Electronic musician Marc Rebillet, also known as Loop Daddy, is famous for his viral, catchy and improvisational videos, where he makes music with keyboards and beat machines.

Rebillet been creating music most of his life and started livestreaming his sets around 2016. He’s since amassed millions of followers on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

His songs can range from sexy to aspirational to character-driven, as in “Summertime,” in which he evokes the energy of a zealous dad encouraging everyone to get in the pool at a pool party.

And now, after a European summer tour, Rebillet will kick off a residency at Blue Note in Greenwich Village on Thursday.

He talked to WNYC’s David Furst about his first-ever studio recorded song “Vibes Alright,” why Dallas was integral to his success, his father, and more.

Below is an edited version of their conversation.

David Furst: How do you spend your downtime when you’re back in New York City? Doing things like this, obviously?

Rebillet: [laughs] Yes, I like to do radio interviews, press junkets. No, I have an electric unicycle. It’s like a very nerdy kind of scooter that rests on a giant tire. I take that all around the city. I’m reading “The Count of Monte Cristo” right now – really great book. I know, it’s obvious, but it’s a classic. I shoot photography as a hobby as well. So just riding around, reading, shooting, having fun.

Very cool. You’re originally from Dallas and you told “The Dallas Observer” in 2019 that you were a little frustrated about having to leave Dallas in order to become successful. Now that you’ve been living in New York City and back from this European tour, how much does playing in New York now feel like a homecoming to you?

Rebillet: It definitely does. I mean, I’ve been here long enough that coming back in any respect feels like just coming home, and it’s hard to imagine being anywhere else.

I don’t like to pooh-pooh Dallas because it was so integral to my success. The people there gave me my first jobs doing this and supported me for the first time. Without that, I wouldn’t have been able to cut my teeth, I wouldn’t have been able to play over and over again for unsuspecting audiences who often didn’t want to see me.

Those restaurant and bar owners gave me my first shots, you know what I mean? It’s just kind of the venues over there that weren’t willing to give me a shot at ticketed shows, so that’s why I left.

Winning over those crowds, that must be a lesson, right? Going into a restaurant, they have no idea what to expect, and you have to win them over from zero.

Rebillet: Yes, it’s true. That’s how you learn what the show is, kind of. It’s like being able to be given this fresh canvas every day of between five and 10 people, and you get to play off of them.

I’m there at a lunch shift, basically playing for three, four hours and having to make stuff up. It pushes your instincts and makes you think about just how to get to a creative place in as many different ways as possible, and how to draw people in and get them to pay attention to you. And it’s really still what the show is today.

What a training ground, though. And you’ve just released your first studio-produced track. It’s a new single called “Vibes Alright.”

Rebillet: Yes.

This is a step away from the live improvised looping that you’re known for.

Rebillet: Very much so, yes. It was an attempt to do a thing that I’ve wanted to do for a long time, to just do traditional-style production in a digital audio workstation, like Logic or Pro Tools, and trying to traditionally compose tracks. I attempted that for the better part of a decade before picking up a looper and switching it up.

I worked with a really great producer, Jake Portrait. He’s the bassist and one of the producers for Unknown Mortal Orchestra – incredible guy, and produces a lot of other really cool stuff.

You have a residency at Blue Note starting this Thursday.

Rebillet: Yes.

Goes for four nights?

Rebillet: Four nights, two shows a night. It’s sold out, unfortunately, but, man, it’s going to– Well, not unfortunately, but–

Very fortunately for you.

Rebillet: Yes, exactly.

Not fortunate if you’re trying to still get a ticket.

Rebillet: Precisely.

We’re talking about the energy that you create with your crowd in these live shows. Your stage energy is big–

Rebillet: [laughs] Yes, that’s the word for it.

This is an audience that is game to participate–

Rebillet: Very much so.

–when a mic is shoved in their faces or when they’re called up on stage. What kind of work does it take on your end to make sure that this vibe between you and your audience is indeed all right?

Rebillet: The most important thing, I think, in order for the show to be successful at a small, or especially a large scale, is you have to really leave everything at the door and go on stage very receptive, very present to whatever the audience happens to be giving you that night.

It may be a quieter crowd, they may be very enthusiastic, they may be a little more withdrawn, but either way, it’s your job to coax out of that the energy that you need to play properly. Sometimes I will use a more withdrawn crowd energy as a way to berate them, create an antagonistic relationship, and then–

Get in the pool.

Rebillet: Exactly. You feed off of that energy. You’re screaming at them, and then that sort of wakes them up a little bit. Or there’s crowds that are much more participation-friendly, they want to get up on stage, and so you take that and you go down into the crowd and you bring people up. It’s just a flexibility thing.

I’m particularly excited for the Blue Note shows because it’s going to be a very different energy. We booked this room specifically because it’s so small and seated, which is really not the way I usually play.

Will it remain seated?

Rebillet: It’ll remain seated. Oh, yes.

That’s a very different situation for you, isn’t it? What do you do?

Rebillet: Well, I think I’m going to take it low, slow soul – a lot more soul, grooves, R&B. I never thought I’d say this before, but I could take a seat. So, yes, I think it’ll be more of an opportunity to experiment a little bit, do more singing, talking to the audience as opposed to like, screaming with them. I’m excited about it.

Does that almost bring you back to Dallas and some of the restaurants where you started having to win over a crowd that was seated?

Rebillet: A little bit, yes. But, you know, the difference with that is that those, I was still really exerting myself – overexerting myself, perhaps – with those crowds. The energy in those early shows was a lot more like the energy at a big festival I’m playing these days, because you have to convince them to listen, you know what I mean? Here, I have a captive audience. They’ve bought tickets, so I feel permitted to–

They’re on your side.

Rebillet: Exactly, so the energy is different. I can sit down, take my time.

When you’re not being that big character on stage, do you ever get to just switch off? I imagine there’s a lot of pressure on you to always be the life of the party.

Rebillet: Oh, yes. I would say I’m mostly quite a relaxed person offstage. I enjoy relaxing. I very much value my time off and my downtime, and with my friends. I mean, I’m very social and I can pull on that high energy, but I tend to be more relaxed, I would say, in my day to day life. I’m just a pretty chill dude.

I think that’s evident right now.

Rebillet: Yes, exactly.

Do you have more plans to produce studio tracks like “Vibes Alright”? Where do you think you’re going to go with this?

Rebillet: Well, yes, we do have a couple more, like half in the bag, me and Jake Portrait. So we may continue to develop those and then release them. Otherwise, I might try and produce some more on my own. And then in general, there are other directions I’ve been thinking about going as well, creatively, outside of traditional performance. Getting back to live streams with guests, I think is a fun direction after the tour.

And then, also, I was mentioning to you over the break that I have this idea of doing things with kids, because a lot of the things that have been the most successful for me in terms of clips recently have been stuff with kids.

To convince a kid to go there creatively is such a joy for them, for you as a performer, and I can see this thing where I’m like helping kids unlock a creative side to them. It’s just in the nascent stages in terms of my thinking about it, but I’m really feeling this idea of like a kid’s show, or some sort of thing like that.

I could see you totally doing things to encourage kids to just be free and be creative.

Rebillet: Exactly.

I read something online this week that you said, I forget where it was. That your father was a big supporter, a big believer in you and your music. You also described him, and I love this description, as an aggressive enjoyer of life.

Rebillet: [laughs] That’s very true.

Can you talk about his belief in you, that this is what you should be doing? You know, pursuing music, performing on stage. This is sometimes the opposite of what parents tell kids, right?

Rebillet: That’s very true, yes. He was supportive to almost an annoying degree. So much so that when I was still trying to figure things out, he was very relentless in his suggestions that I be on stage, be performing, be working towards success. He believed in that so hard that, at a time when I was just sort of trying to hang out and develop things on my own, it was not advice that I wanted, especially from a parent. I took it for granted, and it was not until later when I realized–

He passed away a few years ago, but he was so right, you know what I mean? He was so on the nose with everything he thought about me and what I should be doing. He was just like many, many years ahead of me, and I needed to live a lot of life before I really took that to heart and started trying.

But having that in there has been really instrumental in my ability to motivate myself, stay inspired, just this voice in there from him saying, “Go.”

It’s a lot of what I say in my music, actually. “You got this. You got to keep going. Come on, you can do this. Blah, blah, blah.” It’s my way of honoring him and keeping that alive.

It’s very interesting to hear, because a lot of times we hear about the motivation being rebelling against a parent’s advice. But there still was some annoying aspect to it.

Rebillet: Very much so. You know, you’re a kid, it’s like you can’t really appreciate the thing of it until you arrive there, and then things just become so much clearer and – Man, it’s like, if I had listened to him earlier, whatever … But, yes, you just have to go through it sometimes.

You have to go through it and get to it there yourself, but you can still hear those words motivating you now.

Rebillet: Oh, 100%.

If money was no object at all, if someone said, “Marc, we’ve got unlimited resources to give you,” what would you want to do in your wildest dreams?

Rebillet: I’m sure that answer would change based on the season, my state of mind. But right now, I feel a very intense urge to do something really constructive and helpful with this small – let’s not exaggerate – very small bit of influence I have.

And so I think I would use resources to better people’s lives in some way. That’s why I’m thinking about the kids’ thing. There’s got to be a way for me to channel this thing and not just do the traditional performer thing of, “Oh, I have a new soda,” or like, “Oh, I’m just playing a bunch of shows,” which is great, I don’t want to pooh-pooh that either.

But like, we have this thing, this incredible privilege of like a platform, a little bit of influence, people listening, and I really would love to use that constructively to help people in some way. I don’t know how that is.

That improvisational spark is something that I think really connects with kids.

Rebillet: For sure.

You just got to dial down the cursing on those acts.

Rebillet: [laughs] Exactly. Yes, it’s like a very bizarre Mister Rogers. We can get there.

Well, next time we chat, I’m going to be listening to you talking about your new kid’s project.

Rebillet: I hope so.

Marc Rebillet’s residency at Blue Note (131 West Third St.) begins on Thursday.