ONE of the highlights of this year's Summer Days Festival in the Ribble Valley in July will be the appearance of the Lightning Seeds who play the final day of the three-day event.

For Ian Broudie, the man behind songs such as Lucky You and Life of Riley, it promises to be a special occasion.

Ian visited Clitheroe Castle at the weekend where the festival will be held.

"I've been to the area lots of times but have never been to the castle before," he said. "It's such an idyllic setting for Summer Days. I think it will be a great festival, particularly if we get some lovely summer weather.

"Summer Days is clearly something special for the area, it's a great line-up and I'm really pleased to be part of the first one."

For Summer Days Ian promises many of the Lightning Seeds hits with a band line-up he is very happy with.

"The Lightning Seeds has always been me with a varying line-up. I've never really been a fan of using session players though as that just doesn't work for me.

"For Summer Days I'll be playing with the band that have been with me for the past two or three years."

This includes his son Riley on guitar and long-time collaborator Martyn Campbell on bass.

"With Riley, when we play guitar together there's a real connection, I think it's in the blood," he said. "We have a really tight sound."

And Ian revealed that he's currently working on songs for a new Lightning Seeds album which he hopes to release early next year.

This will be great news for fans who have been waiting for new material for what seems like an eternity.

"I haven't done a Lightning Seeds album in earnest for a long time," he said. "I did release Four Winds in 2009 but that was written as a solo album although the record company decided to release it as a Lightning Seeds album. But the songs on it were quite plaintive and we never played it live, it was a bit of an uneasy thing for me.

"I've not written set of songs that I felt were for the Lightning Seeds since we released Tilt in 1999.

"The songs I wrote for the my solo album Tales Told in 2004 and Four Winds were much darker and a whole different thing.

"A lot of things happened to me around turn of century and it just felt like everything I wrote after that had a different feeling to it.

"My songs were always bitter sweet but they just seemed to keep the bitter and not have the sweet."

As a result Ian admits he stopped writing for a while.

"It's a strange feeling as writer, sometimes you are in a moment and it works. But other moments you know what you're writing is good but it's not right for the time.

"It's a bit like writing a letter but not sending it. With some of those songs, I think I'll put them in a draw and never send them. But now I'm writing stuff that I want to post."

Ian is determined to have the new album recorded over the summer.

"I'm just still figuring out the details in terms of the practical side of getting it done," he said. "At the moment it's a bit like I've got these songs which I really like but don't quite know how to make them into a record.

"Historically I've tended to play everything on the record but this time I don't want to be too involved with that, I want to move away from sitting in front of a computer too much."

The Lightning Seeds play Summer Days on Saturday, July 9 alongside Echo and The Bunnymen, Everything Everything and Circa Waves. Simply Red headline on Wednesday, July 6 and Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra on Friday, July 8. Details from summerdaysfestival.com