Lost in music

Nile Rodgers has had a long and extraordinary career. Ed Power talks drugs, disco and Madonna with the Chic frontman ahead of his Irish gigs

NILE Rodgers should be dead. “There’s a picture of the Chic organisation in the early days and if you look at all the people in it I was the one most likely not to make it,” says the producer, arranger, songwriter and band leader. “And you know what the strange thing is? I’m the only one still alive. Isn’t that amazing?”

This, he will tell you, is mostly down to good luck. Through the ’80s and early ’90s, when he was minting hits for Madonna, David Bowie, Duran Duran and others, Rodgers’ recreational drug use was ferocious.