A keen listener and conversationalist, Armstrong himself can be laugh-out-loud funny, but he’s dead serious about the music and politics reflected in his 2024 release Burn It Down. Since relocating from his native Chicago to Los Angeles in 2004, he’s launched a podcast showcasing fellow independent artists, Independent’s Day (which he still hosts), and worked the better part of a decade in political media. Burn It Down is a product of those experiences as well as “the first rule of Armstrongism”: Just do what you say you’re going to do. 

 

Armstrong set out to make a full album — in itself a strong statement at a time when music listeners increasingly allow an algorithm to determine what they should be listening to, and streaming individual tracks to choose their own “hit singles.” It is indeed a true album of fired-up performances and timely and resonant lyrics adorned by Karen Walker Chamberlin’s bracing artwork, available on streaming platforms as well as CD and old-school gatefold vinyl. After all, as Armstrong observes, “Vinyl is the original multimedia packaging,” extrapolating the format into one of the core themes of Burn It Down: valuing hard reality over comfortable illusion.

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“There is a dearth of empathy in our society, and Burn It Down serves as a call-to-arms in a raging fight to stand up and make our voices heard" as well as a warning to those who would prefer to forsake our humanity and the progress we've made towards a more equitable future. "Fire has no allies, after all," he observes. Armstrong is steadfast on his determined campaign to persuade people to listen across musical genres, artistic mediums, and barriers of culture, identity and ideology.​​