Twenty years after the Alarm fired off "68 Guns," the group is back on the charts . . . but nobody knew it. Disguised as a younger outfit called the Poppyfields, the band -- best known in the U.S. for Eighties anthems like "The Stand," "Strength," and "Rain in the Summertime" -- landed a Top Thirty single in the U.K. this week with "45 RPM," thanks to a video featuring the Welsh band the Wayriders lip-synching the tune.

"We weren't trying to be malicious," says Mike Peters, the group's founder and only original remaining member, by phone from his native Wales. "We were just trying to open the debate up, because there's so much music that gets played based on image. These days the song and the content get left behind. But now the song kind of squashes the assumption that new music has to be made by new groups. Ultimately, the hope is that maybe now people will sit up and listen to our records again."

Peters -- who is considered a folk hero in his native Wales and is slated to be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at tonight's Welsh Music Awards in Cardiff -- says the song is also set for The Poppyfields, the Alarm's forthcoming album. Produced by Steve Brown (the Cult, Manic Street Preachers), the disc was recorded with guitarist James Stevenson, formerly of Generation X and Chelsea, bassist Craig Adams, once of goth rockers the Mission U.K., and drummer Steve Grantley, who did time in Stiff Little Fingers.

"When we finished '45 RPM,' I was very excited about what we were doing," Peters explains. "So I figured I'd send it around in an unmarked sleeve to a few DJs and promotions people just to see what the reaction might be. People were like, 'This is great! Are you managing them?' But I didn't let on."

Then last November, during an Alarm show at the Knitting Factory in New York, Peters introduced the new song after informing the crowd that he had been to see punk vets Rancid play the night before. "The next day we got tons of emails from folks who had been in the audience who hadn't heard me properly," Peters explains. "They thought it was a Rancid cover. So I thought, there's some mileage in the song. We decided to go the whole way and put the record out with a virtual band name."

Peters credits the Wayriders' convincing miming abilities: "When we finished the video, I played it for the guy who does all of our album sleeves and artwork. He had no idea it was us. He said, 'God, it's amazing. They even sound like you!'"

As for Eddie MacDonald, Nigel Twist and Dave Sharp, the other founding members of the Alarm, Peters says that there's an open door for them to hop up onstage with the current incarnation of the band at any time. "I was really pleased with how things worked out when we did our VH1 Bands Reunited episode," he says. "It was nice that we were able to close that chapter of the group respectfully."

JOHN D. LUERSSEN
(February 20, 2004)