Music Interview: Lightning Seeds

All images of Ian Broudie by Tom Oxley.

On the day that I’m talking to Lightning Seeds main man, Ian Broudie, over the phone, it’s during the start of the UK’s July (2022) heatwave.

“How are you doing? Are you too hot?” he asks me. Fittingly, once of the things we’re here to talk about is ‘Sunshine’ – the band’s comeback single.

I tell him he has impeccable timing. “Yeah – it couldn’t have been on a better day, could it?” he says.

‘Sunshine’ is the first song to be taken from the band’s new album, See You In The Stars – their last record, Four Winds, came out 13 years ago.

It’s an irresistible and summery, synth-led pop tune that sounds very vintage Lightning Seeds but could also be a close cousin of The Cure’s ‘In Between Days.’

“I’d agree with that – it’s very ‘80s-sounding,” says Broudie, who, as well as fronting Lightning Seeds for over 30 years, has produced acts including Echo & The Bunnymen, The Pale Fountains, The Coral, and The Zutons.

I tell him that the new album is great and reminds me of classic Lightning Seeds, with the feel of some of their earliest records.

“There was a point when I was wondering how things should sound and I kind of decided to do a ‘Greatest Hits’ of me,” he says.

“I approached ‘Sunshine’ like I did when I worked with The Bunnymen or The Pale Fountains, and there’s a song called ‘Green Eyes’ [on the new album] which is a bit like how I would’ve done it if I’d been doing ‘Pure.’”

‘Green Eyes’ is Broudie being self-referential – it’s top-notch, upbeat indie guitar pop, but with a melancholy undercurrent, and it even replicates the melodic brass line from ‘Pure.’

“Exactly – and, lyrically, it’s a bit of a post-script to ‘Pure’, in some ways,” he explains.

“I kind of carried on in that vein, picking different eras and thinking, ‘what did I used to do then?’ It was quite fun.”

SH: See You In The Stars is your first record for 13 years. How does it feel to be back?

IB: It’s interesting because, in my mind, I feel like it’s the first Lightning Seeds record since 1999.

The last record was somewhere in-between a solo album and a Lightning Seeds one – it was going to be a simple solo album, and there was some pressure from the record company… It didn’t feel like a Lightning Seeds record, but it has its moments.

I think the Lightning Seeds have a certain positivity and a push-pull, bittersweet thing. I didn’t think that album had that, so I didn’t really ever play it live.

I was a bit mixed up and a little bit lost at that time. To use a football analogy, I was slipping down the divisions – I wasn’t really paying attention.

So, why did the time feel right to come back with a new Lightning Seeds album, rather than another solo record?

It felt right, ‘cos I’d written the songs, do you know what I mean? I thought they sounded like the Lightning Seeds. We’ve been playing live, and the band’s been really good.

I’ve enjoyed being a bit of a troubadour, travelling, wherever it might be, playing gigs and not thinking about recordings. I’ve been enjoying being a musician and not really producing anything – just being a singer.

Are you a prolific songwriter? Do you have a stockpile of songs?

I have lots of bits and stuff that I sing into my phone – I know there’s a song there. I suppose I’m a bit lazy in that I don’t do the work on it, but I know I have a few really good things.

Then I have to do it… I think getting better at playing live – we’re really good now – focused me and made we want to make a record that was in balance with how we are and the vibe of the band. I managed to write and then it was like ‘this is good…’

I think it’s a road back – this is the first step on the road to excellence.

So, you’ve moving back up the divisions?

[Laughs]: Exactly – I’m not quite there yet, but I feel like I’m on the way creatively.

There are some co-writes on the new album – you’ve worked with Terry Hall (The Specials: this interview was conducted before the death of Terry Hall in December 2022) and James Skelly from The Coral. Do you physically sit down in a room and write with other people – work out songs and ideas on an acoustic guitar – or do you do it by exchanging ideas over email?

I don’t really do the email thing – a lot of people do it and I’m sure it’s pretty good.

With James, we were talking about writing and recording something, and he was very supportive when I was still cautious about whether I wanted to make any more records.

He was very encouraging, and, in the end, I almost had a song that we’d written together [‘Great To Be Alive’], so I went up to Liverpool, where he was ensconced in the studio, and we spent an hour finishing off a couple of the lyrics and getting the final order of the song.

Then we just recorded it all in a day – it was done very quickly. We recorded it, then I sang it and did a mix of it. It was the first track for the album. I went home and got used to it. People who heard it really loved it – it got a very strong reaction.

That was done about two or three years ago, but I wasn’t sure if that was exactly what I should be doing with Lightning Seeds – it seemed to me like it was halfway from a solo album to a Lightning Seeds one.

I was worried about it, but now I’m really proud of it and I love that track. It was the start of the process.

And then you did another song with James – ‘Live To Love You…’

Yeah – we repeated the process. I went up for a day. When I used to record, I would get a click track, put some acoustic guitar down, fill it out with a few things and then sing. That’s how I approached it.

What’s your own studio / recording set-up like?

When I started, with ‘Pure’, I mainly recorded it in my house. The whole of the Sense album was recorded in my brother’s front room, where I set some stuff up. Now I have a similar thing on the top floor of my house – a room with some stuff in it. I did most of the new album there, but I did the bass and drums in Liverpool, and a little bit in Zak Starkey’s studio, in Henley.

Are you doing much producing for other artists?

I don’t really produce much anymore. I think the word collaborate is key – there are so many people I’d like to collaborate with, but I’m not a big fan of being a producer.

I’d rather just get together and make a record with someone – writing and recording.

I think I’m old-fashioned in the way that A & R was – like George Martin would get involved with a band, live their career with them, guide them and do whatever needed to be done.

I like the idea of that. I don’t like it nowadays when you see a writing credit and there’s 15 people on it. It’s not for me.

‘Emily Smiles’ is one of my favourite songs on the new album – it was co-written with Terry Hall. There’s a weird Beach Boys-meets-Frankie-Valli thing going on when the backing vocals come in…

That song was a bit of a jigsaw – I had it, and it was really good, and then Terry came over to my house a couple of times to write some words with me.

We’ve been great friends for a long time – we’re quite relaxed with each other. We were kicking the song around – it was quite hard to write because I couldn’t get the order of it. It was difficult to get it to be coherent.

It’s a strange song. I love it. It’s a journey. I’m a great overthinker – sometimes when you overthink, you come out the other end, and it’s simple…

A lot of your songs are positive but there’s always been a melancholy side to your music too, hasn’t there? Underneath all the shiny pop melodies, there’s a sadness…

I think ‘Pure’ is a sad song – definitely. I’m quite sentimental in some ways. Nothing stays the same, but sometimes I wish it would – that’s the theme of my entire writing.

‘Pure’ is a perfect pop song, isn’t it?

I hate that phrase – a lot of people use it. It was written about ‘Pure’ when it first came out and it’s stuck with me. The idea of perfection and me searching for it in pop… Pop is a very maligned word – it doesn’t mean the same thing now.

I always see it as an Andy Warhol splash of capturing a moment or an atmosphere – so, in that way, I like it, but I think the pursuit of excellence is not trying to be perfect.

If anything, my thing is that I am a bit OCD… and I am a bit OCD in my music, in that the pursuit of excellence would be a true criticism of me, but perfect pop isn’t. Maybe the idea that I don’t have an urge for perfection is the best thing.

Let’s talk about some of the more serious songs on the album, like ‘Fit For Purpose…’

It was written about my mother – she was disabled, and she used to say to me as a kid, ‘You’re completely fit for purpose – your body works great, and you can do anything’.

I didn’t really realise why she was saying that, but it had a great impression on me.

‘Permanent Danger’ has a sad side to it, too… Lyrically, it’s quite dark – it opens with the line ‘Hey, I think I’m in trouble…’ It’s one of the album’s least positive moments…

Yeah. It’s a song that I didn’t try to stop – it’s just how I felt at time. I didn’t really write that lyric – I had a vague idea, I turned the headphones on, when I was on my own, and I just sang and that’s what came out.

You’ve said you’re a worrier – that you wake up in the morning and worry something bad is going to happen.

Did you go through an anxious time during the pandemic?

It wasn’t a pandemic thing – I’m just generally like that. The pandemic didn’t make any difference to my anxiety. I miss some aspects of the pandemic – it was quite a relief really to be in and not pressured – but I missed playing gigs.

‘Walk Another Mile’ was inspired by you listening to Northern Soul songs and the lyric is a narrative about a couple coming to the end of a relationship.

It’s quite different from the other songs on the album – it sticks out musically and lyrically…

It’s a less personal song – it’s just me imagining a scenario.

Are you pleased with the new record?

I’m really pleased with it – it feels like a path back to where I would like to get to. One more and I’ll absolutely get there, but I always feel like that – like I’ve nearly made that record I really wanted to make when I was 12. I might do another one – I don’t know. It just feels like I remember how to do it now.

See You In The Stars by Lightning Seeds is out now on BMG.

lightningseeds.co.uk

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