Musician Armstrong’s tenacity pays off

Robby Armstrong

Robby Armstrong of Surfside, Seal Beach, may be the hardest working musician in the Sun Region.

For the past nine years he has performed a popular, intimate solo acoustic show at Harpoon Harry’s in Sunset Beach. Meanwhile, he plays a steady stream of concerts and shows with his Robby Armstrong Band.

Amstrong keeps a pace that many seasoned musicians would find grueling, yet like the energizer bunny, he keeps going and going … etc.

Armstrong seems to be playing out everywhere. He even has his own cable show on SBTV-3 and is the music talent on the station’s Studio Café show. He also had a song in the new Sims pet video game that just came out.

The musician and songwriter has also used his music for various causes, including an annual Halloween Costume Ball for Children Today, a Long Beach charity for the children of homeless families. The latter he produces with his wife Chimene Armstrong, sister to film star Cameron Diaz. Armstrong also lends his talent as an emcee to various fundraiser events in the surrounding community.

For the past year, while continuing his busy schedule, Armstrong has been jetting back and forth from California to Nashville, Tenn., working on his music and projects with other musicians and music producers.

He has written for Keith Urban, Josh Turner, Leann Rimes and with other songwriters who work for a bevy of other music stars. He recently played in the Nashville Movie Festival on April 26 and will play Fan Fair in Nashville in June.

The years of hard work seems to be paying off as Armstrong recently found work in the American film industry. Armstrong and his band will perform in a remake of the 1966 film “Gambit,” which starred Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine. He has three original songs in the film, parts of which will be heard six times throughout the movie—or in film vernacular, he will have six “plays.”

The “Gambit” remake will star Colin Firth and Cameron Diaz. The family connection aside, according to his wife and sometime publicist and manager, “Robby submitted his songs to the music director and got word before Cameron that he had gotten the songs in the movie.”

These days Armstrong has been spending about a week every month to meet and write with publishers and writers in the Nashville area. He just did his first show at the ASCAP Nashville Movie Fest.

“The band was there with Robby and they had a great response to the new music,” Chimene Armstrong said. “They will be the band in the movie in the bar. His song sets are 95 percent all original music that gets you up, dancing and having a great time.”

Armstrong describes his music as “Americana country rock,” but he is versatile in any form of music, from funk to blues.

Within his always high-energy shows, Armstrong includes plenty of humor.

Now with his film project nearly behind him, Armstrong, will be coming out with three music videos this year that are connected as a vignette in film.

You might hear Armstrong’s shows at local venues such as Finbar’s and Mahé in Seal Beach and Don The Beachcomber in Huntington Beach advertised on kfrog radio. For more information, see his website www.myspace.com/robbyarmstrongband.