not counting on anything. If it happens, cool.”

Not if, but when, said Sheets, who is well-versed in what it takes to succeed in such a tough business. Armstrong, he said, has can’t-miss talent.

“I remember the first time I saw him on stage, I said, “Where the heck have you been? Gees, Kid, you’ve got it all,’” Sheets said. “He’s like watching Neil McCoy in concert. He’s got a lot of charisma. People just relate to him right away. It’s absolutely incredible. A natural.

July 19 On stage at 8 p.m.

July 19

On stage at 8 p.m.