Mike Peters obituary
Frontman and songwriter of the Alarm, the Welsh rock group with devoted fans around the world
Emerging in the post-punk era at the start of the 1980s, the Welsh rock group the Alarm came to embody an almost evangelical belief in the power of rock’n’roll that won them hordes of devoted fans around the world. Mike Peters, who has died aged 66 from blood cancer, was a tireless and inspiring frontman and songwriter for the group, always ready to expound the virtues of faith, belief and perseverance.
The group’s concert performances were ecstatic communal celebrations between band and audience, especially in songs such as the anthemic Blaze of Glory or the Clash-like air-puncher Sixty Eight Guns (1983). At MTV’s Spirit of ’86 concert, the Alarm played to 25,000 fans at UCLA in California in a performance beamed live around the world by satellite.
However, the group’s crowd-pulling appeal never quite translated into massive record sales, with Sixty Eight Guns giving them their highest-charting single in the UK, reaching No 17 in 1983. Their debut album, Declaration (1984), on which Sixty Eight Guns featured, reached No 6 on the UK chart (and 50 in the US). Subsequent album releases Strength (1985), Eye of the Hurricane (1987) and Change (1989) all reached the UK Top 30. Strength also gave them their highest US chart position when it reached No 39, while the album’s title track reached 12 on the US Mainstream Rock chart. In 1987 they scored a No 6 hit on the same chart with the electronica-flavoured Rain in the Summertime, and reached No 2 the following year with Sold Me Down the River.
What would become the Alarm began in 1977 as the Rhyl-based punk band the Toilets, inspired by Peters seeing the Sex Pistols perform. The band name evolved into Seventeen, then Alarm Alarm, and finally the Alarm, the line-up comprising Peters alongside guitarist Dave Sharp, bass player Eddie Macdonald and drummer Nigel Twist, and they played their debut gig at the Victoria hotel, Prestatyn, on 6 June 1981. In September that year they moved to London.
They acquired a manager, U2’s agent Ian Wilson, which earned the Alarm a support slot with U2 at the Lyceum in December 1981. The next year they signed with I.R.S. records and played further shows with U2, with Bono also joining the Alarm on stage. The two groups shared a Celtic heritage as well as religious faith, with Peters’s Christian beliefs reflected in lyrics of songs such as The Stand or Shout to the Devil.
In 1983 the Alarm went to the US supporting U2 on their War tour, a visit that successfully launched them in the States. The following year they supported the Pretenders on their stateside Learning to Crawl tour, and in 1986 they supported Queen at two Wembley Stadium concerts. In 1988 they toured the US and Canada supporting Bob Dylan.
The Alarm split up in 1991 after Peters announced his departure following a gig at Brixton Academy in south London, though the group would be revived in the new millennium. In 1995 he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The following year he had made a recovery and was able to tour and record again, but in 2005 was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.
Two years later, Peters founded the cancer charity Love Hope Strength Foundation with an American businessman, James Chippendale, and with assistance from his wife, Jules Jones. In one of many bold endeavours, in October 2007 he trekked to the Mount Everest base camp and performed with musicians including Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze and Slim Jim Phantom from the Stray Cats, to raise money and awareness.
Born in Prestatyn in Denbighshire, Mike grew up in Rhyl. His childhood friend Kevin Davies described how they both attended Christchurch primary school and played in the football team: “Mike lived at the Crescent public house on Edward Henry Street. My family owned The Crescent Egg Packing Station … and we used to play footie in the yard and Subbuteo in one of the buildings.” Some of these recollections would feature in the lyrics of Peters’s song Edward Henry Street (2003).
Mike met Jules in 1986, when back in Rhyl after touring with Queen. Mike said: “I was back home and kept bumping into her – but whenever I did it was like electricity. I needed another fix.” They became engaged a week later, and married in 1988.
After leaving the band, Peters released his first solo album, Breathe, in 1995. It was the first of a string of frequently live and acoustic releases including new material as well as songs from all stages of his career. On Rise (1998) he experimented with drum machines and various studio effects. In 1999 he formed Coloursound with Billy Duffy from the Cult, and they recorded an eponymous studio album.
In 2001 he toured with Dead Men Walking, a British supergroup consisting of fellow veterans Pete Wylie from Wah!, the former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock, Kirk Brandon from Spear of Destiny and Captain Sensible from the Damned. From 2011 for two years, Peters was lead vocalist of the Scottish band Big Country (their original frontman, Stuart Adamson, died in 2001), and appeared on their album The Journey.
Peters also revived the Alarm name, although he recruited new musicians to replace the original band members, including members of Stiff Little Fingers, the Cult and the Sisters of Mercy, and Jules on keyboards. He would record 16 new Alarm albums between 2002 and 2023, under the band name the Alarm MM++, using Roman numerals to indicate album release dates. In 2004, they had notched up a Top 30 hit with 45RPM, a blast of punk energy that they released under the pseudonym the Poppy Fields. Peters assumed they would be written off as has-beens if it had been released by the Alarm. He explained: “I’m 44 but I’m writing new songs as fresh and as vibrant as anything I’ve ever done. In Britain … if you’re over 35 you’re dismissed as over the hill.”
Sara Sugarman’s 2012 film Vinyl was based on the story of Peters and the Alarm, and starred Phil Daniels as Johnny Jones, an old punk-rocker trying to make a comeback. In 2017 BBC One Wales aired the film Mike and Jules: While We Still Have Time, which documented each of their experiences with cancer.
After several years in remission, in 2024 Peters was found to have developed Richter’s syndrome (an aggressive form of lymphoma).
He is survived by Jules and their sons, Dylan and Evan.
• Michael Leslie Peters, musician, singer and songwriter, born 25 February 1959; died 29 April 2025