Ian Broudie on 35 years of The Lightning Seeds: "I feel legitimate all of a sudden"

2024 marks 35 years since pop-songwriter extraordinaire Ian Broudie formed The Lightning Seeds. To mark the milestone, the Liverpudlian outfit have shared a new compilation album Tomorrow's Here Today. They’ll also be hitting the road, with the accompanying tour bringing them to Dublin’s Academy on November 30.

“It's taken ages and it's gone in a flash at the same time,” Broudie reflects. “In my head, I'm 17.

“When I did my own songs at first, I think I suffered from imposter syndrome – I certainly did when I started playing live – I felt like someone was going to discover that I couldn’t actually do it. I feel legitimate all of a sudden after 35 years. Now I'm legit.

"When someone's telling you they like a song, and they weren't even  born when it came out, you just think, ‘Wow, music is such an amazing, powerful thing. You can go halfway around the world and someone's there, who has nothing to do with your life, but they relate to that music in a big way, and you've got a bond because it means something to you. It's a language of emotion.”

This interpersonal resonance is much needed in today's society, in Broudie's eyes.

“The world feels so misinformed at the moment, there's no truth, there's no lies, there's no baseline,” he says. “But you've got this magical thing, music, which connects everyone in a mad way and in a beautiful way. And I think right now it's very necessary.”

The Lightning Seeds have been drawing in admirers over the past three-and-a-half decades with their bright, positive sound - an audible trademark which defies the landscape in which the band were formed.

“I suppose the scene I came out of in the northwest, Liverpool and Manchester, it was very moody with Joy Division and the Bunnymen,” Broudie observes.

“I wanted to be the opposite of that. I wanted The Lightning Seeds to be like Andy Warhol's pop art, the way he would do a painting and it would be a splash of colour capturing a vivid moment.

“I wanted [the music] to feel very positive. I think a lot of the content of the songs isn't that positive -  I have a slightly dark, overthinking nature - but the overall effect is positive and those two things grating against each other is what the band is really about.”

Though he admits to not fitting in too well with the monochrome aesthetic aspects of the ‘80s, Broudie’s time working alongside the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen as a producer provided a vital platform for him to launch a successful career of his own.

“When we were in the studio, I loved the routine,” he says. “I was amongst like-minded people and we were all very focused.

“I think every time you work with a band the idea is they should learn off you and you should learn off them.  You're learning and inspiring each other as you go

“They've all got their own universes with their own rules. When you first start working you think ‘How is this possibly going to work out to be any good?’ But then, because of the blend of people, they arrive at a place no one else could arrive at. I love that.”

It’s an approach which Broudie strayed from on his latest full-length of original material, 2022's See You In The Stars.

“When I was doing the last album I found a lot of the time it was just me sitting in front of the computer all night, because the computer’s replaced the tape machine,” he says.

“You don't need other people around so much and it becomes a solitary venture. I don't really like it. I like being in a room with musicians and the music being alive, but I'm pragmatic as well and there’s times where you can't afford to do that or you can make things sound so much better the other way around.

“I think the computers have made it go from being working class to middle class. It's made it more mathematical, so it's about someone being really clever, whereas before it was more about creating situations where creativity might happen.

“They're both valid, but they're different. Both can create a masterpiece.”

Of all the tunes in The Lightning Seeds hit-laden discography, one track in particular has enjoyed a renaissance over the years - their Euro 1996 anthem 'Three Lions' - which blew up during England's European championship campaign in 2021. Broudie knows how to read a room though, and reveals it won't be getting a spin during their Dublin outing.

“No, we won't play 'Three Lions',” Broudie affirms. “I didn't play it that much ever, really,  but then when it re-emerged with all the memes it seemed to become something else. So now I play it all the time, but only when I’m in England!

“It's really a song about being a fan and losing. It's not really about football at all, it’s about the lost grandeur and having faith.

“I think about Liverpool a lot more than I think about England. I really adored Jürgen Klopp. We played at his goodbye and I got to meet him. I loved what he said off the pitch and on the pitch. He just got Liverpool in a very great way, so (new Liverpool manager) Arne Slot has a tough act to follow.”

• The Lightning Seeds play the Academy on November 30. Tomorrow's Here Today is out now.