Padman set to ‘do it for girls’

Erin Pearson
WORKING “nine days a week” in his record and promotions company while brushing shoulders with the DJ world’s elite is a labour of love for Lorne Padman.
“I’ve been drowning under a great wave of exciting things,” Padman told the Independent ahead of his Geelong show next week.
“I run Vicious Recordings and that probably feels like 90 per cent of life but I’m also with some really great international artists like Ian Carey and Static Revenge, local guys Vandalism and The Potbelleez.”
Padman started his DJ career in Perth before taking the next step to Melbourne.
“I got a call from a university friend on my 28th birthday and he said to me ‘Listen, you’ve been DJing every weekend and wearing a suit during the day, why don’t you go to Melbourne and if you haven’t excelled by your 30th birthday go back to the white-picket-fence-three-kids-and-a-dog lifestyle,’ ” he said.
“I celebrated my 30th birthday with (DJs) Andy Van, John Course and Dirty South on decks of my rooftop. Now I’m the national promotions and label manager for Vicious.”
Padman said he enjoyed helping dance music evolve into prime-time radio gold.
“It’s such a privilege. It feels like a mini ego trip because in a lot of ways I feel like I’m one of these key influences in what music should work,” he said.
“For example, I was in Morocco and I found a song call Get Shaky by Ian Carey. I signed it there and chopped it up and made it a radio edit – it went crazy.”
With Australian number-three tennis ace and gold medallist Anastasia Rodionova on his arm, Padman said he still had to “shake” himself about the celebrity circles in which he mixed.
“I was with Anastasia in Paris and ended up on a table having dinner with (DJ) Bob Sinclair. There at the table was a tennis superstar, a DJ god and a guy from Perth.”
Padman, who dabbled in mechanical engineering, marketing and financial planning before moving to Melbourne, is now mixing tunes for names like Tiesto and gracing stages in Europe, New Zealand and Russia.
But he declared that he only ever played for girls.
“I noted at the age of 18 that guys will dance to anything girls will dance to, so now I do what the girls want to listen to,” he laughed.
“Geelong can expect something very exciting with lots of energy and big dance-floor movers.”
Padman will be at Home House with his Vicious Cuts Volume Four tour on December 11.