Experienced guitar technician Ben Jackson has worked in the industry for 18 years. He cut his teeth first as a driver and then a backline technician with a wide range of touring bands, including stints on two Vans Warped Tours, before extensive international work with the band Neck Deep. Jackson first met Dom Harrison (Yungblud) when the latter was at the start of his career, developing a strong affinity with the then-up-and-coming artist. Following Yungblud’s breakthrough, in 2019 Jackson became his guitar and backline technician, also taking care of stage-right guitarist Adam Warrington and bassist Silke Blansjaar.
Given the nature of Yungblud’s show, where performative elements can be quite unpredictable, having a rig that is rock solid every night is essential for the job, and Jackson ensures that everything is built for reliability and speed. Radial equipment plays a central role in underpinning his confidence in a smooth delivery of shows, night after night. At the beginning of Yungblud’s most recent album cycle during the spring, Jackson was given a budget to upgrade the rigs and also take on a second technician to spilt the workload for what is now a very intense and involved production.
“The first thing I ordered was the Radial JX42 (4 input, 2 output guitar and amp switcher). Up until March this year I was using one line of RF each for Adam and Silke, and I always felt I was pushing my luck on such a high-profile show. Having four lines of RF easily interchangeable was essential not only for slick guitar changes but should any of my RF get stomped on mid-show, I’m able to switch to a backup guitar on a clean frequency,” Jackson said. “I’m blown away by how user-friendly the JX42 is, especially when coupled with the Radial JR5 remote (multi-switch remote control). Having the JR5 in the wings means I can easily engage/disengage each input whilst twenty metres from my guitar world. This is a must, especially when handing off two guitars at once! Elliot Russell who takes care of stage-left also settled on the JX42 as an essential part of the build.”
He spends a lot of time talking with other techs about the issues that arise in their daily jobs, and a consistent feature of those conversations is the reliability guaranteed by Radial products: “Once they’re installed you can stop thinking about them. You power on and they work, which is the reason why I look to Radial solutions in every instance. We have countless Radial products over the whole Yungblud stage and in the wings – playback and keyboard tech Luke Collins relies on Radial’s Backtrack stereo backing track switcher and ProD8 8-channel rack mount DI for keyboards – it’s down to quality and durability.”
As well as the recently added JX42s, Jackson has also invested in three Radial SGI RX/TX instrument line drivers which take an unbalanced signal and allow it to be driven as far as 100 metres without noise: “With our stages expanding in what seems like a weekly basis, we have to allow for our tech world getting further away – with twenty-metre looms, our concern over running unbalanced cables had to be addressed. Cue the SGI RX/TX for switching an unbalanced signal into a balanced signal and back again. With its ability to do this comfortably up to 100 metres It was a no-brainer to implement this product – it can handle our 20 metres as light work!”
As well as relying on the products for their quality and consistency, Jackson also has a word for Radial’s UK distributor POLAR: “Having an attentive service like POLAR in the UK has made getting hold of Radial products a breeze. They have a fantastic customer service team who always pick up the phone exactly when you need them, and deliver on time, every time.”
