Photo Credit Andy Labrow
Calling all Scottish Alarm fans! LOW TICKET WARNING ISSUED for The Alarm at Glasgow Garage on Saturday March 21st 2020. Don’t Delay – Get Your Tickets While You Can Here: bit.ly/32WdcMj
This is a night not to be missed as this will be The Alarm only Scottish show in 2020 – the 40th Anniversary of The Alarm.
Mike Peters of The Alarm took some time out from his busy schedule to answer some questions before the Sigma Tour and the run up to the 40th Anniversary Celebration of the band.
Mike Peters Interview with Scottish Music Network.
This year marks the 40th Anniversary of The Alarm, did you ever imagine that you would still be playing the Music of The Alarm 40 years on and still recording new material?
Mike: I can’t imagine what I was thinking when we were playing our first ever Alarm show on June 5th 1981 at the Royal Victoria Hotel in Prestatyn. If anything, it was all about getting through the gig and hoping the band would stay together long enough to make the first record (Unsafe Building), in Manchester. I’m pretty certain that’s still the philosophy today – to live in the moment and hope for tomorrow. As a cancer survivor of many years now, I literally walk out on to the stage and give my all as if it was the last concert I might ever play. That’s what is driving our 40th Anniversary celebrations – to make the most of every opportunity while we still can and to make sure all the creativity is realised.
Emotionally this must be landmark year for you, having toured with various artists over the years, what has been you biggest memory and achievement?
Mike: It’s quite something to look back on everything that has happened, good and bad, playing with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen etc.. It’s all part of what has made The Alarm a unique institution. I’m honoured to have been part of every single day of the band’s history, and am as excited about the future as I always have been. Biggest memories have come from 28 years of hosting The Gathering in Wales, and all the amazing shows from Barrowlands in Glasgow to the Paradise in Boston, Massachusetts and all points in between. The biggest achievement has been staying alive to see it all through.
If you had a chance to go back and do something differently what would this be?
Mike: To be honest, I don’t ever look back with regret or with the idea of changing things. I’m happy to be where I am and to be with people who care.
Over the last few years you have released two amazing albums Equals and Sigma, this has opened up a whole new world to the Alarm, how do you feel with the positive press and reviews these albums has gained?
Mike: It’s been inspiring to have positivity about the new music expressed so visibly. I have worked really hard to make The Alarm as relevant as possible, taking tough, sometimes brutal decisions and laying down huge challenges to myself, the band members and fans. “You can’t have output without input” as Joe Strummer used to say, and so I try to take in everything that is happening around me and filter it through my own musicality so that The Alarm’s music can speak for itself.
In the run up to the bands only live shows this year with the Sigma tour, what can the fans expect?
Mike: If this year’s Gathering was anything to go by then it’s going to be some tour. The Alarm has been on the road pretty much constantly through the release cycles of both Equals and Sigma, and I feel we are at our absolute best right now. There’s a freshness about our signature tunes that has come through having some truly great modern ‘Alarm’ songs in their midst. Everything has been given a new lease of life.
Over the last year you have being tour the Hurricane of Change around the UK and now you are taking it to the next level with bringing it to the Edinburgh Fringe. Was this always a plan you had looked at? What can the Fringe audience expect from the show?
Mike: I had absolutely no idea where The Stream {Hurricane of Change} project was going to take me. I knew I was potentially playing with fire by recreating and reimagining such a vast array of material taken from two much loved Alarm albums from the 1980’s. To see the music flower as If it were new material and take me into places like Edinburgh Fringe has been incredibly gratifying. It’s been described as a cross between The Who’s Quadrophenia and Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood which is pretty flattering, and to have been given the opportunity to play the songs and tell the story in a theatre style atmosphere of almost total silence, has created new concert experiences for even the most ardent and long standing Alarm fan. It’s allowed me to creature an atmosphere that is the complete opposite to the noise and the ritual that is inherent in an electric Alarm show but packs just as much emotional punch, if not more. There’s so much to be discovered in the narrative every time I perform the songs, and I’m really excited about where it can go in the future, especially in the setting of Edinburgh Fringe which will be packed with theatre goers and creative arts and music fans from all over the world.
Over the years you have ran marathons in the early years of The Alarm, climbed mountains all over the world supporting your Love Hope and Strength Charity, what is your biggest goal you have not achieved?
Mike: I have always wanted to hike Offa’s Dyke in Wales and now, with the 40th Anniversary of The Alarm, I have that opportunity. I’m really looking forward to hiking all 177 miles and literally linking the Alarm’s past to the future. From May 23rd to June 3rd 2021, I will be walking from the site of our first ever show in Prestatyn, to the 40th Anniversary concert at St. David’s Hall Cardiff which takes place on June 5th 2021. It’s a marathon undertaking for all concerned, and I’m hoping it will mark the beginning of the next forty years of Alarm history, so that I can then look forward to celebrating the band’s 80th Anniversary when I will be 102!!!!
With the 40th Anniversary show at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff now sold out well over a year in advance, will you be adding any other events around this event?
Mike: We are adding lots of other events around the world in 2021. We have plans for a show in the Arctic Circle, a cruise in the Caribbean and dates in the Americas, Australia, Japan, Asia and Europe. I’m hoping that by the time we play in the UK in 2022 The Alarm will have performed on all seven continents of the globe.
THE ALARM – Biography (2020)
The Alarm was made in Wales, UK and by the time of 1981’s debut single ‘Unsafe Building’, featured a daring mix of amped-up acoustic guitars, harmonica and passionate vocals that invited the enduring description “Bob Dylan meets The Clash”.
This is the sound of The Alarm that has been heard around the world ever since, with 17 Top 50 UK singles, a host of successful albums and over 6 million album sales worldwide.
Following an initial breakthrough in the USA with 1983’s ‘The Stand’ (that recently triggered over 2 million Spotify hits after featuring in the Netflix’ TV series ‘13 Reasons Why’), alongside the evergreen ‘Sixty Eight Guns’ that entered into the UK chart soon after, The Alarm headlined their own ‘Spirit of ’86 Concert’ before 26,000 fans in Los Angeles, that was beamed around the world via MTV’s first ever live global satellite broadcast.
In the summer of 1991, the demands of the road were at the heart of a very public swan song for the original members at London’s Brixton Academy, before the current line up re-emerged causing worldwide controversy in 2004 through The Poppy Fields ‘fake band’ escapade.
Released to conceal their true identity, the Alarm’s first single of the millennium – ’45 RPM’ would ultimately take their signature electro-acoustic sound back into the UK top 40 and even further into the mainstream rock culture of North America via a Headline News TV appearance with Dan Rather.
The Alarm’s return was halted almost immediately when, in late 2005, Mike Peters was diagnosed with an incurable cancer (A rare B-cell form of leukaemia), forcing the band into playing select shows, dictated by the chemotherapy / treatment regime that has kept Mike Peters alive ever since.
In January 2006, Mike Peters was given the go ahead to resume normal duties and the group continued with the release of ‘Under Attack’ and another Top 30 single – ‘Superchannel’.
A year later, Mike Peters founded Love Hope Strength – which is dedicated to ‘Saving Lives One Concert At A Time’ and can now lay claim to having registered over 250,000 individuals to the International Bone Marrow Donor Registry through its ‘Get On The List’ program in the UK / USA.
Despite travelling from relapse to remission and back (as documented by 2017’s award winning US Movie release – ‘Man In the Camo Jacket’), The Alarm family suffered another cruel blow, when Jules Peters (Keyboards), was diagnosed with Breast Cancer during filming of a BBC Documentary about the band. Broadcast nationally as ‘Mike and Jules – While We Still Have Time’, the raw footage touched many people’s lives and featured a moving tribute from Bono of U2.
In 2018, Mike Peters and The Alarm continued to be creative, releasing the critically acclaimed album Equals. In 2019, The Alarm released another new album Sigma (which entered the UK Rock charts at Number One), and their song ‘Rain In the Summertime’ was covered by both The Killers and Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan. Mike Peters services to cancer care were acknowledged with an MBE award at Buckingham Palace.
In 2021, Mike Peters and The Alarm will celebrate their 40th Anniversary 1981 – 2021 with a concert on June 5th 2021 at St. David’s Hall, Cardiff an event that Sold Out in minutes.
The story continues at www.thealarm.com
