My drug use was so bad I saw Robbie Williams on TV & thought it was me – after that I had to get clean, says Irish star

The Irish Sun

4 days ago

D:REAM star Peter Cunnah has told how he was forced to clean up his act after watching Robbie Williams perform Let Me Entertain You on TV - and thinking he was watching himself.
The Things Can Only Get Better hitmaker was at the height of his 1990s drug use when he confused his old touring pal for someone much closer to home.
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D:REAM star Peter Cunnah admits his drug use got out of hand at the height of his fame
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Peter's drug use was so bad that he saw Robbie Williams perform on TV and thought he was watching himself
Credit: AFP
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D:REAM shot to fame in the 90s with dance hits like Things Can Only Get Better
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Recalling how he had moved from ecstasy to cocaine, the
'So from the second half of '96, I was a full-blown addict. And I came out of that by just getting clean and going into rehab.
'But I was watching things going on around me. I was turning on the TV and I'm seeing
'And for a moment there, I thought it was me.
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'So, um, yeah, that's also quite trippy, because you're kind of already out of body, and you're thinking, 'Oh, did I do that? No, that's not me. That's someone else'. So it's very odd.'
Episode seven of the Fields of Dreams podcast examines the astonishing rise of dance music in
Ireland became a party Mecca for ­tourists and celebrities.
In a scene where ecstasy was a common currency, 100,000 pills were sold here every week by the end of the decade.
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But DJs and other experts insist there was much more to the phenomenon than drugs.
Clubland historian Steve Wynne-Jones said: 'Ecstasy's arrival was a social lubricant to a certain degree. The direction of travel was already there. Dance music as a phenomenon was going to happen whether ecstasy arrived in Ireland or not. In the UK, it kind of ­synchronized with the birth of acid house.
Róisín O says Vogue Williams 'fan-girled' over her mam Mary Black
'You know, ecstasy played a role. But it's more the fact that this was new, the fact that this was an experience that people hadn't had before, the fact that people could congregate and immerse themselves in a scene they really believed in.
'That was powerful. It would have happened anyway.'
DJ Aoife Nic Canna was an early dance pioneer and promoter who worked in all the major clubs. She said of ecstasy: 'It was a new drug, and it was a social drug, to go out dancing. But it was as much of a hindrance as anything.
'ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING'
'It was absolutely terrifying — even being a DJ — because people might say, 'She's a DJ, she knows where the ecstasy is', you know?
'I would not appreciate being asked that question because it was still very, very strict — and especially as a DJ that was trying to promote dance.
'I didn't want it to be related to drugs, because we were getting so much bad press at the time.'
When U2 opened The Kitchen nightclub in 1994, it was part of an enormous shift toward dance music.
Dance music began underground, but quickly became mainstream in popular clubs such as The POD, opened by Electric Picnic founder John Reynolds.
GO-TO PLACE
It became the go-to place for the likes of supermodels
Nic Canna was there on the opening night.
She said: 'I remember when the doors opened, a lot of tourists came in, and it was like, 'These aren't ravers', and they came straight up to the DJ box, and they were saying, 'Where's Bono?'
'The manager, who was a
'Ecstasy's arrival was a social lubricant to a certain degree. The direction of travel was already there. Dance music as a phenomenon was going to happen whether ecstasy arrived in Ireland or not. In the UK, it kind of ­synchronized with the birth of acid house."
Steve Wynne-Jones
'I was going, 'Yeah, yeah' and then I went, 'Oh, look, there IS Bono'. I could see him walking past.'
Wynne Jones said: 'U2, after [their album] Zooropa and into [single] Discotheque, and into [album] Pop, were certainly working with a broader array of producers.
'They were working with Howie B, who was one of the ­residents in the Kitchen nightclub. So they were broadening. But in Dublin there was an urgency, a vibrancy. There was a mixture of styles.
'For
'It would have to become part of their sound if they were embedded in the city that founded them.'
The first seven episodes of Fields Of Dreams are available on
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When U2 opened The Kitchen nightclub in 1994, it was part of an enormous shift toward dance music
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Some 100,000 ecstasy pills a week were being sold in Ireland by the end of the 90s
Credit: Alamy
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The Fields of Dreams podcast chronicles the rise of live entertainment in Ireland
Credit: The Irish Sun