Marc Rebillet wasn't always like this.
As a kid, Rebillet was reserved, messing around with music in his room with no intention of ever taking it beyond its four walls. With a personality like his, however, it was only a matter of time before his broiling charisma bubbled to the surface. Rebillet is like a soda can—too much action on the inside, and it'll explode.
With his madcap brand of absurdist music, the one they call "Loop Daddy" is America's smuttiest sweetheart. More teddy bear than he is mad scientist, the magnetic Rebillet croons about life's dirty fantasies with a compelling exuberance rarely found in musicians. Armed with nothing but a keyboard, a loop station, and a silk robe, Rebillet isn't only bulldozing the boundaries of proper lyricism, but also the bridge between individualism and music.
Never in its most nightmarish fever dreams could his microphone have imagined its owner would utter such things into its iron coils.
"It just sort of happened to evolve this way as a result of the things I’ve been trained to do my whole life—play the piano and act," Rebillet told EDM.com. "Those are just two things that I’ve been studying since I was five years old.”
"Spending a decade-plus in the corporate world, in a variety of jobs—none of which I was ever interested in—and having this sort of nebulous creative dream floating up there as this unfulfilled thing for that decade just put me in this place of really wanting to see if I can make something out of that dream," he continued before calling out fellow improvisational virtuoso Reggie Watts as an inspiration. "When I saw [Watts] do these improvised performances years ago, it sort of unlocked this thing like, ‘Man, you can actually get up on stage and not have a plan, and just do something.' He was really the catalyst for that.”
Someone like Rebillet, an innate trailblazer with his own unique craftsmanship, can seem shocking at first before he garners a legitimate fan base. Before he headlined the iconic Rose Bowl Stadium and toured Europe from Glasgow to Rome, Rebillet cut his teeth in Dallas, where he performed at local bars and restaurants for people who were simply there to dine and socialize—not watch him shove a microphone in his underwear and listen to him sing about tampons over kinetic EDM beats.
It was a special and strange relationship that I really never could’ve predicted.
Rebillet considers himself indebted to those open-minded Dallas venue owners who were brave enough to give him a platform to engage with their customers. In retrospect, those venues ultimately served as serendipitous launchpads for his remarkable career in music. "One of my favorite things about playing at that time was the sort of confrontational nature of those shows—and you can see it on a lot of the livestreams I did from a place called Braindead Brewing in Dallas—where I’d be playing to a lunch crowd who didn’t pay to see me and didn’t want to necessarily," he exulted. "I’m so grateful to these owners who let me do this to their clientele."
"It was a special and strange relationship that I really never could’ve predicted," Rebillet continued. "The fact that I wanted to do sort of absurd things and found a way to couch that in music sort of took its own shape where a lot of people, when they first saw the show, just sort of thought, ‘What the fuck is this? What the hell is this dude doing?’ Then as they would sit there and have another drink or whatever, by about an hour into the set, I would have 80% or 90% of the people stopping their conversations and they would be engaged with me. And I noticed that pattern as I continued to play these bars and restaurants, where I would win people over over the course of a set. And that made me feel really good."
Rebillet doesn't just flaunt his captivating variety of bawdy ridiculousness on the concert circuit. He is also a prolific streamer, amassing millions of fiercely loyal YouTube viewers, who hang on his every libido-fueled word. With videos such as "I'm a Maniac," "Cocaine Discovered Inside Emmy Award," and "Hormones," his catalog is something to marvel at.
There aren't many musicians who can record a song called "Work That Ass For Daddy" and refrain from cracking a smile, let alone make it sound like a hit. But Rebillet did, and managed to create an aphrodisiac of a track with the soulful joie de vivre of a raunchy version of Watts with less hair and more steam.
It has just so happened that most of my musical heroes have reached out in one way or another to express something to me about what it is I’m doing.
Rebillet's plan was never to become a superstar or a musical icon, but artists of the sort are flocking to him like pigeons on a bread crumb. He jammed out with Flying Lotus. He recorded with Snoop Dogg. He can safely count John Mayer as a fan. He collaborated with T-Pain. He even once performed live with Erykah Badu, the queen of neo soul.
"This is really the most insane thing about it all. It has just so happened that most of my musical heroes have reached out in one way or another to express something to me about what it is I’m doing," said Rebillet. "It’s just insane. Flying Lotus, Reggie Watts. It’s fucking insane. I don’t know what is. I can’t really put a finger on it."
Why are these living legends gravitating to Rebillet, an unheralded electronic musician who sings about anilingus and once performed in a bra thrown by a fan? Artists live a regimented life in the limelight. They release music on a stringent schedule, publish robotic captions to satisfy a predetermined social media content calendar, and trudge from studio to studio for marathon sessions in which they are pigeonholed into working within the same styles and sounds.
Rebillet, however, is emblematic of catharsis—an escape from a monotonous, colorless routine. In fact, he eventually wants to use his infectious gusto to instill the same explosive creativity in other artists.
"I’ve been saying for the last year or so that one of my dream jobs would just to be in the studio with people as a sort of consultant," Rebillet said. "Basically a consulting producer who comes up with ideas for you in your studio, who will help you get into a good place musically and creatively and let you follow your whims. I would love to do that for bigger artists."
Man, he would have fucking loved this.
That gusto, isn't contrived or forced, though. It was cultivated from a deeply compassionate—and often fraught—relationship with his father, Gilbert Rebillet. Rebillet describes their connection as one of complexity, rife with the adolescent struggles of a classic father-son relationship.
Rebillet said his father came from a broken home and built a life for himself out of nothing. Due to his success, Gilbert firmly believed that his son was capable of the same level of fulfillment—an arc that a young and naive Rebillet simply did not agree with at the time. "I just didn’t want to hear it," he said. "I wanted to smoke and chill and live my life and try and make music on the side. He would always say, ‘You need to be on stage. You need to be singing. You need to get out there. You gotta kick the door down. You gotta keep going until you make it.’ I didn’t want to do any of that shit. It was just not something I wanted to hear, and he would just say it again and again and again."
"I hated it," Rebillet added. "And then, of course, years later, I’m turning into him."
Gilbert passed away in 2018 at the age of 75 after a four-year battle with Alzheimer's disease. A revered designer, who Rebillet called "an extraordinary human and incredible character," Gilbert worked in fashion in 1960s France, where he once met The Beatles. Gilbert, whose obituary lists his greatest accomplishment as being a father to Marc, was able to hang onto his love for his son even in the most vicious throes of dementia. "I watched him disappear," Rebillet said. "I actually grew and developed this very tender, sweet relationship with him. As he went away and stopped being able to communicate, speak, and remember things, people and places, he always still knew me. Not necessarily by name, but he definitely always knew me. I was the love of his life."
"So once all of the sort of annoying hustle encouragement went away—and all of the really intense, constant advice—he became this shell of himself where I was finally able to really get close and be tender with him, and hold him and love him," he continued. "And his decline coincided with me deciding to try and get gigs and do this. So he never got to see any of this, which is probably my greatest regret. Man, he would have fucking loved this."
Marc and Gilbert Rebillet.
The sharpest swords are forged in the hottest fires. The final moments spent with Gilbert seem to have a profound impact on Rebillet, who was able to find a flicker of light in the darkness of his father's declining health. The anguish he experienced triggered a set of values that propels him to this day. While his art may seem crude on the surface, at its bedrock are togetherness and freedom of expression—two of the most important values not only of musicians, but also humans.
"The core message of the show has evolved a little bit over time," Rebillet asserted. "At first, it was really about getting people’s attention, because I was scared. None of it is planned, so it tended towards the vulgar, the shocking, the insane, and the dirty. But recently, now that I have people that are willing to pay and come see me, the message of the show has shifted a little bit towards more what my values are and what I want to impart to a crowd of people, which is a broader feeling of positivity, togetherness, love, encouragement, inspiration, all these big ideas that I think a lot about and that help me throughout my day. Like, 'You got this. You can do this. You’re good enough. I love you. Don’t stop. Keep going. You got this shit.’ That’s a big thing for me. People need to hear that."
The ridiculous stuff is as valid as the empowering stuff because those are both things that are a part me."
It's clear that the foundation of Rebillet's artistry has an existential nature, rooted in the idea that each of us has the ability to create our own sense of meaning and peace. He does so with his music. It’s unhinged, abrasive, and unapologetic, but where its true beauty lies is in its empathy. When Rebillet tears up a stage and sings about dirty, taboo topics, he invites his fans to do it with him. For them, it's a chance to hear a musician speak their unexpressed language and invite them to partake in public fashion with no consequences—a purging of sorts.
"Life is a whole mess of shit," Rebillet said. "It’s a whole smorgasbord of sorrow, pain, loss, joy, happiness, and overwhelming emotion. So that should be reflected—in as honest a way to yourself as it can be—in the stuff you make. The ridiculous stuff is as valid as the empowering stuff because those are both things that are a part me."
If something comes to me and I think it’s entertaining and I think I can present it in a way that is authentic to me and my style, then I’ll do it.
One has to wonder just how far Rebillet plans on taking his brand of absurdity. When a musician tweets about his aspirations to host music videos on Pornhub and raps about performing sex acts on grandmothers as a flamingo, it's only natural to think there must be a limit. "I don’t think there necessarily is [a limit]. I think it’s really a personal thing," he explained. "You just have to use your instincts."
"I don’t really think there is anything I wouldn’t do, unless I just don’t want to or I don’t think I have anything to contribute," Rebillet continued. "My limits are not really bound by any guideline or ‘it stops here.' That’s not really how I think about it. If something comes to me and I think it’s entertaining and I think I can present it in a way that is authentic to me and my style, then I’ll do it. I don’t give a fuck what it is.”
As his legend grows, fans can look forward to Rebillet branching out into other avenues of entertainment, including film. However, he said he sometimes contemplates how to keep his show from becoming one of threadbare imagination. "Sometimes I wonder how can I keep this show creatively interesting and stop it from becoming stale," he digressed. "And once it reaches that point, I’m going to have to move onto something else. I’ll have to do TV, film, some other [avenue]."
"I’m working on this album right now. How I’m going to play that onstage will probably be completely different," Rebillet divulged. "Not the same thing at all. This will evolve and change. It’s not going to be this show forever, so my advice is to come and see this show while you can."
FOLLOW MARC REBILLET:
Website: marcrebillet.com
Facebook: facebook.com/marcrebillet
Twitter: twitter.com/marcrebillet
Instagram: instagram.com/marcrebillet
YouTube: youtube.com/marcrebillet