Mike Peters of The Alarm Honoured

Mike Peters was awarded the 'Outstanding Contribution to Music' accolade at The Pop Factory Music Awards on Thursday 29th November, at the Grand Hall, Cardiff.

Mike received a standing ovation as he took to the stage to receive his award from the Head of the Pop Factory, Emyr Afan.
Emyr Afan also paid tribute to Mike's wife, Jules. A 3 minute video was shown, encapsulating Mike's career from the 1970's through to 2007. Mike was in good company with both the Stereophonics and the Manic St Preachers receiving awards.

The Pop Factory awards will be broadcast on Tues 4th December, 11pm on ITV Wales.

This year's winners are . . .

Contribution to Music – Mike Peters
Xfm Artist of the Year – The Wombats
Best Live Act – Funeral for a Friend
Best New Act – Kids in Glass Houses
Rock 'n' Roll Excess – Dirty Sanchez
Best Welsh Language Act – Sibrydion
Contribution to the Music Industry – Martin Hall
Best Album – Pull The Pin by Stereophonics
Best International Artist/Export – The Automatic
Best Live Event – The Full Ponty
Best Guestlist Performance – The Enemy
Best Band – Manic Street Preachers

Voiceover to 3 minute Mike Peters' video
Mike Peters is lead singer of Welsh Rock and Roll band The Alarm. He is also a two times cancer survivor and founder member of the Love Hope Strength Foundation. He can also lay claim to holding the record for the world's highest concert when in October 2007 he lead a team of world re-knowned musicians to perform a unique concert above base camp Mount Everest at 18,500 feet.

His music roots are in the punk soundclash of the late 1970's. In 1976, he stared into the eyes of Johnny Rotten at an early Sex Pistols show in Chester and was inspired to start his first band The Toilets. Throughout 1977, the band ripped into the UK punk scene supporting both The Clash and the Buzzcocks before imploding into the Alarm in 1981. The Alarm have since scored 17 UK top 50 singles a host of successful albums and millions of record sales worldwide.

A Welsh band first and foremost, The Alarm made their name in America in early 1983 opening for Bono and U2 on their 'War Tour'. The Alarm scored their first hit overseas with 'The Stand', before similar success followed in the UK with their signature tune 'Sixty Eight Guns'.

Throughout the Eighties, The Alarm stayed at the top of their game, playing to 25,000 fans at the first ever live satellite broadcast from Los Angles in 1986, they also appeared at Wembley Stadium, London with Queen and were the first ever Welsh band to perform at Cardiff Arms Park in 1987.

The Alarm continued to gain increasing critical and artistic success in the USA touring with rock and roll beat poet Bob Dylan. Dylan (who took his surname from Welsh poet Dylan Thomas), would often invite Welshman Mike Peters on stage to sing 'Knocking On Heavens Door'.

In late 1989, another rock legend, the one and only Neil Young also joined Mike Peters and the Alarm on stage in New York to sing 'Rockin' In The Freeworld'.

The Alarm continued to create challenging and inspiring music into the new decade with the timeless 'A New South Wales', sung with the Morriston Orpheus Male Voice Choir in both English and Welsh.

Released as a double A-side, the record was also the first ever Welsh language song to make the UK Top 40.

With the release of the subsequent album 'Change' / 'Newid', the Alarm provided inspiration to a whole generation of Welsh bands to adopt a bi-lingual approach to music, opening up a way forward to the many that have since followed in The Alarm's footsteps.

1991's 'Raw', was the last record to feature the original line-up of the band who played a final show at Brixton Academy in June 1991. Since then, the band's legacy has been continued by Mike Peters whose solo' career began with the release of 'Breathe' in 1994 (which debuted at number 5 in the U.K. independent charts).

A second album, 'Feel Free' documented Mike Peters' first battle with cancer (Non Hodgkins Lymphoma). Rejecting conventional treatment, Mike Peters continued to tour and went to see a faith healer instead. Upon being told that 'green' was a powerful colour in his life, Mike Peters wore green combat fatigues every day (off stage and on), until he eventually went into spontaneous remission in 1997.

In recent times, Mike Peters has not only had to fight for his life but fight equally hard to keep his band The Alarm as current and up to date as possible. In 2000 he put a new version of The Alarm together with his current musical cohorts James Stevenson (Gen X) on guitar, bass guitarist Craig Adams (Sisters Of Mercy / The Mission) and Steve Grantley (Stiff Little Fingers) on drums.

Beginning from less than zero, this new version of The Alarm has defied the odds and gone from strength to strength building a reputation for all out shows and confounding critics with new and challenging music. The seeds for this Alarm renaissance were sown in 2004 when The Alarm released the controversial '45 R.P.M.' under the pseudonym 'The Poppy Fields' which entered the UK charts at number 27 and immediately became the subject of an international news story.

The furor centered around the fact that The Alarm's identity had been kept hidden from the media and instead a stand-in group of 18 year old musicians appeared in the video.

'45 R.P.M.' was played extensively throughout the UK and was championed by unsuspecting DJ's and critics as the first release by a brand new band. It was only after the song entered the charts that Mike Peters and The Alarm revealed the true identity of 'The Poppy Fields', thus causing a storm of worldwide media speculation. The band even featured on prime time America's CBS News with Dan Rather.



The band's most most recent chart success came from the album 'Under Attack' which opened up with the incendiary hit single 'Superchannel' which went top 30 in February 2006.

Another darker dimension was added to this already emotive Alarm record when Mike Peters was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia (CLL), just before it's official release in December 2005.

Although devastated and reeling from the fact that he would have to undertake a heavy schedule of chemotherapy, Mike Peters vowed to carry out all his duties as front man of The Alarm.
In between monthly chemo sessions he played every show booked in the UK and even managed two trips to the USA including a very emotional and uplifting performance at The Joey Ramone Lymphoma Research Benefit Concert in New York City.
Whilst in New York Mike Peters received the news his family and Alarm fans worldwide had been hoping for when he was declared to be in remission.

Since then Mike Peters has formed his own cancer charity Love Hope Strength Foundation taking the fight against cancer to new heights. Throughout 2007, He has performed concerts on top of the Empire State Building, on the summit of Snowdon and more recently Everest Rocks, raising some £40,000 for local cancer centres in North Wales and over $250,000 for the Nepal Cancer Relief Society.

In 2008, Mike Peters will continue to lead the Alarm on the 'Counter Attack' with a new album and world wide tour. Love Hope and Strength.