Oct 31, 2008 – Mike Peters has just returned from his latest charity trek in Peru to raise money for cancer causes. But, he tells Gavin Allen, he sometimes has to remember he’s a rocker, not a mountaineer. IT’S 1983 and two idealist young rock stars are sitting in a faceless American hotel room talking to each other about how they plan to change the world. It’s the kind of conversation that countless musicians have had before them and millions more will have again until the day music freezes over. But skip forward a quarter of a century and both men are still in their respective bands – U2 and The Alarm. And Bono and Mike Peters are trying their hardest to make a difference. Bono is the big concepts man, pressuring Popes and presidents with shock and awe tactics to make poverty history. Peters uses guerrilla tactics, taking direct action and changing lives, in Nepal, Peru and any other part of the world where cancer takes and breaks lives.
When I catch up with the globe-trotting North Walian he has just returned from the Inca trails of Machu Picchu where his latest charity trek has netted $300,000 to buy a fully staffed and equipped medical bus that will traverse rural Peru screening people for cancer.
When I ask him about those old conversations with Bono, about whether he was making good on his half of the bargain, he is bashful. “I admire what Bono has done,” he says. “He could have sat at home resting on his laurels and never lifted a finger but he is trying to make the world a better place.
“Bono was always that sort of guy. He loves the stage whether he is on it or not and I love him for that.
“When I’m not on the stage I’m less vocal than him. But hopefully I can use my experiences to make people realise how important it is to be engaged with society.
“I don’t know what leads me to do the things I do. It’s just instinct. But if you try to do the right things for the right reasons it will come good in the end.”
Since his second remission from chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, Peters has done more than anyone can ever have expected.
It started with an emotional gig on Snowdon, the mountain he could see from his hospital bed, and evolved into a charity foundation called Love Hope Strength.
In October 2007 he led a three-week expedition of musicians to perform the first ever gig at the base camp of Mount Everest. Everest Rocks raised around $250,000 which was used to purchase equipment to treat cancer patients in Nepal.
This year Peters led around 200 trekkers on Peru Rocks to perform the first ever gig at the ancient Inca temple.
“The mayor came out and made us all Honorary Protectors Of The Spirit Of Machu Picchu,” he giggles boyishly.
“One of the trekkers with us was the Mayor or Union County in New Jersey and he was made an honorary mayor of Machu Picchu and given a power stick. He now officially has the authority to wield the power of Machu Picchu”
But there were also emotional lows on the trip, particularly when the trekkers remembered their inspiration.
“There were three guys from San Francisco who were there because of their friend Otto,” he says. “Otto had cancer and they thought he had recovered so they booked this trip as a victory parade for him. But he relapsed and died a few weeks before the trip. They came with us to scatter his ashes on Machu Picchu.
“When they threw his ashes in the air,” he breaks off, and can only express the feeling with a theatrical gulp.
Amid the emotion and logistics of his charity work, Peters says he sometimes has to remind himself that he is, above all else, a musician.
The Alarm’s latest album, Guerrilla Tactics, has been a success and, keen to follow up the increased interest in his music following his climbing of so many mountains, Peters plans to release another album at the turn of the year.
“We have to keep building on what we have achieved in the last few years,” he says.
To help do that The Alarm are to play a three-night residency at The Point in Cardiff Bay, an idea he says came about after one particularly difficult gig.
“We played at Coal Exchange and it was the first gig I had done after the chemotherapy, so and I was hurting really bad,” he offers. “There was a party after the show at The Point and I couldn’t go because of my condition but all the rest of the band said what a great venue it was. I played an acoustic show there a while afterwards and thought, they were right.”
But even when he is excited about upcoming gigs and new album, you can almost hear the cogs winding in his head while he plans his next great adventure.
“We are looking to do something in the Grand Canyon in Las Vegas next year,” he says.
“But we have also looked at doing Kilimanjaro next year. We have looked at Australia and we have had meetings with the Egyptian consulate. There are a lot of possibles.
“Every time we do one it raises the profile further and more people want us to trek there.
“At the end of the day I am a rock and roll star who got ill and no climbs mountains but I have to remember that I am a rocker not a full time mountaineer.”
The Alarm play The Point in Cardiff Bay on November 6, 13 & 20. Tickets available from 029 2046 0873
