 Hi, I'm Mike Peters from the Alarm. Today I'm at the Black Star Amplifier Headquarters in Long Island, New York. I'm trying out the full range of amplifiers. I'm looking at the Artists 30, the Artisan 50, the HT 60 and the HT 40 which I carry on the road when we joined the Spirit of 86 in 2016 tour. I found out about Black Star when I was playing with the alarm in the UK. We were touring with the Stranglers and the Stranglers had had a white backline made by Black Star and it sounded incredible and I just thought I need one of those. So I approached the lead singer about getting plugged into Black Star and made contact with Black Star in the UK and they kicked me out with these red HT 40s, limited editions. As soon as they arrived and I plugged them in, it just lifted my whole tone. I play at this acoustic guitar with a humbucker in it so I can go from loud to quiet and use the acoustic element for the softer sections of the music but then I can just turn up the volume and the Black Star's kicking right behind me. In many ways they've revolutionised the sound of the alarm. It's something we spent 30 years looking for. We started the band with these acoustic guitars but we wanted to amplify the soul of the guitar not just the way you hear it as an acoustic. We've always been struggling to get the definition into the strings so you could hear each and every sing because it's such a hollow body instrument but the Black Star seems to bring out the best of the instrument. It kind of keeps the dirty heart of this acoustic guitar but turns it up into a beautiful volume that can resonate throughout particularly just on a big tour of Britain and we played at Brixton Academy, Manchester Apollo, Glasgow Academy, massive gigs but also played at Glastonbury Festival. We played at Carfest to 35,000 people and you could really hear the tone I can hear in the recordings back from the shows how great the amp sounded and it's kind of reassuring to know we've finally got it right. It's taken us a long time but we had to wait for Black Star to come along and create the perfect amplifier for the alarm sound and that's what I found. In 2007 I started a charity called the Love Hope Strength Foundation and its mission is to get as many people on to the International Bone Maridona Registry to save lives of people like myself who have leukemia who might need a transplant for a second chance at life. It's been an incredible journey because through utilising the power of rock and roll I've been able to amplify the voice of the charity but it's taken us to some incredible places like Parliament in the UK and more recently we were at the capital building in Washington DC signing up congressmen, congresswomen to the list and getting plugged into the beautiful idea of the vice president's cancer moonshot which I think is a great message to put out to people like myself who are fighting to stay alive. We're hoping for those innovations that are going to come along in my time. I've lived with leukemia for 20 years and the innovations have kept me alive. They've kept me one step ahead of the bullet, if you like. I've always been able to outrun it and to make a mission like the Cancer Moonshot that can advance these changes to benefit people's lives. I think that's a beautiful thing so I'm right behind the Cancer Moonshot and that's what we're doing at Capital Hill Building. I had my crew wearing their Blackstar shirts so it was all part of amplifying the message and that's where Blackstar come in.