By the age of 12 he was “a compulsive gambler” who was “reviled as the town drunk”, he claimed, and his hard drug use began aged 18, by which time he’d been arrested for theft, breaking and entering, insurance fraud, vandalism and spent a year in jail on drug charges. I ask Lanegan if he feels the seasons in his songs, and I tell him that so much of what he sings conjures autumn for me, darker days with warm and fading light. “I grew up in a place where we had really hot summers and really icy, snowy wintertimes. But the fall and the spring are my favourite seasons when you’re in a place that has four seasons, fall being the best. I find it an inspiring time, something about the crisp air, the smell of woodsmoke, the changing of the colours of the leaves.” There’s a little bit of autumn left before the solstice, and it feels like the perfect time to read Lanegan’s new memoir while listening to his records.

The Devil was fairly profligate with the best songs, but rare was the singer blessed with His very own voice. Grunge pioneer Mark Lanegan – who died yesterday (February 22) aged 57 – sang like a southern swamp, a canyon catacomb, a gallows tree. A passage that ponders the idea of Covid as a conspiracy is presented as evidence of the dark places to which the disease sent Lanegan’s addled mind. In some ways, the section sits a little uncomfortably inside a book that has nothing but bottomless gratitude to the Irish health service that cared for him. Still, there is always much to admire in Lanegan’s writing even when it is hard to agree with everything he thinks. This slight but weighty volume only adds to the man’s muscular and vivid – in every sense of the word – body of work.From the moment I was brought out of my chemically induced sleep and was told what had happened and where I had been, I was determined to survive this nightmare, even though I had very little say, actually, no say in the matter, and had zero ammo to fight with. By 2003 he was collaborating with Greg Dulli of Afghan Whigs as The Gutter Twins, who released one album (‘Saturnalia’, 2008), and in 2004 he began a celebrated collaboration with Isobel Campbell which would stretch for seven years and produce three albums. This slight but weighty volume only adds to the man's muscular and vivid - in every sense of the word - body of work Compelling . . . When he eventually does sing again, Mark Lanegan has the record of a lifetime to make I was incredibly proud of my wife for making that decision,” says Lanegan. “She’s the most important person I’ve ever had in my life which is why we’ve been together almost two decades.”

There’s a 500-copy limited edition of Devil in a Coma that’s accompanied by a 12-inch print of one of the singer’s artworks. I asked him if he’s been painting and drawing for a while now, or if it’s something new. “I took one day of art class in high school and my art teacher told me I had no imagination and to get out of the room,” Lanegan says and laughs. “A couple of records ago, I started designing my own record covers for better or worse. But I didn’t start drawing until about a year ago. It’s really primitive, really amateur [laughs].” One morning in March 2021 with the second wave of infections ripping through Ireland where he was newly resident, Mark Lanegan woke up breathless, fatigued beyond belief, his body burdened with a gigantic dose of Covid-19. Admitted to Kerry Hospital and initially given little hope of survival, Lanegan's illness has him slipping in and out of a coma, unable to walk or function for several months and fearing for his life. Devil in a Coma is self-lacerating (at one point, Lanegan calls himself “a cauldron of negative energy”) but I wondered if he was too hard on himself. His music has brought joy to fans while his writing is exhilarating and unexpectedly funny. In the memoir, he comes across as a comically difficult patient and I laughed out loud at his account of getting busted by a nurse for smoking.

On whether he thinks the early ’90s grunge and alternative explosion was the last great movement within rock music

This is a journal not of the Pandemiad but of the plague raging through one man's body and his brutal struggle to survive. If you're a Lanegan fan it feels like a natural extension of SBAW and his recent albums. If you have no idea about Lanegan but want to read about what it was like to have a bad bout of covid this may also interest you. This story of the band The Fat White Family is incredible – the best book I’ve read in a long time.” What I’ll read next…