Interviews

We lost a true hero the other day. Mike Peters, frontman of the iconoclast Welsh alt-rockers The Alarm, passed away at age 66 on April 29, 2025, in Dyserth, Wales, following a three-decades-long battle with cancer. In a previously unpublished interview conducted in 2024, AP editor Mike Mettler and Peters discuss his favorite record shops he went to while growing up in Wales, the importance of understanding sleeve notes, and why early Alarm records were quieter on vinyl than they should have been. . .

Singer, songwriter, and folk-centric multi-instrumentalist Jesse Colin Young passed away at age 83 at his home in Aiken, South Carolina, on March 16, 2025. Young’s artistic legacy remains quite vibrant and most especially fruitful on vinyl, whether it be from The Youngbloods era on Sundazed’s 2010 reissue of 1967’s Earth Music and Impex’s 2023 180g LP reissue of 1969’s Elephant Mountain, or Young’s 2019 2LP solo album Dreamers. In this mega-expanded interview, Young and AP editor Mike Mettler discuss how The Youngbloods’ perennial favorite “Get Together” beat the odds to become an indelible hit, why he felt “Darkness, Darkness” is among his best-loved — and most covered — songs, and why his 2019 studio album Dreamers absolutely had to appear on 2LPs, and not just one. . .

For many of the interesting, innovative, and forward-thinking, progressive-leaning recordings of the past half-century-plus that we live for and love on vinyl, Tony Levin has been both their heartbeat and anchor. Whether it’s with King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Paula Cole, ABWH, Stick Men, or scores of other artists’ albums that number well into the 500s, Levin’s signature bass tones immediately let you know, “Now, this is going to be a rewarding listening experience.” In a recent Zoom interview with AP editor Mike Mettler, Levin discusses the ongoing wonderment that comes with flipping over LP sides, what his first vinyl recording session was in the 1950s, and the “complicated” decision behind when to sing, or when not to sing. . .

The first word that comes to mind whenever we think of the guitar playing of Andy Summers is texture. The once and forever Police guitarist was — and still is, really — a master of tone and feel. He inherently knew how to create a sonic table setting to drape around whatever cerebral subject matter the chief Police lyricist, bassist/vocalist Sting, came up with while also leaving room for his vocals and low-end additions to both breathe and flourish — not to mention how Summers was able to weave in and out of Stewart Copeland’s truly original drumming and percussion embellishments. During a recent Zoom interview with AP editor Mike Mettler, Summers discusses his favorite Police moments on vinyl, his preferred record store haunts in England while he was growing up, and if his 1980s collaborations with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp might soon see vinyl reissues and/or upgrades. . .

Some artists give great lip service to being humble, spiritual messengers of their artistic muse — and then there’s Jon Anderson. The eternal voice of vintage Yes just keeps on keeping on, with his instantly recognizable alto tenor at the forefront of True, a vibrant new album credited to Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks that was released in various 2LP forms — including transparent blue, gold, and black vinyl — by Frontiers on August 23, 2024. During a recent Zoom interview with AP editor Mike Mettler, Anderson discusses how True came to be, what his favorite Yes tracks on vinyl are and why, and what Yes album Rahsaan Roland Kirk once told Jon he personally admired. . .

Staying power. That’s UFO in a nutshell — the pioneering British hard rock band that’s been flying high on an international scale ever since their formation in London in 1968. Best known for FM favorites like “Too Hot to Handle,” “Lights Out,” “Only You Can Rock Me,” and “Doctor Doctor,” the band soldiered on throughout occasional lineup changes over the decades, with the one constant on all UFO releases being lead singer Phil Mogg. In a recent phone interview with AP editor Mike Mettler, Mogg discussed how pleased he is with Chrysalis’ recent 180g 3LP reissue of UFO’s best-selling 1977 album Lights Out, how the band changed their approach in the studio for the Lights Out recording sessions, and why his creative sensibilities meshed so well with UFO’s album-art design team at Hipgnosis.. . .