Introducing
Cronelli
Meet one-half of the Raving Frog duo
Cronelli’s nickname has stuck for years
but these days Pete is known for playing quality Vocal House at some of the South East’s best music events.
Cronelli’s love of dance music started in the nineteen eighties. Soul was the main dance music but this era saw the explosion of Disco and of Jazz Funk. Bands such as Sister Sledge, Chic and Incognito were all the rage. The genre was so different and Clubs opened all over the South East. In Essex, the big two clubs were the Goldmine and Zero Six, closely followed by Crocs in Rayleigh. Clubbing was very much a way of life, with events on Thursday night to Sunday night. Cronelli infamously jacked in his A levels, to get a job and go clubbing – an urge to party that remains to this day.
By the 90s, Cronelli was spending his weekends clubbing and hunting for new House music releases, in a love for the music that has been formative all his life.
As the eighties rolled into the nineties, the action moved to the London clubs of The Cross, Bagleys and Turnmills. There were also many illegal raves. In Essex there was a new Romford club called Hollywoods, part time home to the legendary Clockwork Orange. This club regularly booked DJs such as Jeremy Healy, Brandon Block, Alex P and Lisa Loud. By this time, Cronelli was spending his weekends clubbing and hunting record shops for new House music releases, in a love for the music that has been formative all his life.
This love and knowledge of music meant Cronelli was often asked to DJ at parties, although he was too much of a ‘party boy’ to take the DJ role seriously.
By 2003, the club scene was over. Night clubs were closing and dance music seemed to be on the wane. It wasn’t long before the trend reversed. By 2010 new clubs started to open and clubbing was back on everyone’s agenda for Friday and Saturday nights. Also at this time, music went digital. DJing at a party no longer meant taking 50kg of vinyl records, it was possible to turn up with CDs or a small digital storage device and have hundreds of tracks to play. The new mixers also allowed so much more creativity for DJs. House music had re-invented itself!
Cronelli invested in digital DJ equipment in 2017 but didn’t begin DJing professionally until 2018. His first gigs were at his winter home of Val d’Isere in France, playing the legendary Saloon club/bar. The summer of 2019 saw him on the Essex pub/club scene playing bars and venues in Billericay and Chelmsford.
Two Essex promoters were getting events right, namely Clockwork Orange (re-born in 2014) and Sun Of A Beach, which has been packing Southend venues since 2010. Meeting up with fellow DJ Paul Bird, the pair decided to launch their own events.
Now to the present
Teaming up with fellow House DJ/music fanatic Paul B
In 2019 the pair decided they would take the best of all events they were attending and put all of this into their own nights, under the ‘Raving Frog’ brand. The pair have always been massive fans of Sun Of A Beach and were invited to take a controlling interest in the business at the start of 2022. Both brands have gone from strength to strength and every event since late 2021 has sold out.
You can still catch Cronelli DJing with friends in a pub (such as his ‘local’, The Chequers, in Billericay) or on Friday lunchtimes, on Zero Radio. You will also see him playing to hundreds at Raving Frog and Sun Of A Beach events, also at Players Lounge for their Ibiza Legend and BHC series of events. Cronelli also has an anual slot at Plastik Ibiza closing party weekend and in 2023 will be taking up a winter residency at the legendary Doudougne club in Val d’Isere.
Since 2021 Cronelli has shared the stage with the following DJs:
- Jeremy Healy
- Danny Rampling
- Rob Tissera
- Charlotte de Witte
- Danny Gould
- Lisa Loud
- Carly Denham
- Dave Valentine
- Chris Powell
- Marcus Dryden
- Ben Gould
