Butch Armstrong, born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, first picked up a guitar at age ten after having been inspired by the Beatles.

He started his professional career at age 12 along with his younger brother Vito at age 10.

With Butch on guitar and Vito, who played bass and sang lead vocals, along with their cousin Frankie on drums, actually formed their first band, the NEATLES, later changed to the KNIGHT RIDERS.

They appeared on the JERRY G. show on WKYC TV, and the nationally syndicated show UPBEAT on WEWS TV. They would beg their mother every weekend to drive them to the Chagrin Falls Armory to hear local guitar gods Glen Schwartz and Joe Walsh, 

They would listened to Hendrix, Beck, and Clapton records by the hour. After graduating highschool , Butch travelled the country with local / national act  RASTUS, a local jazz-blues fusion band with a full horn section and two albums on the charts and toured with them across the country. 

In the mid-seventies, Butch toured and recorded with Sonny Geraci of the "Outsiders" and "Climax" .


He moved to L.A. in the late seventies, where he auditioned for the highly successful band, CHICAGO, after the accidental shooting death of frontman lead guitarist Terry Kath.
 

in 1981 returning to Ohio, for almost a decade,he played in GOODFOOT, an excellent
R & B band that worked the dance circuit steadily through the eighties, following which he founded his own band, the Armstrong Bearcats.  

Their searing brand of hard-driving, in-your-face blues and rock and roll soon made them “the band in demand” when a local opening act was needed for concert venues.