Ian Broudie - The Lightning Seeds

The Lightning Seeds

Broudie put together the Lightning Seeds at the end of the 1980s, scoring a debut hit with the song "Pure". To begin with, for all the identity of The Lightning Seeds was created, the 'group' had just one member - Ian himself. This was an experiment of his "to see if I could cut it as a muso".

The Lightning Seeds produced a selection of well-received singles and albums in the 1990s. The albums Cloudcuckooland (1989) and Sense (1992) followed, the latter's song "The Life of Riley" achieving notoriety as the backing music for Match of the Day's Goal of the Month competition. Before long, however, Broudie took the step of creating an actual band to flesh out the Seeds, deciding it needed to be an actual group if it was to continue. Their 1994 album Jollification is considered by many as the moment the Lightning Seeds arrived as a mainstream band. During the same period, Broudie produced albums for other acts, including Northside and Frazier Chorus.

The Lightning Seeds twice took football anthem "Three Lions" (with comedians Frank Skinner and David Baddiel) to number one, with different lyrics for the Euro '96 and France '98 tournaments. (Broudie himself is a supporter of Liverpool; Lightning Seeds album covers and inlays often contain references such as Justice for the '96 and Support the Liverpool Dockers.)

On 14 March 1997, Broudie was the guest host of Top of the Pops. Later that year, the Lightning Seeds headlined the Hillsborough Justice Concert, which was held at the Liverpool Anfield stadium.

Broudie returned with a new lineup in 2009, releasing the album Four Winds and has extensively toured since with a line up including old Seeds favourites Angie Pollack (piano), Martyn Campbell (guitar), and Ian's son Riley Broudie (guitar).