Mike Peters, singer for Welsh rockers the Alarm, dead at 66 after cancer battle

Mike Peters, the vocalist for the Welsh stone radical the Alarm, has died. He was 66.

Peters died of cancer, which helium had battled publically arsenic an activistic and fundraiser for treatments. Peters lived with lymphoma and, later, chronic lymphocytic leukemia. His decease was archetypal announced successful a connection from his set and his charitable foundation.

The Alarm formed successful 1981 successful Rhyl, Denbighshire, emerging aft the U.K. punk question of the precocious ‘70s with a much hook-driven, approachable but fiery dependable that won acclaim successful the U.K. and abroad. The Alarm sold millions of records and joined a tiny database of Welsh acts, including Tom Jones and Bonnie Tyler, to find worldwide fame.

Singles similar “The Stand,” “Sixty Eight Guns,” “Blaze of Glory” and “Rain successful the Summertime” embodied the band’s rousing songwriting. And the radical became a favourite opener for stadium-rock acts of the ‘80s including Queen and U2, whose 1983 circuit introduced the Alarm to the United States.

The band, arrogant of its Welsh heritage, successful 1989 released “Newid,” a Welsh-language mentation of its 1989 medium “Change.” Peters discontinue the radical successful 1991 and performed with his woman Jules — who besides fought her ain crab — successful the Poets of Justice (he besides concisely fronted the Scottish enactment Big Country). He reunited the Alarm successful 2000 and deed the U.K. charts successful 2004 when, successful a clandestine stunt, helium wrote and recorded a azygous arsenic a fictional teenage punk band, the Poppy Fields. The prank inspired a 2013 diagnostic film, “Vinyl.”

Peters was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma successful 1995 and spent 2 decades undergoing intensive treatment. In 2005, helium was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, which returned successful 2015.

With his wife, helium co-founded the Love Hope Strength Foundation, which helped enlistee bony marrow donors astatine unrecorded concerts. He performed successful unconventional locations to rise wealth for the charity, including Mt. Kilimanjaro and “Big Busk” walking concerts betwixt crab wards successful Wales. Acts including Bono, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young joined him onstage for foundation events, and successful 2019 helium was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his crab activism.

Peters changeable a documentary, “While We Still Have Time,” astir his and his wife’s crab battles. This twelvemonth helium fell sick with a recurrence of Richter’s syndrome — an particularly unsafe signifier of lymphoma.

Peters is survived by his woman and their children, Dylan and Evan.