VH1’s ‘Strip Search’ winners have danced their way into a spot at the Riviera
Josh Hall never suspected the woman talking to him in a bar was about to derail his last semester of college and route him to a G-string revue in Las Vegas.
“At first thought she was hitting on me or something,” he recalls of that fateful meeting in Murfreesboro, Tenn. “She talked to me for like five minutes. She never said anything about the (TV) show. She was just making conversation.”
Before too long, though, Hall was coaxed into a Saturday night audition for the VH1 reality show “Strip Search.” And not too long after that, he was living with 14 guys in a house in downtown Los Angeles, waiting to see who made it to the final seven recruits for a new male revue.
And now those final seven are at the Riviera, performing as the cast of “American Storm.”
Hall smiles at how fast it all happened. “In January, I was a senior in college, getting ready to graduate with a structural engineering degree with concrete.” And he had “never danced in my life, except for a swing dance class I took just to meet girls.”
Now he is the emcee of the stage show that comes with a pre-sold audience for those who watched any or all of the eight “Strip Search” episodes.
“These guys are being pushed on a celebrity basis because they’re known now,” says Billy Cross, the Australian producer who was seen in the show as a talent scout, searching suburban America for the right dancers. Those who watched “appreciate the show for what it is, but the difference is she knows the guy better. She knows his personality, she knows what he likes, dislikes and so forth.”
Cross launched the first “Thunder From Down Under” in 1988. Touring companies of the revue had visited the Strip since 1993, but things really took off when it settled into the Excalibur in July 2002, with producer Adam Steck overseeing the local production.
In 1999, Cross started talking reality TV with the producers of “Popstars,” an “American Idol”-style show in Australia. Cross says he countered the original idea — a male dance version of “Idol” — with one that had more of a documentary feel, adding the “Real World”/”Big Brother” element of the contestants all living in one house for a month as they rehearsed nine or 10 hours per day.
The boy-next-door flavor is key to both “Thunder” and “Storm,” Cross says. “We found these guys in sort of small towns. I didn’t go to New York and Los Angeles only because everybody in L.A. wants to be an actor. And we’ve always said with ‘Thunder,’ we don’t want your typical steroid-type stripper.”
Any doubts about their strange career turn vanished for most contestants when taping began. “Once we got into the house and I saw how the dance and choreography was, I was like, ‘This isn’t what I thought it was,’ ” says Rick DeJesus, one of the final seven.
“I wouldn’t have done it had I not wanted to get the end result,” agrees Tony Cress, who made it to the final seven with his brother Terry. “I’m not going to go into something just for fun or just because it’s on TV. I’d rather have goals and this is a goal I could be proud of.”
The real test came after 25 days of drilling, when the group left the cocoon of the house and came to Las Vegas to tape the last episode in front of real live women. “It was probably one of the most amazing things that ever happened in my entire life,” says DeJesus. “It gives you so much energy. The adrenaline’s ridiculous.”
Both cast and producer understand the TV momentum can only take them so far. “The way it works is the reality show produces them, and then they’re on their own,” Cross says. “Pretty much it’s a clean break. Now they’re a product and they create their own product.”
The revue covers a loose historical theme, adding shirtless twists to Christopher Columbus and Chicago gangsters. With luck, the women in the audience will be as into it as the guys onstage.
“It’s exhilarating,” says Terry Cress. “You just can’t get over the feeling. They’re here to watch us, and we’re gonna give ’em a great show.”
But even if the show takes off, Hall says he’s not going to let that structural engineering degree go begging. “I did not go to school for three and a half years” to let it go by the wayside, he says. “I’m gonna wrap that up.”
