The One You Feed - Unlock Your Inner Anthem: A Tribute to Mike Peters

Episode Date: May 2, 2025

This is a special episode from our archives with one of my favorite musicians, Mike Peters. Mike recently passed away, and this episode is more than a conversation, it’s a tribute to a beautiful soul. In our chat, we explored the idea of our lives being anthems; how defiance, hope, and inner strength were a soundtrack for the formative years, and later in life. This was an open hearted talk about what it means to fight not just with force, but with love. We talked about instinct as a spiritual guide, about staying true to yourself when the world tries to pull you off course. And about how music can be both a weapon and a healing balm in a world that often glorifies noise and speed. Mike’s life and his music were reminders that strength can come from stillness, from surrender, and from the simple act of standing up for light when everything around you feels dark. Key Takeaways: Mike’s experiences with cancer and resilience. The founding and mission of the Love Hope Strength Foundation. The significance of positivity and community support in overcoming adversity. The impact of music as a source of strength and healing. Reflections on the parable of two wolves and nurturing positive traits. Early musical influences and the evolution of Peters’ career. The deeper meaning behind the song “Strength” in relation to Mike’s health journey. The inspiration and themes behind the song “Blaze of Glory.” The role of spirituality and self-trust in navigating life’s challenges. The communal aspect of music and its ability to foster connection and unity. If you enjoyed this conversation with Mike Peters, check out these other episodes: The Journey of Life Through Song with Frank Turner Mike Scott of the Waterboys For full show notes, click here! Connect with the show: Follow us on YouTube: @TheOneYouFeedPod Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Follow us on Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you take advice from someone else sometimes and you go along with it and you think it doesn't feel right, you end up, bang, there's a crash at the end of the road. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. Mike Peters was one of my earliest musical heroes. In high school I probably listened to his band The Alarm more than any other. Their anthems of Defiance,

Hope and Inner Strength were a soundtrack for those formative years. And later in life Mike became a hero to me in an even deeper way for how he faced 30 years of blood cancer with astonishing grace, how he kept making meaningful music, and how he gave his life to service through his foundation, love, hope, strength. Sadly, Mike passed away yesterday, so today's episode is more than a conversation, it's a tribute to a beautiful soul. A few years ago I had the great good fortune to sit down with him before a show he was doing in Akron, Ohio. What unfolded was an open-hearted talk about

what it means to fight, not just with force, but with love. We talked about instinct as a spiritual guide, about staying true to yourself when the world tries to pull you off course, and about how music can be both a weapon and a healing balm. In a world that often glorifies noise and speed, Mike's life and his music were reminders that strength can come from stillness, from surrender, and from the simple act of standing up for light when everything around you feels dark. I'm deeply grateful to have had this conversation. I hope it brings you some of the strength that Mike brought to me in my life and so many others.

I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is The One You Feed. I'm ready to fight. Oh, this is fighting words. Okay, I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. Part of the power of Black queer creativity is the fact that we got us, you know? We are the greatest culture makers in world history.

Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. The number one hit podcast, The Girlfriends, is back with something new, The Girlfriends Spotlight, where each week you'll hear women share their stories of triumph over adversity. You'll meet Luanne, who escaped a secretive religious community. Do I want my freedom or do I want my family? And now helps other women get out too. I loved my girls. I still love my girls. Come and join our girl gang.

Listen to The Girlfriend Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi Mike, welcome to the show. Nice to be here. I am very excited to have you on. I was reading the other day, you were talking about meeting Bruce Springsteen, what it's like when you meet somebody that you looked up to at a certain age. And so when I was 16, I was a huge fan of the alarm and have remained. So it's a real honor to meet you and get to sit down and talk with you. Nice to meet you too.

So our podcast is called The One You Feed and it's based on the parable of two wolves where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second and he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your own life and in the work that you do.

Well, straight off the top of my head, it means to feed the positive side of your personality, which is something I've always tried to do throughout my whole musical life and my life as an adult, a human being and you know raise my own kids in a good way, treat the people I meet in the way I want to be treated myself you know even with an audience when I go on stage I always try to put myself in the audience and think well what do they want from my show tonight and and just try to have as much respect for the other people that come into the journey that I'm on in life. And there's times when we walk the path together, sometimes people go off on their own and then they come back and it's allowed people to always be at one with you in step.

If people come in step, that's great. If they fall out of step, that's just life. And if once they come back into line again, then we just carry on. And I've never wanted to have enemies in life. I don't think I've got any enemies. And I've always tried to treat people with care and understanding. There are times when life has forced people I know apart from me.

I always try to see everything from both sides of the story so that you can heal any rifts that happen in life so that when life brings you back together, which it always does, either fatefully or through strategy, you can still have a relationship with people from your history without ill will or rancour or bitterness and it's all part of life's rich pageant of understanding and learning and and and that's the wolf I try to feed. Excellent so you you sort of emerged onto the music scene you know some of your songs refer to seeing the Sex Pistols, seeing the clash, being involved in that scene and yet everything you know from the very earliest alarm work, there's a positivity that's in your music

that just is expressed differently than a lot of that other music. There's a defiance in your music, but there's a clear positivity. Where did that come from so early in your career? Well, I think, you know, I sometimes talk about it on the stage when I'm playing the Spirit of 76, which was, you know, seeing the Sex Pistas and the Clash in early 76-77 period when punk broke into Britain.

I saw both bands up close in the earliest days. I saw the Sex Pistas in 76, in October 76, and it was a life-changing experience. And hearing Johnny Rotten sing anarchy, pretty vacant, submission, I didn't know, they sounded amazing. But I didn't know what the language meant. No one told me what anarchy was in my high school or submission, they were brand new words. I heard them for the first time from the mouth

of Johnny Rotten and I went up to him at the gig and asked him what anarchy in the UK meant and he told me to F off. And- That's not surprising. No, it's not, but I think he was his way of just challenging me and smashing the free conceptions and almost like slapping you across the face

to wake you up. And so that was a big moment. And then I did see the clash in 1977 on the White Riot Tour in the Electric Circus in Manchester. And I followed the tour down to Barbarella's. They were doing a sort of secret gig there and they were supposed to play at Birmingham Rag Market and it got cancelled, but they turned up and they were playing a secret gig in Barbarella's and I I could see the amps going on I knew they were going to come on and I went to the bathroom and I was stood in the doing my thing in the toilet and I ended up stood next to Joe

Strummer and the whole of the clash and I asked Joe Strummer on the way out what White Riot was all about and um because I didn't quite fully understand it from just hearing the record. I thought I did internally and viscerally, but I didn't know what a white riot was. He said to me it was about the future. He gave me something positive back. I think so from having the polarization of seeing the two bands, that was really, it was like the flint, you know, it was created the fire that the alarm came from, the positive and the negative.

And I always lent towards the positive. I always remember thinking, if I meet somebody who comes up to me in that way, looking for advice, looking for a sign, then I'll give them something positive back. So I wanted to put that into my music. I wanted it to be uplifting for people, liberating for them if they came to see a gig, especially if they were young and naive like I was when I saw the Pistols. I didn't know how to become a punk.

There was no manual. I didn't know how to get skin-tight black jeans. I had to find them. I didn't know how to become a punk. There was no manual. I didn't know how to get skin-tight black jeans. I had to find them and I didn't know how to get certain records. You had to go on incredible journeys across Britain to get records and there was no internet. It wasn't brought to your doorstep. When we came on tour in America, I was from a small town. We had no Sven Gali upbringing. The Pistols had had the benefit of an older guy like Malcolm McLaren and Vivian

Westwood to dress them and Jamie Reid to do their artwork. We had none of that. You know, The Clash had Bernie Rhodes and he'd been involved in the Pistols camp and they were helping shape those bands and shape the way, give them books to read, give them clothes to wear, help them with their stance and the way, educate them a little bit about when they spoke to the media. We had none of that. We were just four kids from real North Wales who wanted to be in a band and we learned

our lessons the hard way. And so we wanted our politic, if you like, to be personal and we wanted it to be a message that the listener got that empowered them a little bit or made them ask questions to go and find their own answers. And again, we grew up in a very extreme political time in the 80s that came down from the Iron Lady at Margaret Thatcher and you know we were brought up in a very musically aggressive time in the music papers in Britain. The NME was very politicized in the 80s there was the miners strike and and there were closing steelworks down and it was a tough time and every band that walked into the NME offices it was

demanded that they had the political rhetoric to back up what they wanted to hear. And we weren't like that. Our politics were different to that. It was easy to me to write about the villains. They were all there and on the newspaper every day, you could knock them down easily. But to write about somebody who was struggling

to make something from nothing in the aftermath of the political turmoil, that required a different sort of approach musically and that was what I was interested in. I think I'm lucky that there's still people who come to see me play now who were at a gig in Omaha, Nebraska, who had their life changed by seeing the alarm in a positive way. Or someone who comes back to me and say they were at the brink of doing something drastic in Omaha, Nebraska, who had their life changed by seeing the alarm in a positive way, or someone who comes back to me and say they were at the brink of doing something drastic with their life and they put on the strength album as their last record before they were going to do something they would regret and it pulled them back from the brink. And to

me, having those testimonies come to me through the internet now or through the Facebook or the Alarm.com, that's all I ever wanted from our music was to touch people and be meaningful to them and have some value. Yep. And so you are out now, we're sitting in Akron, Ohio, you're going to play here in a little bit and you are, a big part of what you're doing is the 30th anniversary of the the Strength record. I was curious looking back on that record now and you've done some re-recording of it. What does the song Strength mean to you today 30 years after you wrote and recorded it the first time? Who will light the fire that I need to survive?

Who will be the lifeblood coursing through my veins? Like a river flowing that will never change Well, it means more to me than it ever did because in the opening lines it says, who will be the lifeblood coursing through my veins? Now, that was more of a metaphoric line when I was writing it in 1985, but it's a literal line for me now because I've had to live with cancer for 20 years. I'm at the point in life where I might need to have a transplant and have somebody else's lifeblood flowing through my veins. That's a very real step in life I might have to take at some point in the future. So when I sing that song and in particular that line, it always stops me dead every night because it's literally come true in my own life. Now one of the things that you did as you have battled cancer is you founded

the Love Strength and Hope. Love Hope Strength. Love Hope Strength. Thank you Foundation. That has done a lot of work for people with cancer. One of the things you've done has been registering a lot of people to be, as I understand, bone marrow donors. Will you be doing that at the show tonight? Yeah we will be tonight. Always hosted donor registry at all our gigs. And through the charity's formation in 2007 we've been able to work with over 10,000 other recording working artists in the world from Robert Plant and the Foo Fighters, Enrique Iglesias, Frank Turner. Yeah we had Frank on the show.

Yeah. We're big fans. You know, we've worked with all, Dropkick Murphys, all kinds of bands right down to The Alarm and thousands of bands, you know, that are just up and coming who embrace what we do, which is we try to turn rock concerts into life-saving events by holding a donor booth at those gigs, getting people to sign up to the International Boneware Donor Registry by giving a cheek swab, giving their information, personal information,

so we can track them in life if they're lucky enough to be called to save the life of someone who has blood cancer, like leukemia like I have. And we've signed over 100,000 people to the registry and we've found close to 1800 potentially life-saving matches for people and it's become as much of my life's work as the alarm. But it's a real communal effort. It's run by volunteers. We haven't hardly got any staff. We've got no staff in Britain. It's a completely voluntary charity in the UK, but with America being so big and we're working with so many bands every night. We've got staff to facilitate some of it, but we still rely on volunteers

and public donations to help fund what we do. We work in partnership with Delete Blood Cancer. They're an organization with a massive donor registry and we put the people we find at our gigs through our Get On The List campaign onto their registry. And so someone who signs up to the show tonight in Accra and Ohio could become a life saver for someone in Britain or Germany or anywhere in the world who matches their DNA profile. And now if you do become a life-saving donor, it's just an outpatient procedure. 99% of the times it's just giving blood in hospital and it's an in and out procedure in the day.

And then your blood will then give someone life. Yeah, we'll definitely put on the show notes to the page and all that links to the foundation. Fantastic, thanks. In the 2000s, there was some new alarm work. I love the energy and the aggressiveness of some of it. One of them is a song called Situation is Under Control. Everything is black and white as the roof sl roof spins all around me Everything is upside down, there's a cardboard box at my feet I'm going through hell and I can't speak I'm going through hell and I can't breathe

Oh, the situation is under control Control Everything is as it should be But that's acceptable On November 5th, 2018 at 6.33am A red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley The driver's seat door was open. No traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle. No belongings were found, except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were ten vile. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! No! Ah!

Grotesque. Oh my god. Oh my god. Horrific stories. That to this day have been kept restricted from the public. Until now. No! No question!

You feelin' this too? A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not.

Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommates toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast

called A Slight Change of Plans. I started this show because unexpected change comes for all of us, and there's no set playbook for how to deal with it. I have all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me, and the last thing I want to do is to pass that on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out. This puzzle of my trauma, I have to figure it out, and I have to figure it out now. Join me this season when I talk to Amanda Knox about her choice to reconnect with the

prosecutor who helped put her behind bars. This is not about him. This is about me and what I am capable of giving. And I know that I am capable of being kind to this man. And by God, I am going to do it and no one can stop me. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Can you tell me a little bit about what went into the writing of that song and what was

going on with you when you wrote it? Yeah, I think that life was completely out of control when I wrote that song. I had not long been diagnosed with leukemia and I'd just made an album for the long-call Under Attack and I didn't know really 100% why my instinct was telling me that was the album title. And we'd finished making the album, we'd recorded a video for every single song in 24 hours. It was an audio visual release as much as it was just about the songs. I won't be able to see the music as well as hear it.

And then all of a sudden I was diagnosed with leukemia. It was my second cancer diagnosis. I'd had lymphoma before that. And I was off the charts ill. And I didn't know it. And I went into hospital with some symptoms and they wouldn't let me home. They sent me immediately to another hospital

for treatment to bring me out of the danger zone. The doctors didn't know I had even walked in the hospital. My blood was so thick with, they thought it was dead white blood at the time that it was like oil in my... it just wasn't even moving. And so I was taken to hospital to get out of the critical region I was in. And while I was there, my wife brought my iPod in so I could have some music to play while I was going through these procedures. And I'd forgotten I'd put this Under Attack album on while I was out and about, listened to it randomly to get a sequence going for the record.

And I was lying in the hospital, I was having this pretty intense procedure called leukophoresis. And I was kind of in a bit of shock at the time as well and going under and my iPod was on and this track came on and I didn't know what it was. And it had the title, came to the title and it said, I'll never give up without a fight. And I knew that was the alarm, that was our new record. And then I realized that I was so ill, my subconscious was driving this record.

And then Situation Under Control was part of a series of music we created that was called Counter Attack and it was like the opposite to Under Attack where I'd written the record under the pressure of cancer coming into my life taking over. I decided to write music that was my counter attack to that was me fighting back against the cancer and songs like Situation Under Control were really me writing music that gave me a mental arsenal to be able to fight cancer in my mind and fight it psychologically as well as physically. And I think I've always believed that music is a great tool to have whenever you're facing

any adversity in life. It can release you from some of the pressure. It can help you fortify yourself for that big day that's coming up or when you've got to face that situation that you're nervous about. You can play that favorite piece of music and it lifts you up and it gives you that little bit of courage to face the day. And so the situation, the control and the counter-attack series of music was really my way of being able to put myself in a position to stand up to cancer.

You've battled cancer twice, you know, I'd say you're still battling it, right? That's got to take a toll, you remain so outwardly positive. Where do you turn when you are really internally struggling? When you just, you know, that optimism isn't there. What do you turn to to give you the strength that you're then able to project out in the music? I'm lucky to have a really solid life outside of rock and roll. I've got a really strong relationship with my wife. She's my best friend. We've been married for 28 years. We met, we got engaged within a week. We've been tested and tested all through life

in that time, but nothing has ever tore us apart from each other. And we've got two beautiful boys that we've had to fight hard to get. Had to go through all, my wife had to go through IVF to get the kids because of all the situations we've been in. She's been to Kilimanjaro with me, helped build an account center in Dar es Salaam in Africa and suffered a DVT, nearly lost her life on the way back from Africa.

And we've both been through an incredible amount together. And we fall back into each other when we're really struggling to cope with certain situations in life as they crop up. But I always feel grateful for the life I've got, because my music started out life as a hobby and it still is a hobby for me. It's still my passion. It's still where I would go if I had a normal nine to five job.

I'd be playing in the garage at night or setting up the gear at the weekend and ripping into a gig because I love it. I'm very lucky that I can express myself within my passionate thing in life every day. And I'm also grateful for the life I can come home to. And I've got people there who love me, who understand me, who stand up for me. When the stones are getting thrown, you know, which is because that's what happens. That's what you put your head up up the parapet in rock and roll. And it's not always praise,

stones are thrown as well. And, you know, you have to have a really good fallback to be able to cope with that because it is hurtful at times, you know, and you see it from people who love you the most musically, they can still want to tear you down and challenge everything you do. And you can't please all the people all of the time, as the famous American quote goes. But so you need that. And when I close the door on rock and roll when I come home and I see my boys and it's the best thing in the world. How old are they now?

My boys are eight and 11, Dylan and Evan. They're into music, they play piano and drums and guitar. They're brought up to see it as a hobby like I am. And they come to the shows with Jules and we're very, very, very close. Wonderful. Show me how they shoot you down when your hands are held up high And you open up your heart and soul but that's not enough for most I remember this much there is nothing you shouldn't speak of If you've got something to say and there's no one to be scared of Just get them out of the way

Going out in a blaze of glory My heart is open wide You can take anything that you want from me There is nothing left to hide Going out in a blaze of glory My hands are held up high I'm learning how to hit back I'm learning how to head back, I've learned how to fight.

Tell me about the song Blaze of Glory. Well, that was written really when we first played with U2. It was on the war tour and we played with them in December 1982, just before New Year's Day came out as a single and the album wasn't due out until 1983. And we played a momentous night with them in London. And one of the songs that were new to their audience and them as a band was a song called Surrender. That was the theme of war, I think. Bonner, Bonner described it as like a, you know, slap in the face against pop music was his quote, but really it was, it was seeing war as a

different, from a different perspective, seeing war from the, through the color, well, without the color, with a white flag, the war where people surrender to win. And that was what Bonner was putting across in that music. And I saw them ripped to pieces in the music press in Britain. And I think it was really, it was only because I think people were envious of the fact that they were taking their music to America and they were starting to help other bands. I think the British press thought it was their preserve to make or break bands and all of a sudden a band like U2 came along and opened the door for unknown musicians like The Alarm to get to America for the first time which we did. We came with them in 1983.

No one had heard of us in America. We were almost unknown in Britain and we had our first hit record in America because of the tour we did with U2. And U2 were going on the radio and championing the Alarms record, The Stand, and saying, don't play New Year's Day, play the band that are opening for us tonight. Come and see them. They're amazing. And they were breaking us and they were creating their own power base. And the music press in Britain didn't like it one bit. And they started trying to smash them and they tore creating their own power base and the music press in Britain didn't like it one bit and they started trying to smash them

and they tore them down. I could see Bono and I had this image, saw this image of Bono with his arms held high, surrender on the war tour. And the line came into my head, it's funny how they shoot you down when your hands are held up high because up to that point, you two have been praised

and all of a sudden here they were on the verge of breaking and they were being torn apart. And it was so obvious to the world that you set them up, you knock them down. And it was such a cliche. And here's the music press accusing bands like YouTube being cliched. When they were pulling out all the cliches in the book, there was no depth to the criticism of U2. It was just targeted at them. They would target their Christianity or target the fact that they were selling out, playing huge gigs and it wasn't the same anymore.

And there was no real balance to it. So that prompted the line. It's funny how they shoot you down when your hands are held up high, but the song really became more than that when the full lyrics came down. I think it's all about really staying strong, believing in yourself. When I first went out as a punk rocker and reel and ripped up my jacket and went out

with safety pins, people want to tear you down because they're scared of the way you look. It's easy to back down to that kind of peer pressure. It's easy to give in and think, oh, I'll just go along with the flow of the river and I'll look like everyone else and life will be easier. But life isn't like that. You have to have courage to take those steps forward out of the crowd to find your own inner self, find the place where you belong in life because we're all brought up in the image of our parents and really we're all individual and we want to be ourselves and some people they give into the peer pressure and they suppress who they really are. So we wanted our songs to liberate people, allow them to find the courage and be who you really want to be.

Yeah, there's a sense in a lot of your music, I'll say this, a military sense in that there's a lot of marching, you put on the camouflage when you were battling cancer. There's those sort of analogies and yet there's maybe the right word that you used is, you know, fighting war by surrendering. But I've always been sort of amazed how you've managed to weave those two things together in a really powerful way. Yeah, I don't know how we've done it really. It has always been there and I don't know why. I don't know, I think the first thing I sort of got into where I remember seeing the Who with medals on their jackets and that was pop art. And I remember putting some medals on my jacket and then I got into the sort of seeing the

60s psychedelia thing and people wore those red guardsman's jacket. And that was sort of the start of our early look in the alarm, a Western psychedelia look, but the term military got attached to us rather than pop art psychedelia. And I think that there was, I think our image didn't help our music in some ways. I think it threw up some conflicts that people would read these lyrics and they wouldn't lie with the big hair or the over-the-top look that we had on stage

because we all adopted it. And it was very, the front line of the band was, it was all attack, it was all out, bang. And we didn't have a John Entwistle like we the who did that We could be the polar opposite of we had three guys flowing themselves around the stage and that there wasn't the quiet member you know the who Amplified the power of the individual in the band we we came across like a gang. And I think, and we weren't really a gang.

I think when people met us, they could see that we were all quite different. But we did have this gang mentality that came out of the look of the band and the way we played on stage. And I don't think that helped some of the subtlety that was in the music in a way. Which is, as you go through life and you make a record in the 80s, it stays in the 80s, but you write a song in the 80s, it lives beyond that. It comes alive in the

90s, comes alive again as you get older in life and that's what interests me about the Alarms music. Not just what we made in the 80s but what it continues to be today. Yeah I'm really looking forward to seeing how you interpret that music this evening. What would you say is the lesson that's taken you the longest to learn in life? To keep my mouth closed. You know, I always have an ob... I've been brought up to be answer people politely and if someone answers your question then you answer it back and sometimes I should just stay quiet. Yeah.

One of the things we talk about on the show a lot is we talk about spirituality being this very nebulous thing. Does the word spiritual have any meaning to you and if so, what does that word mean to you? I equate it with faith really. I'm in faith that life's going to work out the way you hope it is going to work out. And some people think in the short term and some people think in the long term. I like to think I've fallen in the latter category. I've always trusted my instinct in life and I think that sometimes gets confused with spirituality. I think instinct is a very powerful force. If you can learn to trust your instinct, then you won't go far wrong in life.

And there's so many outside forces who make us distrust ourselves on the way we think as individuals that it's easy to be sidestepped from your mission in life and your goals or what your hopes are. Again, I think spirituality, I think of it as instinct really and I've always tried to follow my instinct. And when I've really followed my instinct, it's never very rarely let me down, if ever. And when you take advice from someone else sometimes and you go along with it and you think, and you think it doesn't feel right. And you end up, bang, there's a crash at the end of the road. And you think, why didn't I trust myself?

Yep, and so last question, I think the song, We Are the Light, that's sort of what I took from that, we are the light of our lives, we're our own light. I think so, yeah. That was written for a declaration. It was written in London. It was a little folk song I put together in a major key. And I think that's what I was trying to get to. I didn't understand spirituality or instinct so much in 1981 when we moved to London and 82 when that song was written. For he cannot see light And as we fire the candles We must make sure they burn through the night

But if they should die There'd be no light We are the light We are the light. We are the light. We are the light of our lives. We are the light. We are the light of our lives. On November 5th, 2018, at 6.33am,

a red Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned in a ditch out in Sleephole Valley the driver's seat door was open no traces of footsteps leaving the vehicle no belongings were found except for a cassette tape lodged in the player. On that tape were 10 vile, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no kept restricted from the public until now. No! No question! You feeling this too? A horror anthology podcast. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not Those were some callers from my call-in podcast therapy gecko It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake Gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his pizjar in our apartment. I collect my roommates' toenails and fingernails.

I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head search for therapy Gecko on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it Hey, I'm dr. Maya Shanker. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans. I started this show because unexpected change comes for all of us, and there's no set playbook for how to deal with it. I have all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me, and the last thing I want to do is to pass that on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma.

I have to figure it out, and I have to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure it out and I have to figure it out now. Join me this season when I talk to Amanda Knox about her choice to reconnect with a prosecutor who helped put her behind bars. This is not about him. This is about me and what I am capable of giving. And I know that I am capable of being kind to this man. And by God, I am going to do it and no one can stop me. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You play it in concert and you see people really get a hold of it and they're all saying, we are the light. And you think, wow, how come that's taken a hold? And then you start asking

a few questions yourself and thinking, what does it mean? Not just to me, but to others. And it was always the song that was, it was like a little communion in the gig. It was the moment really when the sound and the fury would come to an end. And our instinct as a band, or my instinct as the singer of the band, felt let's not leave everyone right up there. Let's just, let's have a moment to calm it all down

and just celebrate in a really human way this experience we've all had where the audience have given everything to this band. They've jumped up on the stage, they've given physically, they've lost tons of weight jumping them down to the band. They've sung along every word. And I always remember saying to them, let's get down to the front of the gig. Let's leave the drums behind there. Let's get one acoustic guitar. We'll gather around the microphone and we'll sing this song with the audience and we'll just enjoy what we've all just been through. And I think that's how it seemed to us that we were creating a little bit of

light for ourselves in the darkness. You know, we were, again, as I say, in the early 80s, it was a very dark time in Britain politically. It was divisive. We saw all the politicians I saw. I always thought politics was supposed to be about bringing us together as a community and uniting people. And here they were doing the complete opposite and really polarizing opinion. I think it was the first times, you know,

in the war time that not, you know, wasn't that, it was only a couple of decades before us, politics brought everyone together and then all of a sudden in the 60s, we started to see that division come and I think it really became massive in the 80s. And so I think we all felt like unsure of who we were. It felt very difficult to have an opinion because everyone was telling you what to think. The government was telling me who to vote for the enemy was telling you who to get behind and it was very hard to think for yourselves and find that light.

In the of enlightenment that you need you that so we i think. of enlightenment that you need. So we, I think, thinking back to it now, that they were the moments that really made the relationship we have, the audience strong, that little communal moment when we just all sang together, you know, sometimes we'd lose the power in a gig and we'd just jump in the middle of the audience and it was always we are the light

and we'd play that stood in the middle of the audience and there was no amplification, no PA's, no stage lights, just complete darkness. And that I remember doing it in Hamburg and it was one of the most amazing special nights of all time and special moments because it was taking us back to the simplicity of music. We love Woody Guthrie and the simplicity of one person with one guitar singing in the street with a message. Wonderful. Well thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. It's been a real pleasure. I look forward to hearing the podcast now. Alright, bye. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful,

inspiring or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don't have a big budget, and I'm certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better, and that's you. Just hit the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community. I'm ready to fight.

Oh, this is fighting words. Okay, I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a bestselling author with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back. Part of the power of Black queer creativity is the fact that we got us, you know? We are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting Words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Rascal Flatts, Cole Swindell, Sam Hunt, Megan Moroney, Bailey Zimmerman, Nate Smith, special guest Dasha.

High Heart Country Festival. Stream only on Hulu, Saturday, May 3rd, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 Pacific. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs by a Cat. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war this year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. It's kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes, we met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcast.