Owen Money Show (also present Simon Weston – War veteran)
BBC Radio Wales Broadcast June 1999
Audio Link – Audio of original 1 hour 46 minute interview and songs can be heard here.
(Transcribed from the original radio broadcast by S J Henry)

Mike:   …. must be about 200 bars, all in a row
Owen: Fantastic place.
Mike: And every bar has to maybe 5 or 6 live bands on. So you know.. 
Owen: Oh, there were bands in them?  I went in the bar. I didn’t know about the bands. (Laughter)
Simon:  Did they say anything about the state you were in? That’s the problem?
Owen: What in Texas? (Laughter)
Simon:  Alright, yeah, clever.
Owen: No, I tell you what, it’s a great place.
Mike: Well, they bill it as the live music capital of the world.
Owen: And it certainly is, I think it’s great, absolutely wonderful. Now I’m going to ask you to go and get ready for a second to play some music, it’s just you on the microphone today and the guitar today….. and Mike Peters who is going to sing his first song for us now, what’s the first one?
Mike: I thought I’d start with the song I sang on the other night, on Wednesday at the Voices of the Nation, so it’s A New South Wales with new lyrics and it’s entitled A New Wales.
Owen: Lovely, let’s do it.

Mike performs an acoustic version of A New Wales

Owen: Oh, fantastic, fantastic. Mike Peters there singing live in the studio there A New Wales. That you did originally with the Morriston Orpheus of course.
Mike: Yeah, that’s right, and it was really great to team up with them again on Voices of the Nation and see the guys.   mean, they haven’t changed a bit, it’s funny, it’s around about 10 years since we first did it so it was quite an emotional coming together, it was great.
Owen: They still run for the bar, don’t they?
Mike: They certainly do, yeah.  I’ve actually got this great tape of the recording session when we actually made one of the records, we actually bought all choir a whole set of beer, they dished out these all these cans and the tapes are still rolling and all you can hear this great sound, they all open their cans in unison. (Laughter) It’s absolutely brilliant.
Owen: My last album is called ‘Made in Wales’ and the title track I got the Morriston Rugby Club Choir out there, and I can honestly say they sing better than they can play rugby.  Come and join us again.
Mike: OK

Owen then went on to interview Simon Weston about the current Kosovan war and the impact between once friendly neighbours burning each other’s houses/killing/raping. Unexploded bombs and landmines.

Owen: What are your thoughts on this Mike?  Y’know, as a song writer, a creative person perhaps, y’know?
Mike: I think it’s very hard to get at what’s really going on, because obviously as Simon, has a professional view on the situation and can take in a lot more. Whereas when you are a member of the general public and you’ve never been in a conflict or a combat situation, I think it’s very hard to get a handle on it, and y’know we are bombarded with so much information. And you know that something is going on wrong there but you don’t, it’s very hard to comment and try to find the solution, and as people look at bands y’know, there’s a lot goes on behind the scenes that people don’t know as well. I think we do, y’know, as now our society has become a lot more educated with news and media and I think we are all trying to grasp at the truth a lot closer than we were years and years ago and it’s very hard to make an informed opinion.
Owen: Well, y’know my father was in Germany when the first bulletwas fired, he was back her when the second was fired.  (Laughter). Bit of a laugh at the end of that conversation, am I right? ….. 
Chats to a caller named Daphne,.Peter, I mean Mike, I want to call you Peter
Mike: That’s alright, don’t worry.
Owen: Mike, I’ve got to tell you, this lady knows more about music than a lot of people.  Do you remember The Alarm Daphne?  Der geriler. That’s great, thanks for that, you’ve ruined that for me now.
Mike: We had a song called Didililer actually.  (Laughter)
Owen: Well done, I remember that one very well.
Mike: Well that’s what they thought it sounded like anyway.
Owen: Now Daphne’s from the West Midlands, now these were the first big Welsh band ever to make it you see, from North Wales.
Mike: I think Man could lay the claim for that before us.
Owen:  I was a member of Man before they came Man, you didn’t know that did you?

Trailer for recent concert ‘Voice of the Nation’ (celebration of opening of Welsh Assembly) at Cardiff Bay plays. 

Owen: Yes, and one of the men that started that show is sitting right opposite me, Mike Peters.  Ah, I was kind of out of the country when this was on, was it a nice evening?  Was the weather good?
Mike: It was a beautiful evening. It really was a special night and eh…
Owen: Everyone did just one song or one performance?
Mike: That’s right, yeah. There must’ve been about 30 or 40 people that put in their song on the night.  And I think everyone entered into the spirit of it. There was a great atmosphere backstage.
Owen: I was going to say, the camaraderie backstage must’ve been great.
Mike: It was really superb, and everyone was wishing each other well and of course the big football match was going on, Man United. People crammed around TV’s and all that, it was superb, it was a really charged atmosphere and Michael Bogdanov the producer did a fantastic job of putting it together and he needs to be applauded for that.

Owen: Now you originated from a band called The Toilets, you could say a bog-standard punk band really, weren’t they? It was in Rhyl many years ago. (Laughter).
Mike: We’re flushed with success.
Owen: We could go on
Mike: Yeah, we could go, it could go down
Owen: Changing into a mod band called Seventeen.
Mike: That’s right, yeah.
Owen: Who then became The Alarm.
Mike: That’s right.
Owen: In 1981. Y’know we’ve talked about Man and Love Sculpture, there was a long gap between Man and Love Sculpture, and Man really didn’t make the charts, so The Alarm really did fly the flag for Wales and music for quite a long time.
Mike: Yeah, at the time, there was really not much had come out of Wales.  There was a lot of great music in Wales but a lot of it was directed and was portrayed in the Welsh language, which meant it could only really be heard locally.  And as The Alarm, we were very aware of our place in the world as coming from Wales and portraying our Welshness really helped in America and Japan and places like that, and er it was very important to us to be a Welsh band as it gave us an identity and I think, it’s strange, cos at first when we were growing up we felt a little bit isolated and trapped in Wales, we were all, our music was fuelled with the energy to get out of Wales, but then as we started to find our feet in the world and we started to get some success and be recognised then I think we started to sort of swim back up river really and started to learn about Wales and realised that everything we could ever want in the world was right there were we initially started.
Owen: You know we’ve got quite some successful Welsh bands.  Don’t you feel that if The Alarm came on the scene now, they would’ve had a bigger impact than they did in 1981?  In as much as the chart success that you had, although you had many songs in the charts, y’know, the Top 20 on one occasion was the only one of some fantastic songs really.  Because we are on the crest of wave in Wales really.
Mike: Yeah, that’s right yeah. But that’s only true, that’s only something that’s happened in Britain really.  I think what’s happening, radio terms in Britain, the flagship stations of the country, for Britain anyway, is Radio 1 and they’ve changed their music policy.  Whereas when The Alarm came out, we were competing with everything y’know, The Beatles music was still there, Phil Collins, Status Quo and complete pop, y’know teeny bop pop was on the radio so there was less space.  Whereas now, there’s much more of a tighter demograph really. It’s harder to get on Radio 1 unless you are under 25 and singing a certain way. But the difference for The Alarm was we found international success, we became big in America, and Europe and Japan, and a lot of bands today find great difficulty in breaking out of the British Isles and it’s a shame as there’s some fantastic bands in Britain as well as in Wales that aren’t being heard abroad and I hope that that’s the next challenge.  Because a lot of the Welsh bands today had some roots in the Welsh language scene and then they’ve become bilingual or totally English in some cases, but they were able to project their voice on a much further and wider field and I hope that the challenge now is to make music that can be heard on an international basis and help to spread and to project the image of Wales as a dynamic culture which is really is.

Owen: Well, I think that’s a great philosophy and I hope that’s the way it will work as you mentioned America there and The Alarm were very very big in America.
Mike:  That’s right, yeah.
Owen: Very big.
Mike: We were very lucky because we went to America before we’d made it in Britain and we’d never had any success of any real standing in the UK.  We’d never been in the music papers; we were fortunate enough that we’d signed to a record label that was an American based company that was trying to create a foothold in the UK and they saw the possibility of potential for the band in America.  It was a label that was written by Miles Copeland, and he’d broken The Police in America, and he’d took them over to America when they were unknown, put them in a van, people were charmed, they loved the music and they broke and they eventually broke back in their home town. So, it’s a similar story, Miles kind of applied the same dynamic, we went to America, we toured with U2, the press there were not, had not been hyped on the band, they were seeing us live in the flesh and they all fell in love with us. 
Owen: That’s great.
Mike: And then it was, y’know, then the success started to come in Britain and we were actually in America when we’d found out we’d got on Top of the Pops for the first time and we were travelling along the road in our tour bus and we’d broken down and the record company couldn’t get hold of us and we had to give an answer quick, whether we fly back and we actually got stopped by a traffic cop and we thought we were being stopped for speeding or something and then he comes on the bus and goes ‘hey you guys, I’ve got some message from some guys in Britain, you’re wanted back in Britain to do Top of the Pops’. (Laughter) You can imagine what it was like on the tour bus can’t you.
Owen: Oh dear, did you come back to do it?
Mike: Yeah we did, we flew home and the weird thing was as well was we’d flown back overnight and had to cancel two shows so that we could get back in time to continue the American tour.  We flew into London, went to the studios and did Top of the Pops, Simon Bates introduced us that night and he said ‘they’ve just flown in from America, The Alarm’.  And we went on TV and for years after that people thought we were American.  (Laughter) We’re from Wales.

Owen: That’s Mike Peters with me and Simon Weston…. Mike Peters is our live guest in the studio today and singing next, what’s next Mike?
Mike: Seeing as we’ve just been talking about The Alarm I thought I’d play an Alarm song, how’s that?
Owen: Great, what song’s this?
Mike: It’s called Spirit of ‘76
Owen: Spirit of ’76, here we go

Mike performs an acoustic version of Spirit of ‘76

Owen: Ah, a song that was a hit for The Alarm in January of 1986.  Spirit of ’76, that must’ve been inspired by a happening in ’76 maybe?
Mike: Yeah, I suppose it came about from really my own formulative musical starting point really which was seeing The Sex Pistols.  I saw The Sex Pistols in Chester in 1976 and er it was a really inspirational moment that changed my life really, I walked in one way and came out another.  (Laughter)
Owen: Mike Peters with me and Simon Weston, so Simon…….. but we have to have one more song from Mr Peters himself, the final song before the news, what’s this then Mike?
Mike: Well, y’know we’ve just covered The Alarm with the last song so thought I’d bring you right up to date and do a song from my most recent solo album, it’s the title song and it’s called Rise.
Owen: Rise, this is Mike Peters with Rise.

Mike performs an acoustic version of Rise

Owen: Mike Peters there, great, that was fantastic.  That’s a really good song.  Have you recorded that, Mike?
Mike: Yes, that’s part of the latest record that’s just come out, it’s the title song actually.
Owen: Great song, that’s a really good song.
Mike: Thank you, it’s been a very well received record, the best I’ve ever had.
Owen: Is it going to come out as a single?
Mike: Eh, I don’t know that it will come out as a single but it’s part of an album that’s been out for y’know, it came out last year and it’s been received brilliantly all over the world.  It’s one of those records that’s still floating around and people are discovering it every day and it’s been a great record for me and it’s really brought my voice and new music to a whole new audience.
Owen: Oh that’s great, we both enjoyed it, didn’t we Simon?
Simon: I did, it was wonderful. It was a good song.
Owen: You’re into music…… (talks about music with Simon, talks about Buddy Holly, Mike confirms he likes Buddy Holly too)……  …. Mike, Mike Peters and Simon Weston are here with me on BBC Radio Wales and we are asking you to give us a ring, anybody on Mike Peters website can give us a ring if they can and anywhere in the world, I suppose Mike?
Mike: Yeah, that’s right, people tune into our website from all over the globe.
Owen: Don’t reverse the charge though! (Laughter)

Mike: …will have a heart attack
Owen: So you can get in touch with Mike Peters here on BBC Radio Wales and chat to him live on the air, we’ve got some more live music from Mike….  ….We were just talking about inspirations, it’s like near side on to Mike Peters here, bombarding him with questions but it’s true though y’know, how to create a song must be very skilful thing to do Mike, y’know.
Mike: I think the skill comes in finishing it off but it’s having the inspiration is everything really with the song. If you’ve got a good beginning, if you’ve got a good hook line, then you can flesh it out then and it’s being in a position to be inspired.
Owen: By every day happenings?
Mike: Yeah, that’s right, it is.  Someone says a phrase to you and that starts it off and whack it all comes together in those flashes of inspiration.

Owen: We were chatting about The Alarm, how a clean-living band they were, (Mike laughs) in a time when punk was about, and you know but, there was a no drugs policy and you didn’t drink, well, yourself didn’t drink when you were on tour.
Mike: No, I had to look after my voice and y’know we were serious about being in a band, y’know, although we wanted it to last as long as it would be there and we wanted to enjoy it, y’know, that was the main thing.  I suppose it came from the community where we lived, we’d drink as much as anyone and partying but we didn’t want to abuse the situation we were in and I’m proud of the band that we never really took advantage of the fans and the kind of situations that arise, I think we were responsible enough that people would see the gigs and come back stage and they’d be all excited and fired up and wanting to channel this energy and I think we were all four members of the band were responsible, and the crew, we had a great road crew.  I mean Gaz Top who works on Radio Wales.
Owen: Aah, yes, he works for me on a Saturday morning.  So I get The Alarm this, The Alarm that, The Alarm, The Alarm, aargh!  He was late one morning; he forgot the alarm. (laughing).
Mike: We were a strong unit of people, of friends really, and that was what I think was most important to us, and we like to extend that friendship to the fans.  To this day I still have a massive event in North Wales called The Gathering, every year and fans come from Japan or Peru and all over America to come to Wales where they see it as that’s the source of the inspiration for them and they love it.  That’s because we started off on the right foot with the fans and it’s still there to this day.
Owen: Oh, that’s grand, and hoteliers love you because you never threw any televisions out of your hotel windows.  (Laughing)
Mike: No!
Owen: Simon, you did though, didn’t you?  No, you never.
Simon: No, I couldn’t afford it.
Mike: We didn’t get let in hotels cos we looked too weird, y’know.
Owen: When Simon became famous, he’d nick the tv’s and sell them in the square. (Laughing)
Simon: My past life, eh?

Mike: We were once, we were in America, our first tour and the first words from any American, you remember The Alarm, the haircuts?
Owen: Oh yeah yeah yeah.
Mike: Well the first word any American said to me when I got off the plane was (in an American accent) “Oh my god!!”  (Laughing).  It started from there.
Owen: I still get now me, I tell you “Oh my God, not him again!”   Got to say hello to your wife Jules, actually, she normally goes everywhere with you but she’s not very well at the moment, is she?
Mike: No, she’s at home today.
Owen: Perhaps she’s listening, get well soon Jules. So, you’ve both done so much travelling… (then goes on speak to listeners).  A listener says how Mike was absolutely superb at the concert and that he’d like Mike to re-release the song he did. He’s written a song for the World Cup and we’re going to have a listen to it in a little while.
Mike: Well, I’m trying to get it..
Owen: Well he’s written a song for the World Cup and we’re trying to get it, so if anyone is listening alright?
Mike: The powers that be.
Owen: The powers that be and this is the song for the World Cup coming up, they’re never beat us now in Wales, they’ll never swerve around scaffolding.
Mike: If they choose this song we will be unbeatable with it.  (Laughing).

Owen: … Continues chatting to listeners… Mike is going to sing for us now.  Mike, are you going to sing?  What’s the next song you are going to sing for us?
Mike: Erm, I think, am I going to sing a live one or are you going to play one?
Owen: No, we are going to do a live one and then we’re going to do the other in a minute.
Mike: OK.
Owen: We’re going to do a phone in so you go and get ready…. Right, Mike Peters and something live, are you going to use the mouth organ?
Mike: I’m going to use the mouth organ, yeah.
Owen: Oh lovely, I can play Bobby Shafto on the mouth organ, that’s the only thing I can play on the mouth organ, Bobby Shafto. What’s the next one Mike?
Mike: Well, it’s a song called Moments in Time, which is one of the last songs that I wrote with The Alarm and it’s mentions erm, it has its roots in the beginning with Buddy Holly and I was born near that time so I thought it’s kinda like documentary lyric about all the events that have influenced me and where I’ve been at them at the particular point in my life.
Owen: Excellent, sounds great to me.  Here we go then, it’s Mike Peters.

Mike performs an acoustic version of Moments in Time

Owen: Aah, great, great!  Mike Peters there with Moments in Time.  Great song and some words that just, we were talking about being inspired by y’know happenings, and that’s a perfect example of it really isn’t it y’know.

Mike: It’s got most the ones from my birth and growing up and a lot of things that y’know probably the most influential day in my life was the day Lennon passed away, y’know?  We were in a band called Seventeen which you mentioned earlier on and we were in London playing in The Marquee and we thought the record companies were going to come to see us and nobody did and we drove home to Wales all despondent and we found out Lennon had been killed and it was very such a numb feeling.  Hearing his music on the radio and it just really made me go back and look at my own life and songs and the contribution you could make and out of that really the inspiration we got from that was to the start of The Alarm and really write songs that could communicate.
Owen: Yeah, it’s great to have the talent to do that, to express your feelings in your music.  I think that’s wonderful.  A wonderful talent.
Mike: The artists I like the best have always been, have managed to do that, their private lives and their music have pretty much been one and they’ve never sort of kept their own feelings and their convictions away from their music.
Owen: Talking about Neil Young, Dylan, people like that?
Mike: That’s right yeah.

Owen: Great.  With me is Mike Peters and Simon Weston.  Continues to interview Simon…  … With me is Simon Weston and Mike Peters, we just mentioned earlier that Mike had literally come out of the studio just a couple of days ago after making a demo, and we must stress this is a demo, with the potential of using this for the World Cup this song.
Mike: Yeah, you never know, it was something that happened at The Assembly concert the Voices of the Nation, Pete was saying to me you must re-release A New Wales with new lyrics and some people were coming up to me saying you should maybe write another song that could be used at the World Cup and so I thought well I’ll have a shot, so this is the song I wrote and erm
Owen: Since last Wednesday?!
Mike: Yeah, just something I had kicking around a little while but I actually finished it off with that in mind, with the sort of what’s happening in Wales this summer in mind and it’s interesting, I write, you write lots of songs y’know and sometimes they never see the light of day and obviously other people will have a say in whether this song goes forward or not.  But sometimes you take or pick up these challenges and have a go, so this might be the first and last time we ever hear this song today.
Owen: Wow, what’s it called anyway?
Mike: It’s called To The End, and it’d be nice to see what people, your listeners think of it, y’know, maybe they could call in and let us know, because it’s, it’ll be interesting.
Owen: …. Give us your opinion of Mike’s World Cup song, it’s called, what’s it called again Mike?
Mike: To The End
Owen: To The End, and here it is

A demo of To The End is played –
Lyric transcription
Through the darkness until morning light as the sun defeats the night
Over rivers troubled waters, down the deep and endless miles
There’s a soft voice calling out to me it warms my heart it soothes my soul
Through temptations, darkest hours, as silence breaks with every sound
Mighty oceans, highest mountains, feel force of love and change
Every whisper, every word I hear, it gives me strength to carry on

To the end, to the greater glory, to defeat or victory
No surrender, now or never, to the end my beautiful friend, to the end

Through the burning (through the burning) heat of desire (heat of desire)
As the cruel cruel world (as the cruel cruel world), kills the fire (kills the fire)
The bird is flying (the bird is flying) in the skies above (in the skies above)
As freedom comes (as freedom comes) on the wings of love (on the wings of love)
There’s a soft voice (there’s a soft voice) calling out to me (calling out to me)
It gives me heart (it gives me heart) to carry on (to carry on)

To the end, to the greater glory, to defeat or victory
No surrender, now or never, to the end my beautiful friend, to the end
To the end, to the greater glory, to defeat or victory
No surrender, now or never, to the end my beautiful friend
To the end, to the greater glory, to defeat or victory
No surrender, now or never, to the end my beautiful, to the end, to the end

Owen: Ah, well I think that’s a great song
Simon: Haunting, it’s haunting.
Owen: I can imagine everybody singing it, do you know what I mean?
Simon: Yeah, it’s good.
Owen: Goodbye Oggy oggy oggy to the end man (Mike laughs)
Simon: Haunting melody
Owen: Everyone could listen to that, the thing is only you could sing it because nobody can get up that high in Wales.  Who else was on it?
Mike: It was just me doing everything really.
Owen: Drums n’all?
Mike: Well, a drum machine. (Laughing)
Simon: Cheater, cheater. 
Owen: Cheater, there you are. Fantastic, well done.  We’re going to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; do you know where the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is?
Mike: Probably in heaven somewhere, isn’t it?
Owen: It’s not in heaven, it’s in the middle of America somewhere, do you know where?
Mike: Isn’t it in Cleveland, Ohio?
Owen: It is cos the man himself came from there Alan Freed.  We’ve got a call from Cleveland, Oio, I can’t even say Ohio, there’s problems with that, it’s John and he’s a big fan of yours.  Hello John!

Alarm fan John: Hello!
Owen: How you doing man?
Alarm fan John: I’m doing great, how are you doing today?
Owen: Very well and this is Owen Money, I’m the presenter of the programme.  We’ve got Simon Weston one of our great Welsh heroes here with us and of course Mike Peters, the man you want to talk to.Alarm fan John: Yes, that’s correct. Mike, how are you today?
Mike: Hello John, I’m very good, what’s the weather like in Cleveland Ohio then?
Alarm fan John: It’s a bit Welsh today, it’s misty it’s chilly and we’ve had some thunderstorms. So good good mid-western Ohio weather here.
Owen: What time is it over there John?
Alarm fan John: It’s about 10.40 in the morning
Owen: Do you know a guy called Bob?  Never mind. (Laughing) Tell me, are you a big fan of Mike Peters?
Mike: Have been for years, followed his career and we really enjoy him every time he comes through the States although it’s not as often as possible unfortunately.  But we really enjoyed having him here last fall we, the wife and I, and several friends traveled around to as many shows as possible when he came.
Owen: Well, that’s great.  Have you got a favourite song you’d like him doing?
Alarm fan John: Um, I haven’t heard the whole show but actually this is for my wife and she absolutely loves Breathe.
Mike: I can take care of that.
Owen: Can you take care of that?
Mike: I certainly can.
Owen: Oh well he can take care of that for you right now I think John.  If you can stay on the line and listen right?
Alarm fan John: Sounds great.
Owen: Because you can’t obviously put the phone down and listen on the radio, cos I don’t think you stretch that far.
Alarm fan John: (Laughing) A bit of a stretch yeah.
Owen: So stay where you are right and we will come back to you after he plays it, right?
Alarm fan John: Thanks a lot.
Owen: He’s playing this live in the studio on an acoustic guitar, it’s Mike Peters and Breathe, here you go.

Mike performs an acoustic version of Breathe Owen: Oh ha ha, there you go! For John all the way there in Cleveland.  John, did you hear all that?

Alarm fan John: I got all of that, still getting goosebumps (laughing).
Owen: I tell you what we are going to do for you John, we’re going to send you a copy of the whole programme today, right?
Alarm fan John: Sounds fantastic, thank you.
Owen: No problem, it’s cost you $300 that’s all. (Laughing) I’m joking.
Alarm fan John: Where’s my visa card?  Where’s my visa card? (Laughing).
Owen: We’ll send you a tape of the programme.  We’ll send you some autographs, some photographs of all of us and y’know and once you’ve seen them, look at me and think I’m an Owen fan now really. (Laughing).  It’s a pleasure to talk to you.  Have you been to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland?
Alarm fan John: Of course, yeah.  The day it opened and I’ve taken eh, as a matter of fact whenever a good friend of Mike’s, MPO, any members of the MPO show up we of course have to take them down and show them y’know, the Bob Dylan and everything else that’s there in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.  So you know, it’s a lot of fun but it’s more fun taking out of towners there, really.
Owen: Oh yeah, well, I did a television programme about Alan Freed who came from Cleveland, of course, the Big Apple, and he was the man that began it all I suppose wasn’t he.
Alarm fan John: Yes, of course.  Termed the phrase Rock & Roll, yeah.
Owen: Absolutely. Well, I’ll leave it to the both of you to say so long to each other.  Mike Peters is going to talk to you first alright John?

Alarm fan John: Hi Mike
Mike: Hi John, how are you?
Alarm fan John: Fine, it’s good to talk to you again.
Mike: Yeah and hopefully we’ll get you over to one of the Gatherings in North Wales.
Alarm fan John: (Laughing) There’s only been seven so I’ve only had seven opportunities.
Owen: We’ve got cheap flights on the BBC so we’ll sort that out for you as well.
Alarm fan John: Although there’s not direct flights to Wales from Cleveland now we do have direct flights to London, so I suppose I better get off my backside and get over there.
Mike: There’ll be an American tour later in the year so I’m sure you’ll see me before then anyway.
Alarm fan John: Definitely, we will definitely do some following around and bring at least twice as many family members this time.
Owen: John, stay on the line and we will get all of your details.
Alarm fan John: Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it, have a good day.
Mike: See ya John.
Alarm fan John: Bye bye
Owen: All the best, John there from Cleveland.  Well in all that excitement, it must be a first that on BBC Radio, y’know, someone phones us from America, the artist is here and he sings a songs that he requests.

Simon: I stunned about just about everything.  I mean there was seven Gatherings and all the rest of it, it’s brilliant.
Owen: Brilliant. Oh well, well done Mike, that’s fantastic.  Here with Mike Peters and Simon Weston of course.  Continues interviewing Simon and talking about family…..  …Mike, are you a family man, do you have any children?

Mike: Not yet, no
Owen: So, how long have you been married?
Mike: Twelve years, very happy twelve years.  
Owen: Ah, that’s lovely. And er Jules, does she go everywhere with you, you know, on tour?
Mike: Jules administers the fan club and is very heavily involved in our management offices as well and links the whole, Jules pretty much links the whole wide world thing.  We have websites and y’know people travel from all over the world and they are actively involved in the fan club so Jules kind of glues it all together.
Owen: Is she Welsh?
Mike: She’s Welsh.  We’re both born in Prestatyn and met in Prestatyn.
Owen: Prestatyn?  I got a Prestatyn con club, it’s a marvelous place.
Mike: That’s great.
Owen: I did, honest!  I had a great night, it went down really well, fair play. Anyway, Peggy from Morriston and Ken McMillard from Trefor both rang in to say that they thought To The End was wonderful, fantastic and excellent.
Mike: Oh, that’s good.
Owen: It can’t be bad.
Mike: Well, it’s nice, it’s to hear it on the air, you know.  You get very close to it as the writer and I could see images of rugby balls being passed while listening to it.
Owen: Well of course.  I thought it was going to be to the end of the World Cup but we wouldn’t be there then probably,
Mike: Well, we will be this time. (Laughing)
Owen: You never know man.  ….. We’ll get some more live music from Mike Peters, now we’ve paid him all his money.  What’s next then?
Mike: I don’t know? (Laughing)
Owen: I know play anything, 10,000 green bottles
Mike: Any requests?
Owen: Well, I tell you what, I tell you what I like, I don’t know whether you can play this.  The very first, the 68 Guns I’d like.
Mike: Oh go on then.
Owen: Could you play that?!
Mike: Owen Money!
Owen: Oh, that’s my favourite, The Alarm’s first ever chart hit, this was in, what about ’81 I think was it?  Or ‘83?
Mike: I thought you were going to say 1968 then!
Owen: Oh no no no, 1983.  Here we go, this is one of The Alarm’s big hits, Mike Peters

Mike performs an acoustic version of 68 Guns

Owen: Oh great, my favourite Alarm song of all time, it was my very first.  That was the song that really brought you…
Mike: That’s right, that’s the one that the guy told us on the highway in America you got to get home.
Owen: (Laughing) Oh that was the one?….. Cos the last time you played together, this was quite bizarre actually, it was in a place where I filmed last year, the Brixton Academy, yeah I filmed The Yardbirds there, in the foyer of the place.  It’s a bizarre place actually, it’s like an old theatre with all seats out of it.
Mike: Yeah, that’s right, it’s a standing venue.
Owen: It’s a standing venue and they’ve got crash barriers all over the place.
Mike: Yeah to stop people falling down, cos it’s quite a sloped floor.
Owen: Steeped.
Mike: Very steep, yeah.
Owen: Now you announced on the night that this was the end of The Alarm.
Mike: That’s right, yeah.
Owen: The boys in the band didn’t know either, did they?
Mike: Well, nobody really knew.  It was just that we’d come to the end of the tour and it was a last minute thing to put the cameras, so I thought the band had built up such a relationship with its audience, I generally regarded everybody being as one and the same and I felt I owed the audience the same respect as I owed the band. So I didn’t want the fans to find out through journalism that the band had split and break their hearts, so I thought its best to make the announcement from the stage, and it was pretty, it was pretty impetuous really and sort of spur of the moment but it just seemed like the right moment to announce to the world, cos I knew that our fans in all the countries would get the video of the film and we’d be able to see it and see that was the truth of the event.  So..
Owen: What about the boys in the band?  What were their reactions?
Mike:  Well, they were, they weren’t as surprised as you might think because. I think we’d really come to the end of the road as a band anyway. Erm, two of the members of the group had gone to live in America and er really they’d moved to live in America in about 1989 so for two years, the last two years of the band, it was very difficult with me living in Wales. And I felt very strongly that we were a Welsh band and that’s where we did our writing or rehearsing and when you’ve got two of the members living in California and New Orleans and all that kind of thing it’s very difficult to be a band.  
Owen: What about these three other members now?  Are they still in the music business?
Mike: Yeah, well, Eddie who was my writing partner in the band, he works with music in London and is still a great songwriter, and erm Dave Sharp who is a guitar player he lives in New Orleans, but he really got the blues Dave. He really immersed himself in American cultural kind of music really which is, I suppose, we kept, we were at odds musically with that. And then Twist, our drummer, the famous Twist, he’s actually, he had a daughter in America and he wanted to be part of her upbringing closer so he gave up the music industry. He’s a public defence investigator, so he kind of works with the FBI and has a badge.
Owen: Never?!  Is that right?
Mike: Yeah, so we all take the mick out of it, it’s the one job where he can keep his dark sunglasses on in the daytime (laughter), other side of the rock business.
Owen: Oh dear (laughter) that’s great. We’ve had a call from Peter, your father in law, Jules father.
Mike: (Laughing) Alright, ok.
Owen: Phoned from Mike’s office.
Mike: Your tea’s on the table, get home lad! (Laughter)
Owen: “Lots of fans have phoned in and raved about ‘To The End’ and asked can you please…” she’s still taping this (laughter) “…can you play ‘High on the Hill’?
Mike: High on the Hill? Oh, ok. Have I still got time for one more?
Owen: You’ll have to play it very quickly, I’m going to take a couple of callers while you get ready.
Mike: OK
Owen: …talks to callers… In the meantime, a famous last song, Mike Peters, which is Mike?
Mike: This is ‘High on the Hill’, from the Rise album itself.

Mike performs an acoustic version of High on the Hill

Owen: Aah, fantastic that man.  I was panicking it wouldn’t go through the news, but it didn’t.  
Mike: (Laughing) I shortened it for you actually.
Owen: Great.  Two great Welshman on the program with me today.  The great Mike Peters on guitar and vocals, and still singing and playing as great as ever, and still good looking, I hate him! (Laughing) And Simon Weston, a man, well what can I say?  You put the N in Nelson, don’t you really I suppose, you’ve been great.  It’s been a pleasure to have the both of you on the program. Thanks very much.
Simon: Thanks very much, it’s been a pleasure.
Mike: Thanks very much, it’s been a pleasure.  Thanks to all the listeners that phoned in, it’s been great to meet Simon and yourself, it’s been a great time.