Maher found his calling after falling in love with music at the age of fourteen. He went from bass to guitar to drums to singing to sound recording (which happens to include becoming Bob Walsh’s lead guitarist guitar tech). Eventually Maher decided to dedicate his life to this particular passion where he considers it like getting well paid to have fun all day. That is when he came to RAC.
Maher credits RAC as a major factor in getting Maher’s career going, however RAC was not all fun and games. Maher had to earn his degree and was challenged throughout his program. As he tells it, “When I finished school, I was exhausted because I had spent the last year studying day and night.” As he states it, after graduation he worked for a couple of months in a large music shop but had to quit because “companies were calling me again and again. It was very exciting to finally start my career. It couldn’t have been possible without RAC’s team; they were behind me from the very beginning…” Maher regards the teachers at RAC as some of the people that have most impacted him and his work.
Maher currently works as a Sound Technician in Montreal for a variety of companies and agencies, in addition to having his own studio just outside the city. Depending on the size of the event that employs him, he could be installing the PA, tuning it, leading an entire sound crew or operate the console. Some of his most lucrative past projects involved cover bands. At this stage of his career, Maher can afford to be picky, but it wasn’t always like that when he first started.
Maher says the key element in his experience has been his professional attitude and being pro-active. Maher advises, “It is one thing to love music. It’s a whole other story to live music. When you begin in this business, you do whatever they want you to do, you’re stressed, you want to give your best…Sometimes you’re controlling everything, and sometimes, you’re coiling miles and miles of cables in the rain. You’re going to work with a lot of different kinds of people and you’re going to have to work hard for your money.” Maher endeavors to tell the beginners in the business to “forget the tour buses and partying every night. You simply will be too tired from working.”
His family and friends think Maher is crazy because of the scheduling and physical challenges of this career in the industry but they are also happy for him too. “They can’t imagine me anywhere else”, says Maher. Maher looks forward to getting some new experience touring and working on his own projects in the future
