Lucky Us: Ian Broudie Talks To Hot Press Ahead Of The Lightning Seeds' Long Overdue Irish Dates

After more delays and cancellations than an Irish Rail platform announcer gets through in a month, Ian Broudie and his poptastic Lightning Seeds finally get to play their Jollification album in its entirety on Wednesday night in the Dublin Academy with the Limelight, Belfast getting a visit the following night.

That means you’ll get to hear such swoonsome tunes as ‘Perfect’, ‘Lucky You’, ‘My Best Day’ and ‘Telling Tales’ in close proximity followed by an amble through their greatest hits. Team Hot Press is, to put it mildly, excited.

“It was supposed to be a 21-year anniversary tour, but now it’s more of a fucking 25-year one,” he laughs. “We did the Palladium in London and the Philharmonic in Liverpool and then the pandemic hit. We’ve now managed to play all of the dates we originally had lined up except for Dublin and Belfast. There’s no support – we do Jollification in its entirety, then have a short break and do an hour/hour-and-a-half of the hits and other bibs and bobs. It works really well.”

No one was more surprised than Ian himself when Jollification ended up becoming a platinum album in the UK.

“It was unexpected… like the whole story of the Lightning Seeds has been,” he reflects. “In 1994 when it came out, the record companies were signing a lot of jangly Liverpool bands on big record deals. I was writing songs but didn’t have a band and had somewhat reluctantly become a jobbing producer. When Echo And The Bunnymen first asked me I said, ‘No’, but then they convinced me by telling me I could put a pseudonym on it, which is how King Bird came about. Back then you didn’t really have songwriting producers like Mark Ronson who’s great.

“Anyway,” he continues, “a few years earlier I’d recorded some songs at home and this publisher, a bit of a '60s rogue but a very charming man, said, ‘I’d love to hear them; let’s put them out.' I was producing The Pale Fountains at the time and was like, ‘On what?’ He said, ‘I’ll start a label and get five hundred copies of ‘Pure’ pressed up.' All of which sold out. It just gradually built and built and built until the video we’d done for tuppence in a back room got on to Top Of The Pops and we promptly ran out of records again. We weren’t able to repress them fast enough to go up the charts, but it went out across the world in this really weird magical gift of a way. So that’s the story of Ghetto Records and how ‘Pure’ came about.”

Despite this first 1990 flirtation with the charts, Ian had no interest in playing ‘Pure’ or any of the other songs that ended up on his impeccable debut album, Cloudcuckooland, live.

“I didn’t have a band. I’d never sung in public. I didn’t want to be the singer. I always saw myself as The Edge, not Bono. I was obviously very ill prepared for the situation I suddenly found myself in. It was actually my mate, Terry Hall, who got me on to a stage. He said, ‘Why don’t we just go and do some gigs together?’ So we booked some shows where I’d do six or seven Lightning Seeds songs, Terry would come on and sing a couple with me and then played his own set. It was more hanging out with a mate than doing a proper gig, which took the pressure off.”

And there’s been no looking back since. Talking of Bono, Ian recently ran into his son, Elijah Hewson, at the Isle of Wight Festival.

“Yeah, we bumped into the Inhaler lads who were playing there too. It’s the first time I’ve met them even though they’re kind of based in Liverpool when they’re not in Dublin and rehearse there. After what we’ve all been through these past few years, it’s been amazing to get out there, play shows and bump into old friends again. I got up and did a song with Miles Kane at the Neighbourhood festival in Warrington and also bumped into Paul Heaton. On a human emotional level, as well as a career one, it’s been lovely.”

Unlike Bono and Elijah who’ve studiously avoided being on stage together, the Lightning Seeds line-up has for the past few been a family affair.

“Riley, my son, plays guitar,” Broudie Sr. says proudly, “and also manages the band. He has the organisational skills that I definitely don’t have.”

In case you’re wondering, yep, he was, as a toddler, the inspiration for the Lightning Seeds’ top 10 and Match Of The Day goal soundtracking hit, ‘The Life Of Riley’. Being in a band with his old man must cramp Riley's youthful style.

“It’s the other way around,” Dad deadpans. “No, I’m joking. We’re really close and we enjoy working together.”

Broudie raises not one, but two eyebrows when I mention that Hot Press are currently helping to develop a film based on our Philomena Lynott My Boy: The Philip Lynott Story memoir.

“I stayed in the hotel she used to run in Manchester a lot after gigs,” he reveals. “There was a bar with a lot of shady characters lined up in front of it. It was ‘79/’80 and I remember being quite nervous because I was still a kid, really.”

You’d have George Best knocking back pints alongside Mancunian gangland figures and a ventriloquist with his dummy on the counter after playing in one of the nearby working men’s clubs.

“It was never dull,” Ian laughs. “We used to love staying despite – or perhaps because of – the air of danger it had. The characters in that bar alone would make for a great film.”

Like I say, we’re working on it! Ian made music industry headlines recently when it was reported that he’s only made around six grand from digital plays of ‘Three Lions’. Given its omnipresence every time En-ger-land get to the business end of a major tournament – which is often under Gareth Southgate – that’s pretty grim.

“I don’t know what figure’s being bandied around, but it’s probably true,” he sighs. “I really don’t want to start being a figurehead for this – Tom from Gomez who runs the #BrokenRecord campaign is a much cleverer person than I am, and knows the ins and outs of it – but I don’t think ‘Three Lions’ is an exception. It’s the same for everyone in that there’s millions of streams and pennies of income. It sounds like musicians are being a bit greedy – everybody would like six grand – but if we receive six grand the record company receives two hundred grand. These people are getting paid what we should be. Because it’s new technology the companies and Spotify and YouTube just agreed something between themselves. It’s a bit like a smash and grab.”

After keeping us waiting for twelve lonnnnnnggggg years, the good news is that a new Lightning Seeds record is on the way.

“Last year I started writing what I really feel are Lightning Seeds songs,” Ian concludes. “I feel very enthused with the groove. I’m loving playing live. We’re a tight bunch and we’re good. I’m trying to apply the finishing touches to the album and I hope it’ll come out next year. It’s sounding great – but everyone says that about their album!”

In this case, we 1000% believe it. See you down the front at The Academy.

STUART CLARK