A singer-songwriter who would retreat to the Towy Valley for intense weeks of writing is releasing his memoirs today (Tuesday, November 22).

The Singer, which is to be released today, tells the rock and roll odyssey of Patrick Duff, former frontman of 1990s alternative rock band Strangelove.

While with Strangelove, between 1991 and 1998, Duff would retreat to a cottage Bethlehem in the Towy Valley “for intensive weeks of song writing.”

Patrick was born in Bristol in 1966 to an Irish father and a Welsh mother, spending much of his childhood around Tregynon, Montgomeryshire.

Dropping out of school at 17, he fell in with the misfits and outsiders who loitered in the parks, graveyards and rundown cider houses of Bristol.

Duff recalls in the book that while busking, begging and sleeping rough, he didn’t believe in “anything that wasn’t coming out of a bottle or a pill or a powder or a record player”.

The book goes through his journey of childhood and a rock and roll lifestyle of “self-destruction and near fatal illness, and onwards to sobriety and a burgeoning solo career."

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Patrick Duff says: “I wrote this book for you. Not for me. I wrote it for every person who’s ever struggled and messed up and who is trying to stay alive and stay true to themselves and who senses that they do have something beautiful to say despite everything.”

Patrick’s 1990s with Strangelove still saw him battling those demons, despite being on tour with bands such as Radiohead and Suede.

Patrick said about Strangelove in the book: “Deep down I think we all knew we were a doomed vessel loaded up with tar and whizz and vodka and smoke – but we’d all decided to stay on board and go down together.”

Since the band split up, Patrick spent some time getting clean and recording some solo albums. The book looks into his life post-rock and roll.

The book, The Singer, has been published by Tangent Books, and is released on public sale from today.