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Now onto today’s chat, a nice little natter with Ian Broudie. Enjoy the edition,
Ted, Niall and Chris
Start The Week With… Ian Broudie
Next month, the Lightning Seeds release their new album See You In The Stars. Their first album since 2009’s Four Winds, it’s full of the breezy pop melodies, uplifting choruses and underlying wistfulness that made Ian Broudie one of the most successful British songwriters of the 90s. Back then, Broudie sold a million copies of fourth album Jollification, co-wrote one of the most unavoidable, exhilarating football anthems of all time in Three Lions and released a string of indelible indie-pop hits that helped to define the decade. His work before wasn’t bad, either: after emerging as a part of the star-spawning Liverpool punk group Big In Japan in the late 70s, Broudie went on to produce some of the most iconic bands of the next decade, including Echo & The Bunnymen, The Pale Fountains, Shack, The Fall and more. But, as he says below, he isn’t a producer, he isn’t a singer, he’s a songwriter. A very good one too. Last week, Ian spoke to Niall over Zoom about why now felt like the right time to get back in the saddle, getting early encouragement from Mark E Smith and the possibility of a Christmas version of Three Lions…
Hello Ian, how are you?
I’m alright actually, yeah good. It’s strange having a record out but I’m getting a bit more used to it. Well, it’s not out yet either!
It’s been a good stretch since your last album. How do you feel about it?
I suppose it’s a very different world out there. I was a bit anxious initially but now I seem to have settled into it and I’m actually excited to do the tour and stuff, now I’m rehearsing the songs, it’s a bit more real. It’s good because I’ve really enjoyed the last few years just playing live and not having to think about that particularly, just enjoying being a troubadour.
The record is fantastic.
Oh, thank you very much. I usually cover a lot of stuff up because I’m a bit nervous and I’ve really tried to resist doing that this time, make it more headline-y. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I think so. What prompted that?
It feels like as you’re getting older, you have to dress differently and you have to do all sorts of things differently and it felt like it just had to be me, even though it’s the Lightning Seeds and it has to be the Lightning Seeds and that has to be a certain type of song when I write it even though I can never put my finger on what it is, I can tell when it’s a Lightning Seeds song, it was probably a little bit more me and a little bit less Lightning Seeds.
That’s funny that you think of it like that. Have you always felt like you’re putting on a different hat when you’re doing Lightning Seeds or Ian Broudie, then?
Yeah, kind of. When I first started making a Lightning Seeds record, I was still very much in the world of the Bunnymen and a lot of that northern, quite serious music. It felt like I couldn’t do that area or I didn’t want to do because it was being done really well. I’m obsessed with melody and atmosphere. Around at that time, the people in Liverpool were all listening to Scott Walker, very much being singers, and I never saw myself as a singer at all, I always saw myself as the Keith Richards, not the Mick Jagger.
I was being pulled into being a producer and I didn’t want to be, I never wanted to really be a producer. It felt like, ‘I need to do some songs.’ It would be easier now but at that time, you pretty much had to have a band and record companies would come up to Liverpool and look at it and go, ‘right, we’ll sign you!’. I wasn’t in a band but wanted to get these songs that I’d had going around my head out. It was a strange route, really, and it felt like, ‘well, I’m going to have to sing them because no one else is here’. When I was in Big In Japan, it dawned on me that if you have a good idea, even if you’re not very good at doing it, it’ll never be a bad idea. But if there’s no idea, it’s nothing. That was the mantra for doing the Lightning Seeds, which sounds terrible really, it sounds like you’re saying you’re crap but you might come up with a good idea.
How much did that time you spent as a producer set you up for doing the Lightning Seeds?
Actually, not very well, because now everyone’s like, ‘I’m a cool producer’. Back then, it was like, ‘he’s a producer, he can’t do a record’. Everyone was a little bit suspicious, like was I a 68-year-old businessman, because I don’t think anyone knew what a producer was. I think you meant it different but my slow brain is clicking... you mean musically?
I did, but I liked this answer too.
What it did do was it enabled me to peek into bands. Sometimes when you’re in a band, you only experience being in that band. Every band, I’ve learned as a producer, every band has a different universe and a different set of rules in that universe. It’s amazing how many ways there are to skin a cat, everyone’s got a different process. When you first work with a band, for me, I’m fascinated to be quiet for a bit and see what’s going on. You think, ‘how are they going to get from here to there, doing that?’ and then they do! That’s one of the most fantastic thing about bands, every different mixture of people and different ways of being creative. It’s endless.
I always think it’s weird when people talk about songs and they say, “well, there’s only however many notes so no-one can write anything new.” That’s like saying, “there’s only a few colours so no-one could paint a good painting anymore,” because there’s so many things in between that, the combination of people’s voices, the combination of rhythm, the combination of speed, combination with everyone’s different idea, the way someone’s voice sounds, the way someone else’s voice sounds against that, the way a melody changes when you put a certain lyric to it, or a lyric changes with a certain melody, there’s so many spin offs from that. That’s why I love groups, because it’s always going to throw up some weird thing that hasn’t happened before.
Was there a specific point where you finally felt like a singer rather than a producer trying to be a singer?
I think over the last two or three years, maybe.
That recently?!
I didn’t play live because I was nervous to sing in front of people so I didn’t play live until the third album, under duress, so it was a bit like growing up in public. Usually you’d probably get to be in a load of bands as a singer and then by the time you’d sell out a show, you’re quite experienced at singing, but for me, I was having to sing straight away. The studio was my comfortable environment. But I got lots of encouragement and because I produced stuff, I was really into the idea of collaborating. I still am. I stopped producing pretty much 10-15 years ago and even now, I’d collaborate with someone on a track, but the whole idea of a producer, really, I find it really unappealing.
The collaboration thing is interesting, because that sort of thing is what a lot of bands resist and break up over. If you’ve got that from the off, it must free you up in a way.
The first thing I ever produced was the Bunnymen and I was very reluctant to do that. It was strange that they wanted me to because I’d never produced anything and I was their mate. Looking back on that now, that was a collaboration because it was my mates, so if I picked up a guitar, I’d play rhythm guitar, and Mac would sing and I’d put a few chords in, so early on when I was producing for Factory and for Zoo and all those indie labels, I think I was just joining the band for a bit. It was probably only with The Coral, where they were all a lot younger than me, where it was like, ‘I can’t join this band’. Very disappointing!
Of all the people you’ve collaborated with, who’s pushed you the hardest?
It’s difficult to know, because I’m a little OCD sometimes about stuff so I’ve got a lot of stamina where other people think it’s satisfying and I don’t, it’s probably that I drive them a little mad as much as they drive me mad. I suppose the things that loom large for me are the three bands or people that I became friends with and feel like family and still completely feel a part of, and that would that probably be the Bunnymen, The Coral and Terry Hall, where we hit it off in a great way, became friends, they’re still my friends, we’re still in touch, we’d still work together every now and again, be it James Skelly from The Coral producing me or Nick from The Coral played in the Lightning Seeds one summer and Terry and I obviously write together. They’re the things that I really look back on and love and because when you love it, you push yourself the hardest.
We should really chat about this excellent new record of yours as well. What was the spark for this record coming to life?
Well, I had a funny experience with the last record that I made. In my head, I felt that the last time I’d really committed to a Lightning Seeds record was probably about 1999 with Tilt, and that was a massive flop. I think that’s why I was a bit anxious about doing anything. I did my solo record and everything and then I was really enjoying just playing live but I’m always writing, I’m always singing things into my phone and I think that’s what I am, I’m not a singer, I don’t want to be a producer, I’m someone who writes tunes. So I kept writing, but I felt like so many things that happened in my life that I wasn’t sure if I could write a Lightning Seeds song. I think it’s quite easy for me to write a song that might be a bit miserable. The hardest thing is to do something that’s positive without being banal. It’s a tricky thing. It’s easier to be taken seriously with a sad song, with an up song it’s harder and it has to pass certain muster. That’s a real challenge to have that balance and I think my songs, even though they’re up, they’re not happy. There’s a lot of melancholy in there.
For me personally, that balance was thrown askew in the aftermath of that run of success and divorce and I had a lot of bereavements in the family and it just knocked the stuffing out of me. I felt that songs I was writing didn’t have the same vibe and I didn’t really want to chase it. I lost focus quite a lot, did a few gigs but the band wasn’t that great. I started really enjoying playing live when Riley, my son, started playing in the band. I don’t know if you’ve had kids or anything?
Yeah, I’ve got two.
Okay, so there’s a point where you play them your favourite records and you want them to share what you felt and it was a bit like that with Riley, it made me think, ‘we should get really good live and you’ll see, it’s brilliant when you get on stage and you’re a really good band and people react, you’ll love it!’. It sparked something in me and made me want to be really good again.
That’s really nice. How much did the anniversary tour you did for Jollification in 2019 feed into wanting to write again too?
It really helped. When I was first doing the Lightning Seeds, it would be Mark E Smith saying, "you’ve got to do this!". I was producing The Fall around that time and him and Brix were so encouraging, going ‘these songs could be brilliant, you’ve got to do it’. This time, James from The Coral was producing Blossoms and stuff and he was like, ‘you produced us, finish a song and let me produce it!’. Eventually, I did go up to Liverpool and we spent two days in the studio and we recorded a song called Great To Be Alive. I took it home and I felt, ‘I like this, I’m proud of this’. And then people seem to really like it, people whose opinion I really valued. Then it becomes, ‘I’ve got a song, I’ll try and get another one’, then when you’ve got two or three, it’s like, ‘I like these, I would like people to hear them’.
I read that Riley was instrumental in you finishing the last batch of the songs for the album, too.
Cracking the whip! I was nearly out of the band if I hadn’t got it done. He’s had a big part to play in this, his guitar playing is great on the record. It’s a bit like brothers when you play guitar together, father-son or brother-brother, it links up in a really cool way. You only really get that usually when people have been in a band since they were 13 together and eventually when they’re 22, they make a record but they’ve been playing together so long. That’s what The Coral were like, with Bill [Ryder-Jones] and Lee [Southall], they were like that. But luckily, we’ve got that and it really helps me because I can be a lot more objective listening to him play stuff than I can myself, where you get a bit lost knowing what’s good and what isn’t. Between James and Riley, they really got me going.
Last one: there’s a World Cup in a few months. At this point, do you start to dread it knowing Three Lions is going to be everywhere or do you look forward to it?
I’ve had a mixed relationship over the years with the song, I’ve been uncomfortable and comfortable and I’m totally comfortable with it now. I love it when everyone sings it. I love it when there’s a competition. I think it’s been a real gift for me. I can’t get away from the fact it’s a big headline. I used to think, "well, I’ve written better songs," but now I wonder if I have because it does seem to have something in it. This World Cup as well, because it’s a Christmas World Cup, and all the reasons for that are pretty rubbish, but it is a unique thing because it’s Christmas and it’s a World Cup. We have been messaging each other about maybe doing something to reflect that because we haven’t touched it at all for over 20 years or something.
So you’re gonna stick some bells on it?
Well, that’s what everyone says! It’s quite funny, everyone goes, ‘Oh, you mean, put some sleigh bells on it?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, not just that,’ then I put Phil Spector on and I think, ‘that’s exactly it!’, a variety of different bells and maybe a lyric to reflect that. I think the original version is the version, but it might be fun to have something else at Christmas. We haven’t really decided so I shouldn’t be saying but it is a thought.
ND