The Alarm's Final Album Transformation - Jules Honors Mike Peters

0:04 Hi, you love done too far censure. Fore wow for you young. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with our next guest who we spoke a while ago and she is a lovely not only artist but person. And there's been some changes, but some good changes, a good transformation, because we have a new final album by the Alarm. So let's welcome to the show. Jules Peters, how are you?

0:46 Thank you for having me. It's a delight to be here. I love the name of the album and it's almost prophetic because a, I mean, we are going through transformations and world anyway. Okay, so it's like the perfect name for an album. But of course, you know, as we were talking about before, Mike has transformed to another level. I'll follow it. He's eternally remembered now. And yeah, I think what I would like to explain to everyone who is hearing about this Final Alarm album, I want them to understand that it's a really upbeat, positive album.

1:29 It's the album that Mike wrote, not as his swan. Song, because a lot of people possibly might think it's very much written as the song that he thought would lead him into the next stage of his life. He was undergoing a process a treatment called CARTI. Mike had been diagnosed with a very aggressive lymphoma called Richter's syndrome. Having lived for over thirty years with a blood cancer with leukemia chronic lymphacific leukemia. He was all set for a big eight week tour of America into Chicago, and he discovered this very large lump on his neck. And you know, we were used to discovering lumps, That's how he was originally diagnosed, so we weren't overtly alarmed if you liked by this development. However, within days the hospital recognized that this was probably something slightly more sinister, and once that was established, we were informed that we could not get on that planet America.

2:24 Mike tried to negotiate. His way out of it, because when he was originally diagnosed with leukemia in ninety five, the first thing he did was refusal treatment, and he jumped on a plane and we came. We flew into Boston, and we did a massive epic acoustic tool of the United States, which turned out to be the best thing he'd ever done, because he avoided having a stem cell transplant which is obviously can be very very traumatic, especially early on in life, and he avoided that, and he went into a spontaneous frumission, which is a whole other story. This time he thought it would just be exactly the same. Let me go to America. He pleaded with his doctors, let me go.

3:06 I don't want to disappoint the alarmed family. I don't want to disappoint the band and the crew. Let me go. And they said, Mike, this is a whole different ball going. This is called Richter's syndrome. It has two words when you google it, paul prognosis. If left untreated, you're dead in eight weeks. And that literally was the reality of it. So we had to cancel the tool. But Mike in that wonderful way Mike had of being extremely confident, very optimistic, never dwelling on the negative, always believing that if you carry on believing that you've got a chance for change, for positive change. And during that last year of his life he underwent some very grueling chemotherapy, and then of course that led into the month before his death of him having car Ti therapy. He had Carte therapy, by the way, which is far more popular in the United States than it is initially in the United Kingdom, and he had that because a stem cell transplant it failed.

4:09 He didn't have a stem cell transplant. He wasn't allowed to have a stem cell transplant because the minute they stopped giving my treatment, this deadly Richter's syndrome just bounced back. With a vengeance. So I will I will live forever in awe of how Mike managed to just stay calm. And I did go to him in a few months before he died, when he absolutely believed he was going to be fine, by the way, and I said, oh, darling, you know, how are you coping with all of this? And he just looked at me with big wide eyes. Rock and Roll prepared me for this. Rock and roll going through all the rejections and knocking on doors and going and playing gigs to one minutes over one thousand, next minute, just ten people. It built a certain kind of inner steel and resilience in Mike that he just never really afraid.

5:00 He certainly wasn't afraid of death. He believed in his doctors. And so it's bittersweet for sure, this album, but it's more sweet than it is bitter. And he wrote it totally free Transformation, because he believed he was transforming. He believed that he was transforming into a new life, a new chapter of his life where he would be cancer free thanks to Carti and he, you know, he grew up. He obviously supported Bob Dylan in nineteen eighty eight, the year that Mike and I got married, and he would see our best man is now Bob Dylan's right hand man, John Selwyn Edwards, and he has seen Bob Dylan's the same age as my dad.

5:42 He's still rocking. But my dad is still rocking. But I can't imagine being on a tour bus every minute, you know, walking out on stage and performing. I mean, Bob Dylan is incredible, whether you like him or not, the physical fact that he's out there rocking. And so Mike just saw himself in Bob. You know, he just was like, I'm going to spend the next part of my life. He loved being on tour in America. You know how much Mike loved America. He felt half American. I would say the American public game might the strength and the confidence when he was a young lad when he came over and he did. All these interviews. He loved going out and doing the interviews. Lots of British artists were more reticent and didn't introuge. Yeah, Mike and I thrived on your sort of mindset, positivity, give it a go, try, If you fail, it doesn't matter, pick yourself back up. We thrived on that, and so we kept coming. When we had our babies, we'd come in.

6:33 We'd always spend a month in la in Easter and a month in New York in July in the holidays, and so our children grew up with that American attitude, you know, and we feel really grateful for that, and I think so for Mike, it was just positivity, or it was if if your situation becomes bad and broken, don't sit there wallowing or complaining, do something about it. The guy that went to London in nineteen eighty to make it, and he'd written his songs and recorded them, and when he got there, not long after he'd been living there in South London, John Lennon was shot dead.

7:17 I remember that well because I lived in New Jersey when that happened. In New York. Wow, will you gosh, I'm incredible. Well, for Mike, it was a pivotal point in his life, as I'm sure it was for many that he was set on the tube. He saw everyone reading the broad sheets with Lennon is dad. All you heard was John Lennon music and Beatles music everywhere. And I really had my mic because in that moment he said, my songs aren't good enough when he started listening to all this incredible music. So you know what you did, He smashed it all. Now he closed everything up in London. He said to the rest of the band, we need to go back to North Wales. We need to go and get jobs, make some money, go and re record the songs, right, some new songs.

8:00 And that's what he did. And I think in your early twenties, that's a lot, isn't it, to smash it. Go back to hometown where you've got everyone that you grew up with, or you know, we all know what hometowns are, like our hometown. They loved Mike, but back then it was a bit like you know still, you know you still exactly, So I think to come home and brave it out, to restart, reboot. Mike was always able to do that, and so the last year of his life he crammed it. One day he was doing hardcolled chemo. The next day he was like, book me in the studio. I'm ready to go and record my vocals. And you know me as the muse and the mother and the wife, not the mother, me as the mus and the wife would be like.

8:44 Oh, you sure don't. Don't you think I should take you home? No, I'm going to be fine. I want because Mike was happiest when he was writing music, recording music, or performing music. Take Mike away from that and he wasn't as happy, but he was always an upbeat, positive guy. So I have a lot of. Comfort from the fact that Mike lived the last year of his life just as he always had them, with confidence, optimism, no fear, and he only had two days on this earth where he knew he was going to die, and it. Was such a shock to him. Bless him. He turned to me in the hospital and he said, oh, I feel like I've let you down. He didn't see it come in. I could see it come in a mile off. But for the first time in my life, I joke with him. I had to fake it. He wanted me to fake optimism and hope.

9:33 I knew the day you got diagnosed that he wasn't going to make it. I just knew instinct. So for the whole last year I just had to fake it with him and be upbeat and smile when inside my heart. Was absolutely breaking. So you know, just over it's over just over two years since Mike was diagnosed, but so for me, it's been extremely traumatic, and you know, I struggled to listen to the album. I think I said to you really with Mike had set these four shows. He called them the listening Party, where he was planning to present Transformation to his most ardent, loyal fans who would coming to our pub next door. This is where Mike did a lot of his recordings where I'm sat now having the interview, and he believed that he was.

10:18 Going to present the album. So he died in the last week of April. And in May, me and the kids and a record producer, we were all their face vent into this incredible audience of Alarm lovers and we just sobbed and cried and laughed our way through listening to this album. You know, it was the most hardcore, brutal grief therapy. So I don't think. There's ever been like an audience and a band over a death that have come together so quickly after a death, and we've just kind of carried on doing it. I'm lucky. I joke. Where I am is the village where Mike was born, is the village where Mike died, is the village where he lived, raised his children. And he's buried just opposite.

10:59 So every day I walk down here or drive down here. I only live a mile at the road. He's buried right there. We didn't even have the conversation of where he was going to be buried because guess what, he didn't think he was going to die, So I had all that to contend with, finding deciding what to do. You know, I knew it was going to be cremation. That was about it. But I'm happy to report and you can go and watch it. If anyone's listening to this, you can go and watch the funeral. Please go watch the funeral. It's a really positive watch. We got about twenty I didn't want one long, laborious eulogy. We all knew how incredible Might was. But what I wanted was like a really upbeat summary of his life. He was so much more than sixty eight guns or the stands.

11:42 That was a massive part of who he was. But he was, you know, he had ran his charity, he was a father, he was a great business many he loved, He was so many more things. He wrote walk for every boy his side. He did all these songs right up to his death. You know, he sun with choirs orchestras. So by getting twenty different people, it was like, I haven't done speed dating, but I guess it's what speed dating was like. Funeral eulogy speed dating. And they would come on one by one and a two minute. We had a politician. He talked about all of Mike's kind of political and charitable works, and it was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed his funeral. How weird is that? But I wanted to give him the best standoff. And I think, as you know, I'm not living my life through Mike at all. I've been with him since I was nineteen and now fifty nine. It's a long long time to live with. He was the most amazing, exciting man to be married too. He was kind, he was decent, He cared about other people, He cared about my mates.

12:45 He'd do anything for anyone. And that's why four thousand people attended his funeral, because he talked to everyone. He never took himself tea seriously, you know, he was humble. He spoke to the guy walking his dog on the other side of the street. So they all came out and we said to everyone, try to leave your car behind Hike for Mike. So on the Davis funeral, and I just said, come as you are, Nirvana style. Just wear whatever you want. If you want to dress fancy, dress fancy, if you want to just wear a T shirt and a long T shirt, do whatever the fuck you want. Just come and celebrate the great man. And so they came in over the mountains and down into our beautiful little village, you know. And I think that's how I'm busy.

13:26 You know, I've got the red, I've got here, I've got I'm a concert promoter. Me and Mike were always like punk rockers who've come up with an idea in the pub over a pike, But the next morning would be up and out and never lazy, always busy. And that is just how I'm continuing in my grief because that's how he want me to be. But I'm very determined. To preserve his legacy, to let the whole world know, you know, what an incredible guy he was, what incredible performer he was. And so we start really with Transformation. He was so proud of this album. He wanted me to get it out there to everybody. He was planning to tour the ass out. Of it across America. We were just going to hire a big tour bus and it was going to be him his ginormous pedal board, which he loved, where he would kick in his like fake band behind him. It would be completely free, totally free, with me maybe jumping on and playing a few keys.

14:23 You know. I was dragged in. To play keyboards in ninety one because I'd always played classical piano. But I was reluctant because I'm. Like, oh no, the Alarm Pands are going to kill me, you know, Yoko and Linda and my god, if you're not going to do it for that reason, I'm disappointed in you. So I was like, Okay, up for the challenge, and so I started playing keys from ninety one ninety two, and the Alarm Pands just generally embraced me. You know. So my best mates are Alarm fans. I grew up on tour, either on stage or in the audience. You know, i'd have tapped on your shoulder, Dean and said please, can you Well, you didn't do it so much in America, but in the U it was a bit more rowdy. Down the front, you know, And I loved.

15:03 Being in the moshpit, but I like being on people's shoulders, so I would just tap on people's shoulders, get yanked up onto the shoulders, and then pop up right in front of Mike and be almost eye to eye to surprise him. So, you know, I've been so fortunate to travel the world in a band since I was nineteen, and I when Mike died, I thought that that was going to be the end for me. And in a weird way, even before Mike died, I think I felt like I was maybe ready to hang at my suitcase. But the story continues because I've just come back from Scotland and my youngest ever is stepping into the shoes of Mike Peters and leading the Alarm, presenting the Alarm songs.

15:44 So I never thought I'd be saying this, but I've just been on the road of my son going out singing Alarm songs from nineteen eighty one right the way through to twenty twenty six. And it's insane, you know, it's and Evan is like the ultimately arm fun because his. First ever Alarm event was at. Three months old in New York when Mike's play gig on top of the Empire State Building. So Evan's got it in his DNA. It's insane. He sounds like Mike, he looks like Mike. I don't want him to live his life through Mike at all, but it's his decision. You know. He just wants to get on the road and play the songs. So we'll see see where that journey takes us.

16:27 Well, you know, all you're saying just proves that he was a true artist, because few things one is like I find an interviewing artists, the ones that are like truly the icons. They have no idea that they're a rock star, like because that's not what they set out to do. They just love music so much. And then you know, I think of Ozzy, you know, Ozzie, like he went out with a bang, because you know, I always used to say that if Ozzie ever stopped performing kept trying to get him to retire. I'm like, if you ever stopped performing, that would be it. It would be over, because that was who he was. And you know, it's the same thing here, Mike. That's who he was.

17:15 That's and music is the best therapy. Listen. You know it's funny you're talking about yeah, and it reminds me of a couple of stories. But like, same thing with me. Like sometimes I'll bring my daughter to festivals when I'm on tour covering the vessels, and she's like, Dad, I'll know how you do this Every weekend, I'm already done and it's like halfway through the first day, you know, but. I don't know how. I don't like it. Like even when I miss one, it's like I have this serious fomo that oh my god, I was supposed to be there and I'm not there. I missed it. And then you know, you're talking about you know how how uh you know, punk and metal and stuff like that was back in the day, and it was true because I lived in la and you know, I always wanted to come to England because that was the true punk scene.

18:05 But it was funny. I was doing the festival before download like I just did download before. That was at Milwaukee Metal Fest and this band played that their their show was just like things I remembered back in the day. And so I took a video and I sent it to my daughter and it was so funny because there were like all these stage divers and everything, and she's like, oh, is that how you knocked out all your front teeth. I'm like, yeah, except I climbed up on Marshall Stack in Swanda, so it was a little harrier, you know, And. But it is the best therapy. You get stuff out, like you and I have talked before about yeah.

18:48 Yeah, you when you analyze the gig, like I said, just four shows in Scotland in a week, but all of us, we fit all of us on in the touring party. There's a routine to it, build up and anticipation and we're all there gathering together and assembly of generally like minded people. It's the biggest buzz feeling life and I don't want to grow old and not have that feeling. And Mike didn't, you know, That's why he would have just kept and he did. He carried on performing right to the very end, and you know, for all of us music people that have grown out the way you would describe it. We just need to keep on doing that, keep on, like my dad likes to say, keep on rocking in the free world.

19:32 That's right, that's right. And even the song lived today Again, I could be prophetic, you could deem it as prophetic, but it is how Mike lived. It's how I think you are living right now, and I think it's. The way you should live. Like you never know, like I live life to force every single day because you never know. You're not promised tomorrow, you know, and might as well point. You know, I think obviously we're talking about grief in all of this that you know you can't there's no point in me getting sad, and I do. I obviously do, but I'm learning to. I'm learning to navigate it and control that feeling. If I see an old couple walking ahead of me, I get a flicker of that's not going to be me with Mike.

20:20 You know. It's a ridiculous you to have, but I'll admit I do have it. But I'm learning to go well. Like you just said, tomorrow is not a given. I might, I might, You know, my Breastcunser might come back in a few years. Who knows that we're all in the same boat. None of us know what's going to happen. And it's dead easy to say it, but you have got to try not to worry too much about what's going to happen in the future. And you know, I feel like I've been at the edge of the abyss. That's the only way you can describe it. The abyss when you the love of your life dies and you're with them. I held Mike's hand as he died. Yeah, I'll never ever recover from that, but I will always remember that I've had this big love. Thank God, I'm grieving so hard because it's just is demonstrative of the big love that I had. And if I wasn't feeling this annihilated, I think is the only way.

21:14 You know. In the morning, I'm annihilated. But give me twenty minutes, twenty five minutes and I start to flower and I head out across the threshold. Remember that I'm the lucky one to be able to breathe. You know that's micro song called Breathe. I breathe the air. I watched the sun rise and fall in twenty four hours. And when I'm feeling so fucking upset that he's not by my side, I give myself a bit of a slap. There's notssing wrong with the British stiff epolipication, a bit of resilience and a bit of I seem to be surrounded by a lot of men who were all in my team and you know, working on the alarm archive on the tour, and they're great. They're such good mentals to me. They allow me to be upset. I'm not saying to clamp down on your upset, not at all. I cry, and I scream, and I do lots of for fuck's sakes.

22:07 But they are also very good at just going right. Okay, they're quite pragmatic, quite have perspective. Okay, get back on the horse. Now, come on, let's keep going. No time for looking back and being sad onwards. Forwards we go, and I know that I survive much better by adopting that strategy. And there is an element if you've. Almost got to be an actress in your own life to get through this intense grief. I keep my eye firmly ahead on the horizon. I know I'm going to feel shit again tomorrow morning, but I know that it will get easier, it will get genller. Well it has You're doing this smart thing is like still living today punintended, you know, because that distracts you because if like that twenty five minutes. It's interesting to say that because I am a firm believer of like you know, as a very positive, motivational type person. That doesn't mean that you never get upset, you never get angry, you never get sad. It's how long you let it affect you and affect your life, okay, And so like I like when you say okay for twenty five minutes, because it's normal that you should. It would be abnormal if you didn't have some sadness, some grief. But then it's like pull up the bootstraps and let me do what I got to do to get through day.

23:31 And you know Mike's there with you through it day. I don't need peffy eyes to add to my woes. Exactly right, especially at this stage of life. As little of the puffiness in our eyes, the better. You know. And you know it is interesting too. It's all who you surround yourself with. Because we were talking about that before the interview. It's like, you know, people are are either supportive or they don't get it one or the other, you know, like or you know, like I've had scenarios where my own kids will be like, you know, they'll want you to be sadder, or they'll want you to be feel less healthy if you you know, if you've gone through stuff, and it's like it's like, no, that's what makes me feel live. Like I have one daughter and I she'll be like, are you sure you should be doing that?

24:27 Yes, I am absolutely sure I should be doing. That, Okay, because if I weren't, then I probably would have a heart attack, you know type of thing. And I don't with my lads, and my son's still in Levan, who run the business by the way, you know, when Evan isn't on tool, he's in he's like the food fighters. He's either onto or he's cheffing in the coffee shop. He cooks all right, So we all work together and live together. It's a beautiful thing. You know. I'm lucky. But they sometimes I'm like, oh, you seem to be dealing with the grief of your father extremely well. Yeah, it's almost like I have a moment of oh God, I'm not going to say the word jealousy because I don't get jealous.

25:09 I'm just like, how are you dealing with it so well? When I'm like grief stricken. And then we laugh and they're like, Mum, we're dealing with it so well because you've been a really good mum and you're managing as well so that we are not on the floor. We're staying confident and at like Dad is. And I'm like, yeah, that's why you are. I don't need to see them looking upset. They are generally plowing the way forwards. So yeah, it's like I said, we need to do a whole of the Grief podcast about death. And grief, no doubt, and how music helps too. Like when my grandson passed away, I got a call in the middle of the festival. I left for the funeral, dealt with that and then went back and it was the first time Slayer was playing in five years, and I went into the marsh pit and that's where I put my That's where I put my grief in the marsh pit, you know, like, you know, it doesn't mean you don't have other grief and stuff like that, but you need to have coping skills and distract yourself. And I think music is one of the best distractions you could ever have and best therapy you could ever have.

26:18 I think it's foot on leading. I think you could think about becoming a grief therapist, you know. I think you'd be quite good. Yeah, there and there you go. Well, like you said, you and I have to do like a grief bought podcast because there are a lot of people dealing with it nowadays, especially at our stage life. I feel like people are dropping like flies. Around me, you know, and then and then you have that realization of wait on that age too, Oh crap. I think really healthy because you know, when Mike was diagnosed with leukemia, I was only twenty nine and I all I wanted was to hear a little story, a little pick me up story about Oh, I know somebody who got diagnosed with in their theaties and guess what, they've gone on to live a great life.

27:03 It's going to be hard, it's not going to be easy. It's going to be non. Sugarcoated tough, but you'll get through it as all. If someone could have just said that to me, I'd be like, right, Okay, head down forwards we go. And it's the same with grief. You just told me about your friend. If we could our age group, the more we stay together, we keep stronger, and people will go. We have to accept that we're on this one way ticket and that from now on, like you just said, people are going to be dropping like flies. But not to be afraid. I get couples coming to me, bless them, come into the red and they see my story. You know. I joke that it's like someone came up beside me at the edge of the abyss gave me a big, almighty shove. I fell, like slow mo. This is our Mike's death into the abyss, trying to keep my head above water. Start swimming towards that shore or do you want to go swim into that shore? Do I even want to be you know, this is what you go through.

27:58 Do you want to even be here when you've lost a lover of your life? Well, of course I do, because I've got my children and I've got a lot to live for. But all those things go through your head in those first hard times of grief. But I've kept on swimming. I think I've pulled myself out of the abyss and I'm on the shore over on this other side without my whole new world for me. But I think what I'm finding because I'm so brutally open about what this journey is like, really to help myself, you know, from a selfish point of view. I write about it every day and then people come in and give me tips. But people are watching it behind me, following me, and they're knowing that at some point it's them or their partner.

28:44 We'll be going through it, hopefully when they're in the eighties. I hope for their sake. But I think I'm giving people hope that you've got to accept that we're not going to live forever. Just like Mike said, live today, we are all going to die, and if we have a try and have a healthier relationship with death, I do believe. You know, it's not there's so many religious people out there, but for my experience, you know, we don't really go to church much, and there are people that go to church, but you know, we bought the church from the congregation because the congregation dwindled. Just saying so you know, from my experience, I used to go to church when I was little then I stopped going to church, So suddenly you find yourself in the graveyard burying Mike. It's a massive shock. Whereas I think if we were all a bit more in churches each week, we were more in tune with death, weren't we years ago?

29:40 Whereas now I just completely step away from death. So when it does happen, it comes as an almighty shock for everybody. We're not prepared for it. But I think from a certain age, and I'm going to say sixty because I'm going to be six, I think from there on you need to just talk about it, maybe make a plan makes so you will is thoughted, say what you want, whether you want a funeral or you don't want a funeral, Just. Be a bit more open about it. You don't have to talk about it all the time. But I think you can enjoy the rest of your life when you just let it go a little bit and accept that we're not going to live forever, and for that point, just live your best life and step away from anyone that doesn't make you feel good. You don't have to be the same people pleaser.

30:25 That we all have to be a little bit when we're younger and we're trying to make it and you have to deal with assholes that you don't like. You'd rather just this, but path it's only get to our age. Okay, maybe you still have to do a bit people please and guess what, most of us want to just be nice people pleasers. But I would say, you know, from the age of sixty onwards, just if. People make it make you feel not the best. If they if you've walked away from that conversation and they're not making you feel like the best version of yourself, walk away, step away. Because at the end of the day, everybody does what they want to do, and we do spend our life people pleasing, and then you get to this stage and you realize, listen, I have to please myself. And I think that's what Lived Today also means. You know, that's the Transformation too, in my opinion, you know, stop being people pleaser and start.

31:18 Being a you pleaser. That's what comes down to me. Right. So you have another interview and I could talk to you forever, but now everybody has to check out the new album Transformation, and I have to tell you you have to check out the video because you know this video for Live Today where I was watching him, and you would never think that would be the final video. He had so much life in that video, and you know, kudos to him. He's an example to everybody of how not only you should live life, but how you should deal with things in life and always live for today.

32:04 And I thank I thank you for you know, during this hard time, to keep this legacy going and to talk here about it because one of the best artists and bands of all time and it will not only live today but will live forever. And I thank you for that. And thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man once again. Oh thank you so much for having me. Thanks to everyone for listening. We will be back. I haven't been to America for two years, so that's part of my life, so I'll be back, hopefully with you. Evan Peter's spreading the word of the alarm. So thanks for listening, and thanks for caring and loving Mike. That's helping us more than you'll ever know.

32:50 Thank you, thank you, and I can't wait until you're hearing the stays. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipment on w for CUI Radio.