RIP Mike Peters – Love, Hope, Strength Defined 

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I heard the news a few days ago and was instantly crushed.  Mike Peters, charismatic frontman of The Alarm, succumbed to his 30-year fight with Leukemia.  I suspected it was coming, but the death of this fantastic man still caught me off guard. 

I was sad when Prince, Cobain and Mercury died, but this one really hurt. This one hit me hard.  See, Mike Peters and I go back 40+ years.  He didn’t know it, but we had a long history together, culminated for me by a series of interviews with him in the past decade. 

(The quotes within this article came from my two formal interviews with Mike Peters while running the rock music blog Rara’s Farm.) 

I was a classic rock kid growing up – it was the focus of my life, and I always dreamt about being a DJ.  I DJ’d in college radio at a local college for my first two years and was able to dip my toes in the classic rock radio pool.  When I transferred to Virginia Tech, their station played college radio, aka Modern Rock.  I was lost. I didn’t get these tunes. At first, I thought about quitting, then in September of 1983, I stumbled across an unknown Welsh band, The Alarm.  

I slipped “68 Guns” onto the turntable, and my musical life changed forever. The song is filled with slick guitars and powerful rhythms, but the key was this long-haired Welshman belting out the killer vocals.  Mike Peters was it!  Raw, passionate vocals that made the listener take notice, and the lyrics were great.  I remember that moment in the dingy WUVT studio, and the power of that music as if it happened yesterday.  Mike Peters and The Alarm helped me slip into this new Modern Rock / New Wave world where I soon dug into their peers: REM, The Cure, Pretenders, etc…  I stuck with the DJ gig, and it made me a bunch of money, and directly led to me meeting my wife. 

The Alarm’s first album, Declaration was good, and I enjoyed it, but not enough to skip quarter beer night to drive a few hours to see the band play at another local college.  I rue that decision to this day. 

In my first interview with Peters, he shared that this performer who shared the mic in packed stadiums on stage with folks like Bono and Springsteen didn’t always have it that nice.  One of their early shows was booked in a bar where there were literally zero fans in the club.  “We played with all of our passion and played so loud that we lured people in from the bar next door.”  Those early days shaped his resolve and made him a better performer. 

The follow-up album, Strength pushed them deeper into my conscience.  The album showed the band zeroing in on what they were to become.  All of the songs were now co-written by Peters and bassist Eddie Macdonald.  The songs were consistently better, and Peters voice, and his lyrics were stellar. The tunes resonated with me and to this day. The theme of the album was perfect for a young adult trying to figure his way through life.  

Peters shared with me: “The theme of love, hope and strength was first written inside the Strength album.  That trilogy has always followed us around without us even realizing it was there from the beginning.  Those are the themes I’ve built my life around.  I’ve used them to guide my life decisions.”  

Love, Hope, Strength became a formal charitable entity in 2007. 

Strength is a Top 10 album on my lifetime list.  It was packed with all of the right songs and words, at the right time.  “Strength,” “Spirit of ’76”, “Absolute Reality” and “Walk Forever By My Side” were fantastic tracks that still stand the test of time.  I loved “Walk Forever By My Side,” and decided it was going to be the song I walked down the aisle to, if I ever found the right woman.  A few years later, with a girl I met while DJing, that dream came true, after she fell in love with The Alarm, too. 

When U2 performed their iconic shows at Red Rocks, The Alarm were on the bill.   

From Peters: “I was set to come out and sing “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” with them but bad weather changed all of that.  There was a quick break in the water, and they ran out to play their encore.  Edge grabbed my guitar, and that’s what you see in those famous clips.” 

The band continued to churn out albums, packed with rock anthems.  You know many of the songs: “Rain In the Summertime”, “Sold Me Down the River,” “Rescue Me…”  They were popular enough in America, but in the UK, they were huge.  They toured with U2, Queen, The Pretenders, Simple Minds, The Clash, etc… and sold out huge arenas, once playing in front of 70,000 fans in Wales.  But, then something shocking happened. 

Wrapping up a sold out 1991 show at Brixton Academy in London, Mike Peters took the stage and announced he was going to step down from the band that night and go out in a blaze of glory.  The shocked bandmates played “Blaze of Glory” and then walked off the stage forever. I asked Peters about that, and he shared that he did it for the band. No one was happy with the direction the band was moving, and they were all losing their passion to play together.  He focused his attention on his wife Jules and signed over his rights to the band. 

“I got into the band, not to lose myself or forget who I was. It was just an extension of my character, but it’s the people you fall in love with and who love you back. That’s who you are going to walk through life with.  The ones you love. It’s forever.”   

For the next ten years, Peters continued playing music as a solo artist, without much commercial success.  But, during this time, his marriage with wife of 39 years, Jules flourished, and they added two sons into their family.  It was also during this time that Peters discovered he had a rare, but treatable form of leukemia. It was a battle that lasted 30 years, and he vowed to push through it. 
 

Frustrated that the record business wasn’t interested in supporting middle aged rockers without a recognized past, Peters tried something wild.  He recorded a new song, “45 RPM” and then made-up a band name (The Poppy Fields). He hired some local lads to lip synch the song in a video, and… it took off. “45 RPM” cracked the Top 30 when the hoax was discovered and then petered out. But it proved his point about the music business. 

I met Peters for the first time shortly after that episode and loved chatting with him about it.  He wasn’t bitter at all, but rather amused by the whole thing.  He struck me as pragmatic and incredibly down to earth and likable.  In future meetings, I came to realize I was underestimating him. 

He continued delivering albums to fans. Modern music, packed with meaningful lyrics.  His albums Equals and Sigma were two favorites from the past decade.   

It was during that time frame, when I was sitting in a large press gathering for the Warped Tour.  Most of the press were young folk – primarily college age students, because founder Kevin Lyman was awesome at supporting young musical talent on stage and off.  Feeling slightly out of place, this fifty year-old dude found a spot off to the side in the back of the building.   

As the announcements were set to start, a long-haired, grizzled dude in a camo jacket sat next to me and introduced himself as Mike, with a Welsh accent.  We chatted about the festival a bit and listened to the press panel.  Something about him seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it until I saw his name plate on his jacket. “PETERS.”  I asked if he was THE Mike Peters and he smiled broadly.  He bought the camo jacket as a protective mechanism while touring in the US in 1995, when he first learned of his leukemia diagnosis. 

We hit it off smartly and I enjoyed our time together. I told him that my wife and I walked down the aisle to “Walk Forever By My Side,” and he smiled sheepishly and shared “Me, too.”  We moved to the performance room and watched a bunch of the preview sets together.  I even gave him a Vans baseball cap for his son.  Talking and hanging out with him just seemed natural.   

During the ensuing years, Mike and Jules started the Love, Hope, Strength foundation to raise money and awareness for cancer related causes.  They were hands on and deeply involved. And the foundation touched countless lives.  Peters took his misfortune and his battle and made it a positive for the rest of us.  That’s just the way he was wired.  

And I need to share that he was also a wonderfully charismatic performer.  One of my favorite concerts ever was a small show at The Social in Orlando in 2018.  Power problems greeted the band when they hit the stage.  I’ve seen more than a few bands sulk or storm off while issues were solved.  Not The Alarm. Not Mike Peters. “I know the fans wanted to hear our music, not to deal with our issues.” 

So, they took the stage and played a dialed down version of “Shout To the Devil” with copious amounts of chanting and participation from the crowd. Peters then slipped into an impromptu acoustic set including an amazing unaccompanied version of the tender “Unsafe Building.” He turned a major issue into one of the most memorable moments of my concert going life.  Truly legendary! 

I had two formal interviews with him later in our respective lives and we focused a bit on family, his health battles and legacy.  My wife helped with the last interview, and I just loved the way he asked about us and seemed to also care about our lives.  It was a sweet touch that I’ll never forget. 

On one tour through Orlando, we walked into the interview room to find his young boys unloading gear with the crew.  “It’s a chance for them to learn responsibility and some new skills and to contribute to the tour.”  His hazel eyes lit up with joy and he added, “And, I learn just as much from them.” 

He talked about two unexpected highlights from the tour. They both revolved around his boys: a trip to the Grand Canyon and a trip through the Painted Desert with Dad at the tour bus wheel and both kids next to him. 

It was also apparent that he adored his wife Jules, herself a cancer survivor and a member of the reformed Alarm. The two warriors were married for 39 years and seemed to love being around each other.  They were partners in life, music and their charitable endeavors.  Mike simply lit up when recalling singing “Walk Forever By My Side” to his bride. 

On his health battles: “I found that things that happen to you in life happen for a reason or purpose.  If you hit a roadblock, you need to pushback and find ways through it.  Think of being a river flowing through life.  The river always finds a way.  It doesn’t stop until it gets to the ocean.”  

He sincerely seemed to have found silver linings to all of his health challenges.  Mike Peters didn’t give up and succumb, he constantly fought through and made himself a better man.  That’s heroic. 

The last question I asked him was whether he ever thought of legacy.  How would he want to be remembered?  He sighed, took a deep breath and then smiled.  “Love, hope and strength.  That’s what I’ve always stood for, created and left behind in the world.”