The Alarm’s Mike Peters (1959-2025): The musician who just happened to be a Christian

Mike Peters, lead singer with The Alarm died this week, aged 66.

He came to fame in the early 1980s as the band’s charismatic frontman, and has more recently been known for his charity work, raising funds for fighting cancer, the disease to which he eventually succumbed.

The Alarm were very much entwined with U2, and Peters could be described as Bono-lite: both were from the Celtic edges of Britain (which very much affected their music); both started in punk and both led their bands. They shared at times an agent, stages and fans; and they were both motivated by promoting causes and making a positive difference, outside of as well as through their music.

Music

Inspired by seeing The Sex Pistols in Chester, Prestatyn-born Peters formed the band’s original line-up in 1977, four years before their first show, when they called themselves The Toilets. With great prescience, Peters must have realised that this was not a name to help them break America – which was something The Alarm did achieve, being the first Welsh act to do so since Tom Jones and Bonnie Tyler.

His propensity for co-writing anthems gave them their first hit single ‘Sixty eight guns,’ from their debut album Declaration, which also produced the set-closing ‘Blaze of glory’. 

But the album that probably stands the test of time best of all is the 1989 Tony Visconti-produced Change. The energy is still there – most of the tracks have air-punching moments – but the set has an added maturity and is full of very strong tunes, including the lead single ‘Sold me down the river’, which put them on America’s Billboard Hot 100.The album was another example of the band celebrating their Welsh identity, with a Welsh-language version called Newid and the track ‘A new South Wales’ featuring both the Welsh Symphony Orchestra and the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir.

Peters quit the band in 1991, but was always keen to keep writing music to the end, rather than “dying on the vine,” and released an array of albums, compilations and tracks right up to this year. Transformation, a new album, was recorded in January and is due to be released in June 2025.

Faith

Peters came to faith in 1981 after re-thinking his own lyrical ideas. Having penned a “naïve” anti-church song called ‘Shout to the devil’ (the first track they played at their first gig as The Alarm), he realised that he didn’t really know much about faith and began his own research. After reading a book about Jesus, the light came on and he began to make his stand.

He objected to the way that music is often used by the Church, not least when he experienced Christian music in America, and preferred to be one of the many quality artists who sees themselves as musicians who are Christians, rather than Christian musicians. It doesn’t take much to spot the faith references and attitudes in his songs from early on, such as ‘The stand (Prophecy)’ – inspired by the eponymous Stephen King novel – and ‘Higher call,’ as well as covering Prince’s ‘The cross’. He has since re-written the lyrics to ‘Shout to the devil’.

Peters’ faith and music have come together with several appearances at the Greenbelt Festival, both as a band and solo.

Cancer

There is also a psalm-like tone to many of his songs, not surprising, given the deprivation in his homeland and that he battled cancer for almost half of his life. He was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1995 and ten years later found that he had chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, which returned in 2015 before he went into remission. As he was about to fly out for a 50-date American tour last year, a lump on his neck proved to indicate a more aggressive form of lymphoma.

With his wife of 39 years, Jules, he co-founded the Love Hope Strength foundation to help the fight the disease. In 2007, he trekked to the Everest base camp to perform the highest concert on land to raise both money and awareness. He had recently been undergoing treatment at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester and taking part in a clinical trial in the hope of finding new ways to treat aggressive lymphoma.

Mike Peters lived in north Wales with his wife, Jules - who has fought her own cancer battle - and their sons Dylan, 20 and Evan, 18. He was awarded the MBE in 2019 for his services to cancer care.