Irony is no stranger to Daniel Francis Doyle. He’s a man who places an audience’s needs and wants above his own. He’s a master at guitar looping yet shuns the use of technology in music. Even his name operates as an ironic device.

Though “Daniel Francis Doyle” is real and not a contrived stage name, Doyle uses his full name during performances because it sounds like a quiet, calm, introverted singer-songwriter. People have even compared his physical appearance to that of a math tutor, not a rock musician, Doyle said.

“When I first started playing drums along with everything, it was really noisy and borderline sporadic,” Doyle said. Looping boisterous guitar riffs with fierce drum pounding and an upsurge of riotous vocals are typical of a Doyle show.

Doyle’s use of overdubbing, distortion pedals and effects stems from the late Les Paul’s innovations for making a solo performance sound like an entire rock band. Despite his reliance on high-tech instruments, Doyle would prefer a more simplistic method to making music.

“I have no interest in technology,” he said. “The only reason I got into looping was because I wanted to be able to play drums along with guitar parts on my own and make songs out of it. I got the loop pedal just to get extra textures and the loop pedal ended up in a majority of songs.”

After his previous band Early Lines parted ways in 2005, Doyle took on the title of a temporary solo artist, but after gaining critical acclaim and a large fan base, his interim job became permanent.

“I was in a band for six or seven years, and when we broke up I just wanted to do something different. I was looking at a temporarily solution to play music live,” Doyle said. “I feel like right now, technology [in music] is being used quite a lot. A lot of bands play loads and loads of pedal effects. If I was in a full band with a bass player and a drummer, I’d probably only have a distortion pedal.”

Doyle wants to form a new band but doesn’t know who it would contain just yet.

“I ultimately want to play in an actual band sometime soon. Ironically, I prefer playing with a band and not just solo,” he said, adding he prefers versatile musicians who switch roles.

“I really love playing drums, but I’m a lot better at guitar. The [members of] the band I was in before would take turns with the instruments. If I could get that going again, our band would be perfect,” he said.

One of the daunting parts of being a solo artist is all the audience attention.

“Looking at the audience is like a car wreck sometimes,” Doyle said. “It’s easy to get paranoid that an audience is getting bored when there’s no one to watch but myself.”