‘Loop Daddy’ Marc Rebillet is going to take over the Marquee Theatre

Marc Rebillet’s Places I’ve Never Played & Will Never Play Again Tour on November 2 at the Marquee Theatre is going to make you so tired at work the next morning; count on it.

The electronic musician is nothing if not an energetic ball of fire. He may not know exactly what is going to happen when he hits the stage, but he’s going to mix his energy with the crowd’s excitement, and together everyone will, as they say, rock the party.

They don’t call the guy Loop Daddy for nothin’ — with his loop station, he adds vocals to what he calls an ever-growing “arsenal of sounds,” and those words are almost always improvised. There are elements of rap, house music, funk, soul and straight-up comedy, and it has all resulted in continuous bangers and a massive fanbase.

When he hits the stage, he’s as surprised as you to see where things go, but he’s always got the goal of having a good time together. Fostering and facilitating goodness is a mission for Rebillet. It emanates from him. In conversation, he is inherently clever and impossibly sincere, telling Phoenix New Times about the mission that fuels his shows. He also digs into his history as a performer, what he listens to and what playing for different-sized crowds is like for him.

Phoenix New Times: We have to talk about the tour’s name first and foremost.
Marc Rebillet: (Laughs) Well, we basically wanted to make light of the fact that we are doing a tour that doesn’t involve playing New York, L.A. or Chicago and playing some different and smaller cities. We thought it would be tongue-in-cheek to create this character who is going around turning his nose down at these places and saying he’ll never play there again. Of course, I have played Tempe before and will again. 

You’re bravely assuming people will get the joke and not deem you an asshole.
I certainly hope they get it, but if they deem me an asshole, that’s okay. I deserve it (more laughter).

You are a master of improv. With your shows, do you build a framework or outline? How does it work?
Basically, I don’t ever have a plan of any kind when I tour. I sort of just arm myself with new sounds. I recently got back from Europe after a four-month tour, so now I am recharging and building a fresh palette of sonic ideas to work with. Arming my arsenal. When I’m on stage, though, there’s no template or idea about what I’ll do on any given night. I just get up there and let it happen. Oftentimes, the audience will guide me, and I keep myself receptive to the energy in the room and let it roll. Every show, you’re going to get 90 minutes of whatever happens, and then at the end, I might play a couple or few songs that people might already know from my videos. Otherwise, it’s 100% off the cuff.

Does that ever terrify you?
Depending on the night, yeah. There are times you can’t really help maybe being a little less attuned to the moment than other nights, but I’ve been doing this for eight years, and I feel comfortable now, so I can tap into that comfort. I can keep my mind free enough and my instincts alive enough that something entertaining will happen, with varying degrees of success.

Have you always been a performer?
Oh yes. Before I started doing this, well, the thing I wanted to do with my life since I was a kid was be an actor. I was acting in regional theater since I was a kid. Playing piano, too, and doing recitals, shows in high school. I went to college for acting for a year before dropping out. I guess I’m a natural performer in whatever sense of the work that is. I just always felt very comfortable getting up in front of people and acting like an idiot in one way or another.

It’s all fallen into this place you’re at now.
Yeah. The way it ended up was very much accidental and is the result of many, many years of trial and error and dreaming and failing. But I got lucky and landed on something.

Did you assume it would eventually land somewhere good? Those challenging times can be hard to navigate.
Oh god, no. There were times I gave up, pursued other careers, but I was constantly battling the creative dream. You know, I think anyone who wants to do creative work can relate. It can be rare that anything actually takes off. It was 15 years of dreaming and trying, so I was never fully sure of anything and often teetering on the point of giving up.

At your shows, you drive the energy. You’ve recently been playing giant festivals; that has to feel like a challenge, to create a huge collective energy.
The energy is relative to the room, for sure. I definitely can harvest enjoyment out of any room. It’s certainly a rush and an ego boost and very gratifying to play for these massive crowds — I’ve been very lucky to do so. But I actually prefer smaller rooms. There’s an intimacy and a permission to do weirder, more interesting work in rooms that places with giant crowds don’t allow. There’s a different flexibility in a smaller space that I like.

I could be wrong, but your voice and style say that you’ve had a long affinity for soul and R&B?
You are very perceptive. I would say soul, funk, hip-hop, blues and Delta blues are all among my favorite genres. I listen to a lot of Alan Lomax field recordings, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Aretha and Solomon Burke. Sly Stone is an all-time favorite. A lot of those artists paved the way for what eventually became disco, Donna Summer, things like that, and that all paved the way for dance music. There’s a bloodline there that begets the other. Soul and hip-hop stuff is where I’m the most comfortable rhythmically and melodically.

What do you hope your show gives people?
It’s hard to dictate what people will get from your stuff, but at the very least, I hope I can make them feel better about their life in the moment, the state of the world in the moment. All of that is temporary, and we have to wake up and read the news at some point, but I do hope there’s some sense of escapism or respite; a momentary joy through some of the ridiculous I can bring to people’s lives.

What motivates you?
That I can hope to motivate people to be kinder to each other and feel better about themselves. I feel lucky to have a big personal reserve of positive feelings and attitudes about the world, and I want to pass that on to the people I play for. That’s the high end of my aspiration of being a sort of Mr. Rogers kind of person. Like a very aggressive Mr. Rogers who curses a lot and talks about sex, but within the thesis of ‘you are beautiful and worthwhile.’ That’s the energy I am trying to get out there because there are a lot of people who need to hear that, you know?

Yep, Marc. We do know.

Marc Rebillet plays at 8 p.m. on Sunday, November 2, at Marquee Theatre. Tickets start at $52.54.