Liverpudlian singer-songwriter, musician and record producer Ian Broudie, is the mastermind behind an eclectic career that has spanned nearly five decades, yet his accolades remain fairly unrecognised in the wide history of British music. After emerging from Liverpool’s post-punk in the late 1970s as a member of Big in Japan, Broudie went on to produce albums for artists including Echo & the Bunnymen, the Fall, the Coral, the Zutons and the Subways. Maia Gibbs explores their legacy.
It was in 1989 that he began writing and recording under the name Lightning Seeds, for what he would, arguably become best known for. He released his debut album Cloudcuckooland through Rough Trade on the independent label Ghetto Records, only putting together a live touring band, five years later, in 1994. The Lightning Seeds achieved great commercial success during much of the 1990s, their last album Four Winds being released in 2009. And after a (disputedly long) hiatus, Ian has returned with the album See You In the Stars.
Me: Okay, it's been 13 years since your last album. What was it that brought See You In the Stars about after so long?
Ian: Um, yeah, I’m trying to think, I think it's 15. People keep on saying this, it must be in something they’re sending out. I’m pretty sure it’s 15. Let’s just put it on the record it’s at least 15.
Me: Okay. Sure thing.
I guess we need a revisit to Wikipedia.
Ian: I think I just felt like I was quite enjoying playing live and I wasn't sure that I wanted to make another ‘Lightning Seeds’ album. Making the previous one, I had a lot of mixed feeling. I felt like it should have been a solo album. I kind of got a bit of pressure really from the record company. I hate, I hate when I don't stand my ground, I usually do. So I just think, I didn't really wanna go through all the anxiety of doing it [the album] and I started really enjoying playing live. We started getting better and better as a live band, so I didn't feel the need particularly to make a record. I had a set of songs that I really wanted to play people and wanted people to hear. So I was more looking for that happen and it took a long time to get there.
Me: So when writing, would you say it was like sort of one burst of creativity or was it something you'd been writing intermittently for sort of a while then?
Ian: Well I never really thought of myself as a singer and I never really wanted to be a producer or produce bands. Probably what I am is a guitar player who writes. So I'm always writing songs; I'm always writing ideas. The way I do it is I'm always humming stuff or playing little guitar lines into my phone and then chatting to myself on the phone about how I think it sounds, or what I think it could be, or what atmosphere it could be and just trying to verbalize ideas. And so, I guess I was continuously doing because it's just what I do. But then the actual thought-process of writing, I had people you say to me: “have you got any new songs?”. I'd say: “yeah, I've got loads”. And they say: “have you got any finished?” And I'd be like: “no”. Someone said you need to finish, like I’ll come up, I'll record you and finish one. And then I think once I did that, it was the start of the album. I thought this does sound like I really like it. And it sounds like a ‘Lightning Seeds’ track, maybe should get a couple more. And once you've got songs that you like, you want people to hear them. It becomes less of an abstract idea and more of ‘a great let's get everyone to listen to these'.
Me: So what would you say, specifically defines a ‘Lighting Seeds’ track compared to anything else?
Ian: Well, in the world of me, like I don’t know what wider of me would say, I feel I really want, always want, ‘Lightning Seeds’ songs to feel positive. And sometimes that's tricky because it’s easier to write a sad song, but to write a song that's positive without being sort of, banal or vacuous or just crap is quite tricky. There’s always a fine line, but I think when you get it right, it has a certain amount of sadness in it. I want it make you feel elated and it's a fully blend of lots of things. And when they have to have the right balance of that - then they become a bit 3D. And you discover different things within it's layers. And that makes you do different things musically, because you feel that. So it's an organic sort of process really. You can't really describe it, but I think when the balance of that is right, you go ‘I think it sounds like is’.
Me: How do you think this album stands apart from other ‘Lightning Seeds’ albums in your discography?
Ian: Uh, the same. I always try to aim to go for ‘same but different’. I think probably, I've always been very nervous, and I think I've tended to cover things up with loads of music or just make the lyric a bit vague. And I felt like in this, I didn't want to do that. I wanted it to be more openly emotional and just direct, and kind of trying to be confident in what I've done. I guess it feels a bit more out there. And I think it feels a bit more like that to me.
Broudie has much experience working with different ‘styles’ and ‘sounds’, having a remarkable career history as a producer. It was after the release of the band’s Dizzy Heights and 1999’s Tilt - to much critical acclaim we should add that be Ian returned to his producer roots. Ian soon began to develop hit albums the likes of The Coral, The Zutons, Northside, The Primitives, Terry Hall, Dodgy and many more, yet surprisingly despite his efficiency at it, it never seemed like his true calling.
Me: Do you think working as a producer on other people's tracks, affects your own songwriting or the way you go about making music yourself?
Ian: Well, I haven't really produced anyone for about fifteen years. I didn’t really like being a producer. I like collaborating with people, but I never really liked the whole idea of being a producer. I do think, working with people, you know, obviously you, you need to [take inspiration]. I think every time you work with someone, you probably take a bit. Maybe like an extra arrow in your bow maybe or something like that. That's a terrible analogy – sorry. To kill someone with a song? I don’t know. Ignore me.
To kill someone with a song actually does appear to be a terrible analogy for Broudie’s work. Maybe this being one of the few times the writer isn’t efficient with his words. He has an anathematic discography, one noticeable one, known by non-Broudie enthusiast (and even non-football enthusiasts alike) is Three Lions. Alongside comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel he took the song to number one, with different lyrics for the Euro 96 and France '98 tournaments. Football seems to be an important undercurrent throughout a lot of Lightning Seeds. Broudie himself is a supporter of Liverpool, with the bands’ album covers and inlays often contain references, such as ‘Justice for the 96’ and ‘Support the Liverpool Dockers’. In the years since France '98, the song has been released multiple times for football tournaments. It has the unique distinction of being the only song in existence to have become UK No. 1 four separate times with the same artists: two one-week stints in 1996, three straight weeks in 1998 for the remake, and again in 2018 for the original during the World Cup held in Russia. Now that’s a pop trivia fact you can take to the pub with you.
Me: There is an upcoming World Cup and obviously you have a lot of people just singing your songs back to you at concerts and gigs, but how does this compare to hearing England fans and football fans singing your songs that match and around the world [with Three Lions]?
Ian: Well, I think Three Lions goes beyond me - like in a different room, a different section. It doesn't feel like the rest of the ‘Lightning Seeds’ stuff. It feels like something else still; still kind of me, but something else. I think obviously culturally it is what it is. I've had different relationships with the song over the years. Sometimes I've resented it and sometimes it's been the best thing ever. I used to think, ‘I've written better songs than that?!’. It's kind of weird. But then I think to myself ‘well maybe I haven't?’ because it is quite incredible the way that song resonates, and the way people relate to it. But also, when I see brass band versions of it, or with ukulele, or a straight orchestra, it’s not my best musically. I feel like songs called Pure and Life of Riley are probably the two that hit the nail on the head to use another terrible analogy.
Me: Well actually my family were quite excited about this interview because Pure is going to be my brother and his girlfriend’s wedding song.
Ian: Oh, lovely. Yeah, that's great. There are a lot of people who say that - Life of Riley and Pure seem to, you know, have really touched people's hearts in a way even after all this time.
Me: So, obviously your songs have no doubt, like a big importance in people’s lives. Like you say, they become people's wedding songs. Could you name any tracks or artists that sort of have that emotional importance to you or left an impact on your life?
Ian: Oh, that's a good question. That's a hard question. Yeah. There is, you know, the songs that make you miserable songs, that make you sad, or songs that make you less sad when you’re miserable. You’ll Never Walk Alone might be the song. I know it's a weird one because it's got the football connotation. It's just an unbelievable song, you know, even take it away from Liverpool, just as a song. Even when I see it in the opera it was from, it's just such an amazing song really. It's quite an inspirational thing.
Liverpool is at the heart of Ian Broudie’s career, never seeming to leave his roots, even as he climbed the heights of Indie Stardom. His loyalty has never strayed. It was in the year 1997, that Lightning Seeds headlined the Hillsborough Justice Concert, held at Liverpool's Anfield stadium, to raise funds for the families in their struggle for justice. Lightning Seeds does seem to have that special quality of being a uniting force, its self-proclaimed positivity serving to bring people together, even in the lowest of times. In that sense, all their discography possesses that ‘inspirational thing’ of You’ll Never Walk Alone, a comparison Broudie should allow himself to be proud of.
Me: The ‘Lightning Seeds’ is one of the things that you are best known for, but you have quite an eclectic career, like we've said. But is there anything that you could pinpoint from your career that
you wish you were more known for alongside your work with the band?
Ian: You know, I'm pretty happy. Actually, different people from different times see me as different things. Some people regard me as a producer, because I've worked with them. Whereas some see me as a guitar player. So it's funny, different people, it seems have different things. And I think that's quite cool really. Or it might be better if I were just a guitar player and everyone went, you know, they knew you for one thing. So in some ways maybe it makes you less known for one thing - you don't wanna be a ‘Jack-of-All-Trades’ sort of thing. But I do quite like the fact that people relate in different ways to stuff I've done.
Me: You have an upcoming tour, this autumn and the ‘Lightning Seeds’ play live quite frequently now. Why do you think that with your first couple of albums you didn't tour?
Ian: Well, that's an easy one. I didn't really wanna be the singer because I'm not very good at singing, So I wasn't used to it and I didn't have a band. It was just me. I recorded the first couple of albums in my house. And I was quite nervous about singing in front of people. So, on the third album Jollification, under some kind of pressure from people, I finally kind of plucked up the courage to sing.
Their 1994 album Jollification is considered by many as the moment the Lightning Seeds ‘arrived’ as a mainstream band. Metaphorically, as well as evidently physically, in the form of their stage band.
Ian: Even now we don't do tours. We’ve been playing a lot of events in the summer, and we did a 25th Anniversary Tour, but I'm actually really looking forward to this tour because I really like Badly Drawn Boy and he's on the bill with us. And I think it's gonna be a really good night. We're gonna get to play new songs, which I haven't had a chance to do for ages. Plus, all the songs everyone loves and a few that we don't usually play. So, I actually am looking forward to it.
Me: So how did you go about forming a band then, when you started performing live?
Ian: I'm not mad on session musicians. I’ve never been really. So, I always really try and work with people who are in bands or been in bands rather than session players. So, I kind of put the band together out of people who'd been in various Liverpool bands, who I might have worked with or come across. When we played the first gig, it was, you know, my friend Chris [Sharrock], the drummer who had been in ‘The La’s’. Then Martyn as the bass player, he'd been in a band called ‘Rain’. So it was just people I knew. And then it's gradually it had grown into the band. I think the band now is better than it has ever had been. You know, I think we’re the best version of the ‘Lightning Seeds’. I think Riley's [Broudie’s son] great at playing the guitar and obviously he's grown up with it [the band].
Not only has the junior Broudie grown up with the music of Lightning Seeds, he inspired their lyrics before he even entered the band. 1992’s Sense featured the song The Life of Riley, was written by Broudie for his son, Riley.
An instrumental version of the song later became better known as the BBC TV theme for the Goal of the Month competition. The football connotations never seem to stop – I promise I didn’t intend on this. I actually really don’t know much about the sport, to be honest with you.
Ian: And so is Jim, the drummer who is brilliant. His dad was the original drummer in the band, so he sort of watched us since he was a kid. And Martyn's still playing; he was there at the first gig ever and he's still doing it. The band now feel like we're all pretty close. Bands are kind fragile ecosystems, in some ways they don't last forever and they don't last that long. But I think we're in a lovely moment - with the record, and the people in the band, and the way we sound live. Hopefully, it'll last a bit longer, you know?
Me: Do you think your music and sound as a band sort of change as you change and introduce new members?
Ian: I wouldn’t say it’s new members. It’s more, I think, when you play live. Playing with the same people sometimes gets boring. And you get bored rehearsing. But actually, when you play a gig, that’s really quite magical and what’s quite beautiful about music. I think is when you play a gig live that moment and that song is a version, and it's reacting with the audience, and in the room, and how you're feeling. That version becomes just something that will only ever happen once really, do you know what I mean? Every time feels different every time, and they take on their own life for that three or four minutes that you play. And I think it's kind of weird how that happens, but it really does.
Me: And finally, do you think that next ‘Lightning Seeds’ album will arrive any sooner?
Ian: That's a really loaded question. That’s a cruel question. I really hope so. Honestly, in my head, I really would like to do another album fairly quickly. I feel like I'd almost forgotten how to do it really. And this has rehabilitated me, I think in a couple months I’ll be in a really good place to maybe record another album. So that is my intention. Whether it happens. I don’t know. But good intentions.
Well, let’s hope. But maybe try and get a ticket to the upcoming tour – just in case it takes a bit a longer, ey?
Maia Gibbs
Edited by Roxann Yus
Cover image and in-article images courtesy of The Lighning Seeds via Facebook.
Commenti