The long-awaited return of Lightning Seeds arrives this fall

I interviewed Ian back in the day for his second album. Really looking forward to this one...

It’s been more than a decade since Lightning Seeds released a new album but now comes See You In The Stars, for BMG - out October 14. Listen to first track ‘Sunshine’ here. ‘Emily Smiles’, was co-written with The Specials' Terry Hall, whom Lightning Seeds leader Ian Broudie wrote Jollification’s ‘Lucky You’ with.

All songs were written and recorded over the last three years. The first two songs recorded were a pair written with the Coral’s James Skelly: ‘Great To Be Alive’ and ‘Live To Love You’.

“I always think music’s like attack and defense in football –or like politics – or like life. It’s about balance,” Ian Broudie says. “And achieving that is the challenge for me.”

On ‘Sunshine,’ he says, “The song is about the sun being the source of life. I’ve had many dreams worrying about the future of an uncertain world...But then the sun shines and everything feels more positive and hopeful."

In 33 years as a recording artist, the man who is Lightning Seeds has sold a million copies of Jollification, the 1994 album whose UK platinum success was spearheaded by UK hit single ‘Change’, and which Broudie recently celebrated with a sold-out, 25th anniversary tour at home.

That album, alongside ‘Pure’, ‘The Life of Riley’, ‘Lucky You’, and ‘Sense and Three Lions’, established Broudie as a well-known songwriter and also his production work on Echo and the Bunnymen’s ‘The Cutter’ to The Coral’s ‘Dreaming of You’, demonstrate that the Liverpudlian knows his way around a studio as well as he does a chorus.

Broudie initially signed to Rough Trade Records in 1989, only pressing up 500 copies of debut single Pure. But the single kept selling, requiring re-press after re-press. After many months and lots of graft, their “modest” grassroots campaign took off, with the song cracking the Top 20 in the UK and the US.

Debut album Cloudcuckooland was also a hit, and Lightning Seeds had a major label deal and a second album, Sense (1992), followed, as did another pop song that would become another Nineties fave, ‘The Life of Riley’, written for Broudie’s infant son.

Then came more success with Jollification.

A fourth time? Indeed: two years later, Broudie composed ‘Three Lions’ as the official England song for Euro ’96. With lyrics by comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner, the song hit #1 and regained the top slot two years later, during the 1998 World Cup in France. It was everywhere during last summer’s Euros, too. 

The album See You In The Stars will be available on CD and colored vinyl via US independent retail shops and also from the official artist store. Pre-save the album or pre-order formats HERE.

Track listing:

Losing You

Emily Smiles
Green Eyes
Great To Be Alive
Sunshine
Fit For Purpose
Live To Love You
Permanent Danger
Walk Another Mile
See You In The Stars