Born as Hugh Charles Padgham n Amersham, Buckinghamshire (UK) on 15 February 1955. He was educated at St Edward’s School, Oxford. He started out as a tape operator at Advision Studios, working on many recording sessions including Mott The Hoople and Gentle Giant. From there he went to Lansdowne Studios and moved from tape-operator/assistant engineer to engineer. In 1978, Padgham got a job at The Townhouse, where he engineered and/or produced acts including XTC, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. He served as engineer on sessions for Kate’s album The Dreaming.
Padgham’s previous work with Gabriel and Collins led to a collaboration with Genesis and Phil Collins in the 1980’s. In addition to his work with Genesis and XTC, Padgham co-produced two albums with The Police: ‘Ghost in the Machine’ and ‘Synchronicity’, as well as some of Police frontman Sting’s solo work. He also worked on Paul McCartney’s ‘Press to Play’ and The Human League’s ‘Hysteria’.
In the 2000s, Padgham worked with Sting as well as McFly. He had four UK number one hits in 2005 and 2006 with McFly, as well as a number of other Top Ten Singles. In 2002, Padgham produced The Tragically Hip album ‘In Violet Light’.
