Adam & The Armadillos

The downtown State College music scene was desperate for a good old-fashioned country music band, and Adam & the Armadillos were the missing piece.

Drummer Deamer and guitarist Sterbenz both had ties to the Phyrst downtown. After reaching out to the Phyrst’s management, they started playing Monday nights.

“We wanted to see if we could give the other country nights a run for their money, and it kind of took off from there. We’re doing pretty well for ourselves,” Deamer said.


Adam & the Armadillos got its first big gig at THON 2023 when the group rocked the BJC in the early hours of Sunday morning. The band sang a mix of modern country, classics and a few originals.


“The reaction at THON was way more than any of us expected, given the time. Getting the encore was definitely a highlight for sure,” Sterbenz said.

Now he band is planning to head out west to Texas for a few gigs. But the trio will be back in State College for the summer and fall. - www.statecollege.com

In the early hours of Sunday morning at THON 2023, country band Adam And The Armadillos took the stage as the lone performers of Country Hour.

Based out of the Happy Valley area, the band formed in 2021 and frequently plays at the Phyrst in State College. The group is led by Adam Yarger, a singer and guitarist who spent 12 years in Nashville prior to moving to central Pennsylvania.

The group led off their set with “There Was This Girl” by Riley Green, followed by “I Like It, I Love It” by Tim McGraw.

After checking to make sure that there were indeed fans of country music in the Bryce Jordan Center, the group played one of its own songs, “I Like Where It’s Going.”

The band then moved into songs from George Strait, Zach Bryan, and Tyler Childers, while several students in the crowd began to request that “Freebird” be played.

After a performance of “Feathered Indians,” Yarger got the Bryce Jordan Center crowd to participate in a Beaver Stadium-style “We Are” chant, with a call-and-response from one half of the room to the other.

After “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “You Should Probably Leave,” Yarger gave a shoutout to the cross-country team, who had been showing the band special attention throughout the set.

The band played the rest of its set, which totaled 14 songs before they got ready to leave the stage. As they said their goodbyes, chants emerged from the cross-country section for the band to play “one more song.” Soon, the chants spread throughout the rest of the Bryce Jordan Center, and after some conversing with the THON organizer on the stage, the band agreed to play one more song.

THON was treated to “Chicken Fried” by Zac Brown Band before the band closed its set. As the band packed up, the BJC erupted in its loudest cheers of the night, thanking the band for a surprisingly good night shift performance. - www.onwardstate.com