“Sometimes Eugene is a little more Portland than Portland,” Fred Armisen admits to Eugene Weekly in a phone call, “a more intense version of it. There’s a city that’s known for something,” he says. “And then when you go to another city close by, you’re like, ‘Oh, this is the real thing.’”

EW doesn’t typically preview a show when it’s sold out, but when Oregon icon and comedy legend, Armisen, comes to town and wants to talk, we make an exception. The Saturday Night Live alum and Portlandia co-creator brings his Comedy for Musicians, but Everyone is Welcome tour to the McDonald Theatre Dec. 30.

And most importantly, Fred Armisen looks a lot like this local music and comedy writer!

Among various other credits, Armisen spent 11 seasons on SNL and starred alongside Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein for eight seasons in IFC’s Portlandia, an equal parts affectionate and cutting send-up of Portland — and in turn, Oregon’s — culture of “Left Coast” preoccupations, filtered through Armisen’s comedic point of view, landing somewhere between workaday surrealist extremes and deadpan, situational cringe-theater.

These days, Armisen says he has a place in Portland but lives mostly in Los Angeles. Still, Armisen says of Oregon’s biggest city, “I just love being there. I’m so happy that it’s a part of my life.”

As well as touring, this year Armisen released 100 Sound Effects, a throwback to sound effect albums used in film and television production before the internet, this time with an Armisen twist. Armisen created each effect himself in the studio, including, for instance, “Sparsely Attended Show Encore With Someone Shouting ‘Where’s Jim?” or “Music Venue Employee Kicking Everyone Out While Throwing Away Bottles.”

“It was real work,” Armisen says of the project. Each sound, he says, had to “sound good and accurate and usable. ​​I didn’t want to be lax about it.”

Armisen started in music, playing drums in the Chicago band Trenchmouth in the ’80s and ’90s, integrating music in his comedy, and serving as Seth Meyers’ bandleader on Late Night with Seth Meyers until 2017. He draws on that work, and a similar sensibility to the sound effects mentioned in Comedy for Musicians, what he calls a standup set with props, or in this case, a drum kit and guitar.

Typical bits in the show include a survey of acoustic guitar playing styles from around the world with narration interspersed, or Armisen amping himself up as a drummer, waiting for the moment when he can play the iconic drum fill from Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” However, Armisen insists you have to play music to get the jokes.

People who aren’t musicians who see the performance “realize that music is a bigger part of their life than they think. Whenever I present it to the audience,” he says. “I never know what their reaction is going to be.”

Admittedly, I had a personal interest in talking to Armisen. It happens less often these days as I’ve aged and my hair has gone grey, but for a while, I got mixed up with Armisen pretty frequently — on the street, at bars, at work, and one time, at a pharmacy. When I told a few people I’m not Armisen, they seemed disappointed.

Armisen says his celebrity doppelgänger is Rick Moranis (Honey, I Shrunk the Kids). “And then one time in Las Vegas, I was on a tram,” he says, “This lady was like, hey, it’s Bill Hader,” Armisen’s SNL cast mate and Documentary Now costar. He figured, close enough, and didn’t correct her.

I mentioned a few times that people asked me if I was him, which tempted me to string them along. “You have my permission,” he says. And has he ever been confused for me? “It happens once in a while,” he jokes. “I always wondered, who are they talking about? Are you saying that my name is Eugene?” Since we’ve talked, it all makes so much more sense now.

Fred Armisen performs Comedy for Musicians but Everyone is Welcome, 8 pm Wednesday, Dec. 30, at the McDonald Theatre, tickets are sold out. 100 Sound Effects is available wherever music is sold. Hulu’s Deli Boys season 2, featuring Armisen, is expected sometime next year.