Max Lilley opens up on the realities of being a backline tech for the likes of Bloc Party, The Last Dinner Party and more

In our latest Industry Spotlight, we chat to Max Lilley, backline tech for the likes of Bloc Party and The Last Dinner Party about his career so far…

S] How are you today, mate?

All good! If not a little tired.

S] What have you learned about yourself over the last few years, teching for the likes of The Last Dinner Party and Bloc Party, and more?

Christ, loaded question but in short, A LOT. This job doesn’t give you much time to do anything other than think about the job in hand so reflection time often comes in overwhelming waves. One of the main things I’ve learnt is how resilient I can be. I never thought of myself as having much backbone and I don’t tend to defend myself that much but I do back myself up more now than I thought I would. Which is nice, it gives me more confidence. There’s been a lot of times I’ve suffered from imposter syndrome. It’s very cutthroat in this industry and sometimes you feel quite out of your depth but I’ve noticed the ways that I pick myself back up again and develop from those low points. It’s nice to know there’s that strength there. More than anything, those situations have given me the confidence to go on developing my skill set as I’ve jumped into different jobs.

S] What skills did you take from your band, Slow Team, into that world?

Mainly just my obsession with gear haha. In all honesty it was just my love of guitars and how different ones complimented different songs and different amps etc. More recently I’ve been using the band to compliment my job and vice versa. I invested in a Kemper Profiler last year to learn how it worked in order to open myself up to more job roles. I didn’t intend to use it for the band but after spending a week or two learning the basics and programming some patches of my own I sort of fell in love with it and haven’t moved back to an analog rig since. That’s been really fun. I guess the skills of organising the band as well. That’s transferred into my job in terms of organising my own logistics and work days.

S] What’s next for the band, Slow Team? 

Trying to make more time for it! We’ve all been so busy that it’s been hard to align schedules but we’re all making a bit more effort this year to squeeze some shows and releases in. We’re definitely going to be putting a handful of singles out and also playing some short runs of shows around the UK in the Spring. Looking forward to playing more, you yearn for that a little more when you’re watching people play live on stage every day as your job haha.

S] Where are you based now (when home), does location matter? 

I’m based in Leeds currently. Yorkshire is the best. Location doesn’t matter all that much, you can catch a flight or a train or a boat or a horse or whatever to get where you need to be. Lots of regularly touring artists have crew that are based all over. It’s mainly dependent on you and your skill set as to how far the artist is willing to bring you in from based on that.

S] What have been some touring highlights for you, so far – as many as you like!?

There have been LOADS. To name a few, I was lucky enough to work on Later… with Jools Holland in September with The Last Dinner Party. That was a real pinch me moment. I’ve been watching that show since I was a kid and to be on set was kind of crazy. My first Glastonbury with Blossoms in 2022 was amazing too, not to mention returning in 2023 with Blossoms again but this time with Rick Astley fronting the stage. Four nights at Brixton Academy and my first Maida Vale session with Hot Chip in 2022 as well, touring with Bloc Party on my first ever US tour supporting Paramore (two iconic bands that shaped my childhood), supporting Hozier with The Last Dinner Party at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham (saw all of my big childhood gigs there). There’s too many to count to be honest, every year there’s something on the bucket list that gets ticked and it seems to be getting crazier by the year. It’s all very exciting.

S] What is the best, and worst part of your job? 

The best part of my job is that I get to travel the world with some truly wonderful souls. I owe some of my most cherished friendships to this job, I owe my relationship with my partner to this job, I owe some genuinely life-changing experiences to this job, not to mention some transformative self-development in my skill set and my mental and physical being. It’s something else.

However, with all the positives, comes all the negatives. The travelling is wonderful but it can be incredibly draining. There’s a lot of it and sometimes it takes you through all sorts of different time zones which can really mess with your head. It can put strains on your relationships with your friends, your partner, and your family too. Being away that much can be really hard. It can send you to some crazy places. Another part for me, which isn’t the same for everyone, is coping with my diabetes and coeliac on the road. The change in time zones, weird sleeping patterns, weird eating patterns, can all play havoc with my blood sugars which can make a long day loading gear in and out and around, quite challenging. It’s something I’m still learning to deal with but it’s definitely better than it was.

There’s also still misogyny and discrimination in this industry. It’s mind-blowing to me that people still feel they can act like that, especially in a professional workspace, but the sad truth is that they do and more often than not, it never gets addressed. It sucks to see this still happening but those dinosaurs are on their way out.

S] How important are personal connections and relationships while out on the road?

Absolutely vital. If you’re touring with a bunch of people that you don’t get along with, it makes your job miserable in no time. I’m so incredibly lucky that the people I tour with now are a complete delight. These are the people that you spend your life with. You see them more than you see your friends, and sometimes more than your family and partner too. It’s so important that you have positive connections with these people because it can get really lonely really quickly if not.

S] What are three hardest lessons you would give to any aspiring backline techs, or Tour Managers? 

Not lessons so much but advice. To anyone starting out just be nice, open, approachable, and willing to learn. Just being a nice person will get you so much further than being a whizz at your job.

Don’t be taken advantage of. Know your value. It’s really easy, when you’re starting out, to just take whatever comes at you and not argue against a rate but you should know the skills and personality you have and have an idea of how much value that has to you. I spent a lot of time worrying that if I asked for more money, I wouldn’t get as much work but, there’s no shame in asking for more money. They might say yes and if they say no then it’s probably not a job you would’ve wanted anyway.

Don’t skip ahead. I’m not saying don’t be confident, proactive, and forward thinking but I’ve been a victim of my own confidence sometimes and skipped steps because I saw my peers doing it or I took some advice from someone who’d been doing it way longer than I had. It’s okay to learn at your own pace, you don’t have to be shit hot straight away, this stuff takes time. Be proactive though, if there’s something you don’t know anything about, do some research online. I’ve learnt bags of stuff by doing that.

I have a few more so I’ll try and be concise but look after yourself! Physical and mental health on tour is challenging to maintain but not impossible. Always ask questions! If you’re on a festival bill or a big support tour, ask to shadow the other techs. Politely hang around after their soundcheck and have a look into their gear, that sort of thing. Never does anyone any harm. Finally, and it sounds cliché but, never give up. It can seem like work is drying up sometimes but just keep sending emails and being proactive online, looking for new contacts. Keep pushing and you’ll be absolutely fine.

S] Can you give me an example of when you’ve been caught off-guard, and how you dealt with that? 

I’ve been caught off-guard quite a few times. It’s really annoying but I don’t think there’s any shame in it as long as you rectify and futureproof the issue. The one that sticks out was a show in Mexico that I did in the Spring. I’d done a UK tour with the same band a few weeks before, having only just come onto the gig and decided that I wanted to improve the keyboard rig because of some software issues I was having on that UK run. I spent the few weeks between tours rebuilding the rig on a new, upgraded piece of software and tested it at the end of rehearsals before packing up to freight the gear to Mexico. When we turned up in Mexico, we’d been through the ringer with delayed flights and very little sleep and, in the changeover at the show, I discovered the keys rig wasn’t responding. I spent the next hour of the changeover trying to fix it and connect to the internet to see if I could renew the license. Nothing I tried worked at all and the band had to play the show, skipping the songs that used keyboards.

Afterwards, I apologised to the band and the crew for my mistake and once we got the hotel on the day off, the day after the show, I brought all of the necessary gear up to my hotel room and spent the entire day and night rebuilding and foolproofing the whole thing to the point where I was more than confident that we wouldn’t have an issue with it moving forward.

It was a real grounding experience but one that I very much needed to help me realise the pressure of my role and how much more I needed to do in my job to ensure that something like this didn’t happen again. I’d much rather be over-prepared than do exactly what needs to be done. 

S] What is your message to those people who have supported you – whether that’s crew, friends or family?

THANK YOU. There’s so many people I need to thank for where I am today. Mainly thank you to my family for supporting me in striving to get this job and supporting me through everything this job has taken me through. To everyone that’s ever hired me, thank you for taking a chance and believing that I can carry out the job you want me to carry out. A special thanks to all the tour managers and crew members who’ve given me the time, space, and resources to develop my skills, make mistakes, and come out the other side. Thank you to those people who have helped me through difficult situations on tour and offered me advice on how to improve. I wouldn’t be here without the lovely people I’ve toured with and the lovely people who’ve recommended me for jobs with crew that I’ve never met or worked with before. I’m very grateful and incredibly lucky.

S] Is there anything you’d like to promote or plug? 

Not much really! I’m out touring with The Last Dinner Party all year so if you’re one of the people reading this and you’re coming to a show, come and say hey! Slow Team also has new singles coming out in March and May and we’re doing shows across those months too so it’d be great to see some keen faces at those shows. Lastly, I guess, don’t take anything I’ve said as fact. All this is just my experience and opinion and there’s thousands and thousands of other crew out there with different experiences and opinions.

S] Thanks, and much love. 

Thanks for having me!