WHO can imagine the 90s without the Lightning Seeds?

Ian Broudie became part of the fabric of British pop culture with hits like The Life of Riley, Lucky You and the 1996 England football team anthem, Three Lions.

Now, as the Liverpool musician and producer prepares for Warrington Music Festival, he has revealed he is working on what he considers to be the first Lightning Seeds album in 17 years.

Ian told Weekend: "I haven’t done a Lightning Seeds album, in earnest, since 1999.

"I did a solo album and another album came out that was supposed to be a solo album but the record company wanted to put it out as the Lightning Seeds.

"I haven’t had any songs that I felt good about recording as the Lightning Seeds for ages.

"Obviously Lightning Seeds is myself so it sounds like a weird thing to be saying – a bit Jekyll and Hyde.

"But think there’s a certain criteria for the Lightning Seeds songs. They have to be songs that play alongside the others on the set.

"But now I have a set of songs that I really like and I’m figuring out the right way to record them.

"In sound they won’t be the same as the old ones because it’s a different time but in spirit I think they will.

"I’d love it to be out early next year. I always felt like the songs that I wrote at that time had a sadness to them but also an elation "That’s why they worked in a way because they had those two emotions twisted up inside them.

"It’s an elusive thing and it depends how I am and what’s going on with me and that deserted me for a while."

Ian has been involved with music since he was 15 and feels it was not so much a choice or a profession but who he was – and still is.

"That’s your life for better or worse, through all the ups and downs," the 57-year-old said.

"I think even as a producer you work with certain bands and you know that’s who they are. Some are always going to be doing it while for others it is just a moment in their lives."

It all started with Ian's love of infectious pop records.

He added: "I used to listen to my brother’s music so at that time it was 60s psychedelic bands and Bob Dylan and the Beatles.

"The first time I chose my own taste would have been Bowie and Bolan and Roxy Music. That led into The Ramones. They were a massive thing for me. They made me start again.

"Those bands I used to love and then I liked certain songs by other artists. I’ve always been crazy about songs.

"I might not like everything that a band does in their career but they’ll be a moment where I think: ‘That is just a brilliant moment in time’ "Tunes are kind of like that aren’t they? They capture a moment in a magical way."

Then by chance, or perhaps fate, a young Ian met Bill Drummond and Jayne Casey in the larger-than-life Liverpool School of Music, Dream, Art and Pun.

"It was strange because Mathew Street in those days was derelict warehouses and cobblestones and a big waste ground where the Cavern used to be," he said.

"So it was very different to how it is now and I remember wandering down that road and coming across this building that said ‘Liverpool is the pool of life’.

"They were putting a play on in there and I played guitar in it. That’s how I ended up playing in Big in Japan. Everything has rolled on since then."

Warrington Guardian:

Ian formed Lightning Seeds in 1989 but at the time it was just him.

So it must have felt bizarre when the first single, Pure, took on a life of its own and became the most requested song by radio stations in California.

He added: "I was a real longshot because I was recording these songs in the top room of my house.

"So when Pure came out with 100 copies nobody expected anything to happen and then it gradually got more plays.

"I think they played it in the Hacienda as well which was odd because it wasn’t typical of the records they played there.

"And then it climbed the indie charts alongside the Stone Roses with She Bangs The Drum. That was the moment it broke."

The line-up for the Lightning Seeds' live shows has changed over the years and they have generally Ian's friends and people he has worked with over the years.

But in the current band is Ian's son, Riley. Things have come full circle in a way as Ian wrote the song, The Life of Riley, for him before he was even born.

"I love playing with Riley," he said.

"I’ve got pictures of us sitting in the garden playing together when he was five. It’s something we’ve always done.

"In some ways that was what inspired me to start playing live again. We did a couple of acoustic gigs together and then it went on."

Ian also said that some of the bands he has produced records for feel like family as he was there for many of them at the beginning of their careers.

"I feel close to these people," he added.

"A lot of the bands I’ve worked with I’m still in touch with and I feel like The Coral and The Zutons are like family.

"Echo and the Bunnymen are the first band I produced when I was 18 or 19 and we’re still close."

- Lightning Seeds perform a co-headline show with Reverend and the Makers in the Old Fish Market on May 29. Tickets are £16.75 from gswarrington.com or visit the pop-up box office at the Golden Square to buy them for £15