The word ‘indomitable’ comes to mind when speaking to Mike Peters. After The Alarm star, 64, returned from tour in April 2022, he was diagnosed with pneumonia. The leukaemia he’s battled for decades had come back with life-threatening vengeance, and his drug treatment was no longer working. He spent most of that year either in hospital or at home recovering, and then – coming back from the brink – he thought he’d lost his voice forever. But with a successful new drug regimen (and his relentlessly positive attitude), Peters is coming back strong with spirited new Alarm album Forwards, and acoustic shows too.
How are you feeling right now, in this moment?
I feel really good. The new drugs are working better than anyone could have hoped for. I’m on the highest dose you can imagine. It took me a long time to get weaned onto it, but ever since then it’s been working fantastically well. And I can sing much better on the new drugs, too.
You’ve been through the wringer yet again, so when did you find time to work on Forwards?
I actually started writing some of the songs while I was in hospital. I had a drain coming out of my back, releasing the blood that had filled my lung, so I could only lie on one side, for hours on end, for ten days non-stop. I could have half an hour between IV sessions when I could sit up. I knew I was going to be in for a long time, so I had the guitar there. I’d strum a few chords and then it was: “Right, Mike, you’ve got to get back on your side, down you go.”
As an artist and musician, you must have relied on your musical imagination to keep you sane.
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Bright Sparks - Undertakers, band managers and museum workers by day, pop-charged rockers by night, The Hot Damn! are a gang you'd want to join.
Gill Montgomery has come straight from the mortuary. Her mortuary, to be precise. Some rockers wait tables, others teach music or pick up temp work. The Hot Damn! frontwoman looks after dead people.“It’s interesting,” she muses, of her day job running a funeral home in South East London. “It’s very hands-on. I think you’re either for it or you’re not.”
Motörhead
“Once we'd cracked the formula of how to work together on Overkill,\" said Eddie Clarke, that's when we really started to take off.” And it was all thanks to Phil Taylor's new drum kit.
LET'S DANCE
Dialling back on the aggressive approach that has helped bring Idles this far, and putting swing to the stomp, their new album is intended to make you shake a leg rather than a fist
Steve Hackett
The former Genesis guitarist’s latest themed’ tour enables him to visit the best of both worlds”.
Monster Magnet
“It's all-energy. It's rock excitement, psychedelic glory and space-rock hooks.” Sounds good to us!
MADE FRIENDS.INFLUENCED PEOPLE
In the 90s they were high flyers, then the fall hit them hard. Having picked themselves up, Terrorvision are back with their first new album in more than a decade, and it’s full of top tunes.
DON'T FENCE US IN
Embracing their roots on record for the first time, Don't call us southern” band The Cold Stares’ seventh album is both a love letter to Kentucky and a Call for unity in volatile times.
"I JUST WANTED TO BE RESPECTED FOR BEING IN A KICKASS BAND."
1976 was a pivotal year for Thin Lizzy. Guitarist Scott Gorham, one half of the band's classic twin-guitar sound, takes a trip down memory lane to the year that was...
Jerry Cantrell
The Alice In Chains guitarist on his forthcoming album and its guests, songwriting, AT, algorithm bots, AIC’s legacy...
THROUGH THICK AND THIN
In 1976, Thin Lizzy were touring Jailbreak in the US and were breaking big. Then disaster struck. Band manager Chris O'Donnell details the roller-coaster year in which they were cruelly robbed of their American dream.
