The Alarm’s Mike Peters Dies Of Cancer At 66

The Alarm frontman Mike Peters has died after a three-decade battle with cancer, which prompted him to create the Love Hope Strength Foundation to sign up bone marrow donors at concerts. He was 66.

The Alarm are best-known for ’80s hits such as “The Stand,” “Sixty Eight Guns,” “Rain in the Summertime” and “Sold Me Down the River,” and four of their albums reached the top 25 in the U.K. The group was active from 1981-1991 and then from 1999 until the present.

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A Peters solo album, Transformation, is due for release on June 6. The Alarm today posted a new song, “Totally Free,” in tribute to the artist.

Peters was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 1995 and was public about his fight against the disease. He was separately diagnosed with lymphocytic leukemia in 2005 but was in remission as of 2015.

Peters was also an avid mountain climber and often performed for sick individuals at hospitals in northern Wales. “I would love to be back in Los Angeles on the beach and running up and down the boardwalk between Santa Monica and Venice Beach,” he told SPIN in 2021. “Having the chance to play a show while I was there would be a bonus!”

In that same interview, Peters recalled formative experiences listening to the Who’s Quadrophenia, the Clash’s self-titled debut and Slade’s Slade Alive! Click here to read.

To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.