“Wooo, disco bus!”
The vehicle idling by the manicured white lobby of the SLS Beverly Hills Hotel is nothing special, but Hot Since 82 is easy to please.
Daley Padley is a rakish 30-something Brit wearing a white graphic tee and an unflagging smile that persists despite his present exhaustion. A rigorous tour schedule has seen Padley jet from London to Chicago to Los Angeles in as many days, with another cross-continental flight to New York looming tomorrow.
“I don’t know what planet I’m on,” he admits. “I don’t know if I’m jetlagged or in England or what.”
Joined by his manager James Drummond, we pile aboard the disco bus for the drive to San Bernardino, where Padley is set to play Insomniac’s Escape from All Hallows’ Eve on the ENTER-curated Cannibals’ Tea Party stage. The traffic is typical L.A. gridlock, so we take solace in overpriced sandwiches and classic hip-hop while slowly inching our way through the bumper-to-bumper malaise. It’s a far cry from the Yorkshire moors that Padley calls home.
“Could you ever live in L.A.?” I ask.
“I couldn’t,” Padley replies. “Even in Leeds you never get shit like this. Have you ever been to Yorkshire? It’s the country, quiet and full of nature. I wouldn’t live anywhere else in the U.K.”
The topic of conversation turns to hip-hop. Padley is a massive 2Pac fan who plastered his childhood walls with posters of the California rapper after watching Juice. Wu-Tang Clan comes on to the delight of all in attendance.
“Now these guys can fucking rap!” Padley exclaims. “I like that ‘Triumph’ song, it’s a proper story.”
From his humble beginnings in the northern hamlet of Barnsley to his striking rise to the forefront of the global deep house scene, Padley’s story is also pretty proper. After getting his start spinning at showy clubs in Leeds and London, Padley grew disillusioned with the commercial house scene and hung up his headphones.
It took two years and technical difficulties at a fateful Ibiza afterparty for him to pick them back up. After the music cut out, Padley plugged in his iPhone and his own production randomly played on shuffle. The White Isle crowd responded favorably, prompting Padley to reconsider his career choice. He signed the track, “Let it Ride,” to Noir Music shortly after and watched it climb to No. 3 on Beatport’s deep house chart.
Since then, Hot Since 82 has been living up to his name with a relentless string of successful productions, including two BBC Radio One Essential New Tunes and his Beatport chart-topping remix of Green Velvet’s “Bigger Than Prince,” a ubiquitous Ibiza anthem last season. He released his debut album Little Black Book on Moda Black last year. His forthcoming mix album, Knee Deep in Sound, features four new tunes and will be released on Nov. 17 through his label of the same name and Ultra Records.
While Padley’s career trajectory seems right on target, the disco bus is presently lost. We pull into the lot of a dimly lit saloon where a giant rooster statue eerily oversees rows of empty parking spaces.
“There’s something sinister going on in there,” says Padley.
“At least we’re seeing parts of California where people can get their bodies dumped,” quips the driver.
We find our way back into the sea of slowly moving red lights. As we finally approach the venue after two hours of traffic, Padley and Drummond marvel at the costumes on display. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mingle with Mario Brothers in the flickering light of distant stages. One attendee walks by wearing only a cardboard box emblazoned with “PLUR.”
“What’s PLUR?” asks Drummond.
After I explain the credo of “Peace Love Unity Respect,” a concept peculiar to the American rave wave, Daley nods in recognition.
“One of those kandi kids did that funny hand thing and gave me a bracelet she’d made that said ‘Daley’ after a gig once,” he shrugs. “It’s all the right things. She was hot, too.”
As we pull up to the artist parking area, we spot an odd-looking trio on the corner. Flanked by friends in zoot suits, one wears giant paper tortillas and a sombrero.
“Dude, are you a taco?” Padley shouts out the window. “Legend!”
After arriving backstage, a golf cart ushers us through the madcap carnival atmosphere to the Cannibals’ Tea Party stage. The Martinez Brothers are currently up, delighting the covered stage’s audience with smooth and deep sounds. Richie Hawtin chats with Gaiser by the artist trailers. We greet them and head to the stage to set up.
As Padley preps on stage right, Chris Martinez greets him with a warm embrace. Technicians slide his gear to the stage’s center and he commences his set to cheers from the assembled crowd, dropping into a powerful techno groove while Hawtin nods along behind him. Between patient delay-drenched builds and hissing white noise, he pummels the crowd with pulsing bass drops and complementary synthesizer snippets.
The clouds boom with thunder as a torrential downpour forces soaked revelers further into the stage’s dry embrace. The set takes a deeper turn in its second half, as Padley’s shoulders shimmy to throbbing funk bass and stuttered snares. He road tests a few of his new originals, alternating between airy, atmospheric offerings and driving bass drones. While the stage was clearly catered to a more techno crowd, his performance is still well received by the costumed masses.
As Gaiser appears to take the reins, Padley greets him with a big hug. We dart through raindrops back to the trailer, where Padley slumps into a chair and kicks up his feet.
“Ugh, I can’t face getting back on the road straight away,” says Drummond.
We chill for a bit, chatting about some of life’s more pressing questions. Would we like to have royalty in America? Does the queen wear gloves when she tweets? Does she even know what Twitter is? The rain provides a soothing soundtrack.
“Cool then, soldier,” Padley says. “You ready?”
We are. The disco bus speeds down rain-slick roads cleared of traffic. Padley gets some much-needed sleep in the backseat. An 8 a.m. wake up call and a gig at Brooklyn’s Output await him, and with shows looming in D.C., L.A. and Mexico over the next two weeks, there’s no end to the jet setting in sight. He wakes with a start as we arrive, blinking bleary-eyed at the strange cast of costumed characters in the car park. Pikachu teeters on precarious heels while a silver-skinned muscle man leads Vampira to a taxicab.
“Cheers, mate.” Padley flashes that indefatigable smile and wearily starts up the stairs to stardom.