Mike Peters [ tickets ], best known as the frontman of the anthemic ‘80s band the Alarm, is one of those people who just can't say no. Whether it's helping a fan propose to his girlfriend or helping out a new teen band, Peters is there.

"My philosophy in life is to say yes to everything and worry about fitting it all in later," Peters said with a laugh.

That includes his latest project " The Alarm [ tickets ] 2000 Collection," a nine-CD box set featuring an acoustic CD on which Peters dedicates and records a song of the purchaser's choice. It goes for 99 pounds (about $145 U.S.) on the band's official website. He decided to do so because, after all, fans are shelling out the money. Peters said the demand has been overwhelming.

"I was thinking it might be a couple hundred that I might need to do. I didn't realize it would be thousands of them. It's been a great experience to do it. I sit down there with an acoustic guitar and a microphone, and then a request or a letter from someone that I've never met from thousand miles away," he said.

"Once I started doing it, [I realized that] this is a one-on-one musical experience. I'm not used to this. I was very nervous about recording the songs. It's easy making music. You're hiding behind the anonymity of this recording. It's going out to thousands of people. They're going to play it to their friends and it's going to be on the radio. This music isn't going to go into an A&R meeting. It's between me and that person.

"But it starts to reveal another side of the lyric to me, another twist in the chord sequence. I learned a lot from it. It's made me fall in love again with the Alarm--for the 15th time."

Peters founded the Alarm in the early '80s, and the band went on to garner 14 Top 50 singles from six albums. After releasing "Raw" in 1991, Peters decided to take a "sabbatical" from the Alarm. Three years later, he made his solo debut with "Breathe," which went Top 5 in the U.K., and followed that with "Feel Free," which chronicled his successful recovery from cancer.

Last year, he offered "Rise" and the self-titled album from his side project Coloursound, which also features Cult guitarist Billy Duffy. He recently took up managing as well, for the band XL, a Universal signee.

"One of them's only 11. They're very talented young kids from this area. Mum and dad arrived on my doorstep with the kids and they played. I saw them and gave them some help and it stuck."

But "The Alarm 2000 Collection" has been a five-year labor of love. When I.R.S. closed up shop, EMI took ownership of the label's property, including recordings by the Alarm. According to Peters, it took five years to "unravel the minefield of I.R.S.

"EMI were very unsure of who owned what and it was very complicated. I had to do a lot of traveling to and fro between Los Angeles and London, sort of explaining to people the situation of I.R.S., the politics and how certain deals would work between I.R.S. and the parent companies.

"Once I unraveled that, EMI was great at letting me have the catalogue back. ... I think the music is like your kid. Each album represents a child. It's like it's been fostered out somewhere and I needed to get them back under my wing. It was a massive labor of love. I had faith that I could make it work.

"Luckily, I inherited a lot of patience form my mum and dad. I put that to good use."

He has to have patience to record the thousands of dedications that have been purchased since he initially made the boxed set offer. The requests, he said, have been varied. He's received letters and poems, some of which "have been quite heavy.

"They've been in memory of someone they've lost. I've had to make a request to somebody who's not with us anymore. That's been quite awkward sometimes."

So far, he said, the top requests have been the obvious "Spirit of ‘76" and the deep cut "Walk Forever by My Side," "which wasn't a massive hit and wasn't a single. But I've been quite surprised by the amount of people who have had that song played at their weddings. It's a sort of underground song.

"There was even one guy who wanted me to ask his girlfriend if she'd marry him on the CD. He was gonna play the CD to her and it was gonna be me asking her to marry him. Of course I did. I'm an idiot." Peters hasn't heard back, but he's hoping she said yes.

Peters is bringing a new version on the road--guitarist James Stevenson (Generation X, Gene Loves Jezebel), drummer Steve Grantley (Stiff Little Fingers) and bassist Richard Llewellyn.

Initial tourdates are on the West Coast, but Peters said that East Coast shows will be added in early 2001.

"The band is brilliant," he said. "It's as good, if not better, than the Alarm in the original era. We've been playing the music for 10 years. Every year, we play the Alarm stuff at the Gathering, which we hold to honor the music of the band. It's done with all love and respect. It's gonna blow people away."

Peters approached his former Alarm bandmates--bassist/co-songwriter Eddie McDonald, guitarist Dave Sharp and drummer Nigel Twist--but they declined to reform.

McDonald, who toured with the Alarm 2000 earlier this year, is working as a photographer in London, while Twist is serving as a public defense investigator in San Francisco.

"I keep joking with him--it's the only job he can get after rock and roll where he can wear his sunglasses in the day time."

Sharp fronts a blues/rock band in New Orleans, where Peters opened for his former bandmate. Peters approached him about opening for the Alarm tour "but he didn't want to do that for some reason."

Regardless, Peters said all of them are on "as good a terms as bands can be. There's things, there's always things in groups. People have a history between them. It's like a family. You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. There's always going to be agendas.

"I'll see. With this tour, the [former members are] supportive, but I'm sure that they feel uneasy about it when they see me going out and they're not part of it. I'm sure it evokes lots of emotions if they see a poster for a gig or read about review, or something on the ‘Net. ‘Oh, I wish I was there.' It's bound to be hard. Some fans, their favorite member of the band might not be on the tour. It's a challenge to me."