CLEVELAND, Ohio —Internet sensation Marc “Loop Daddy” Rebillet feels like the Howard Beale character played by Peter Finch in the 1976 movie “Network.”
Beale’s on-camera “crash-out” at a media-saturated society isn’t unlike Rebillet’s breaks into outbursts about the absurdity of modern life.
He turns those rants into spectacle and freeform EDM (electronic dance music) while sporting a bathrobe.
Both Beale and Rebillet blur the line between art and breakdown — drawing power from spontaneity, emotional honesty and collective frustration. Rebillet is not sure that what he does is a social commentary per se, but he’s entertained by the interpretation.
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We sat down with Rebillet, who brings his “Places I’ve Never Played and Will Never Play Again Tour” to The Agora on Friday, Oct. 3, at 8 p.m. Cleveland was one of the first markets Rebillet ever played (thus a “moniker misnomer”) but he’s excited to come back.
“Loop Daddy,” of course, is a character invention — an internet sensation persona not unlike Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report” faux-host on Comedy Central from years gone by. In a parallel universe, that’s where Rebillet’s creative side lives.
“There’s always that little wink, you know? If I’m saying something inflammatory or ridiculous or completely off the deep end, I think people — hopefully — are aware of that and know they’re along for the ride,” Rebillet told Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.
“I want to believe the audience knows he and I are friends, know what I mean?”
His career exploded during the pandemic, when livestreams and “digital intimacy” were all people had. His manic performance-art and drive-in shows thrilled.
Rebillet reflected on how technology once created closeness during the pandemic — “This technology really allowed us to stay together”— but admitted his feelings have shifted.
While he considers himself “a child of the internet,” he’s grown increasingly skeptical, worrying that big tech often isolates rather than connects.
Still, he tries to remain “a positive voice on platforms” and on stage despite his worries.
Rebillet said the era “shaped the trajectory of my career” and that while other, more technical performers can brute-force their way through a set, his approach is “more fluid, amorphous — undisciplined.”
“I am a little bit more at the mercy of my creativity, rather than the other way around,” he said.
It’s those unhinged live performances that bring people together that he loves:
cleveland.com: Your shows walk this untamed line between complete spontaneity, controlled chaos and absolute musical precision. Is that as a balancing act, or do you thrive in the chaos of not knowing where things will go?
Marc Rebillet: That’s a very generous tagline! We need to save that for future press releases! I wouldn’t give myself that kind of credit; it’s much more instinctual. I hopefully bring some modicum of musical training to what I’m doing. But in terms of walking the line or it being a conscious effort, I say it’s much more nebulous—just getting on stage, stealing it out night after night, hoping my instincts lead me to something interesting. That’s a long-winded way of saying it’s just a crap shoot and I’m relying on my instincts to get me there.
Q: The “Marc Rebillet” character is equal parts mad scientist, hype man and bedroom philosopher. Is that persona a heightened version of you, or something you step into?
A: These one-liners are incredible! I would say it’s a mix based upon my personality. In real life, I am much more relaxed, at peace and low-energy. But from a social standpoint, the extroverted part of me is what you’re seeing on stage. I’ve always been a theater kid at heart. I love doing bits—absurd, meaningless, ridiculous gags. That is true in life and in my closest friendships. I am bringing that on-stage, exaggerating a character largely based on elements of my real personality.
Q: You’ve cultivated a fanbase without chasing a traditional music industry playbook. What’ve you learned about your audience by building community on your own terms?
A: If you can foster meaningful relationships with your audience—by being regularly available to them, consistently showing up, interacting with them, allowing them to be part of your work in one way or another—those audiences will generally be there for you as much as you are there for them. It’s like any other relationship more than it is a business.
The crowd is an instrumental part of the work that is made. Just being attentive to people that care and that watch, you don’t need window dressing to nurture a dedicated following. You just need to cultivate it yourself by being a friend.
Q: You’ve conquered YouTube, Twitch and stages at Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits, Lollapalooza and Coachella. What creative frontier feels exciting to you now —something you haven’t done yet but want to explore?
A: I would like to make more interesting, layered compositions. Often, big stages and my quick off-the-cuff setup make it harder for me to do… that’s the stuff that I tend to listen to as a fan. And from a non-musical standpoint, I am right now in the middle just finishing designing a board game—
That’s pretty cool.
I’m a huge fan of abstract strategy games, which chess and Go are the most popular examples of. I’ve been a big student of those games. Over the last few months, I’ve designed one of my own that I’m very happy with. I’m reaching out to publishers and having meetings. To put a mark on that industry and a hobby that I really love? That’s exciting to me. There’s a lot of things outside of music that are deeply satisfying for me.
Q: Settle it once and for all: is “Your New Morning Alarm” [NSFW] directed at the “get this bread” mood of late-stage capitalism, or negative emotional consequences of hookup culture? Both? Neither?
A: I’m gonna say neither. What’s funny, is that I was not feeling that song when I made it. I was struggling to come up with something. It was born out of this bit I was doing on that stream about Siri being mean and talking back to you when you’re trying to get her to do something. That fueled my anger, which turned that into, ‘Get the [expletive] out of bed!’
It would be lovely to give you a didactic, astute, articulate response but that would be lying. It’s random, just like everything else in my career.
Q: You’re described as having a “zealous intensity” and there’s something about what you do that looks and feels like primal scream therapy people connect to. How do you maintain the rebel yell and robust forehead vein?
I guess I’m lucky. The forehead vein I was born with! Predisposition to a positive outlook on life is something my dad instilled in me—that “enjoying the moment”-ness, in-the-moment gratitude, “Oh man, we’re on a walk. Oh, what a beautiful night!” Growing up with that gave me a bottomless well of it. I throw that vibe at people when I’m on stage. Hopefully it comes across.