Fifteen years on from Britpop, who’s left? Supergrass finally split last week; Ash are still recording and touring; Blur are back together. But there’s only Radiohead who have really truly lasted the distance, selling more records today than they ever did.

A few enthusiasts might remember – and indeed have a soft spot for – Bristol’s Strangelove, whose best slices of edgy 1990s pop Another Night In and top 40 hit Beautiful Alone grabbed them a dedicated cult following they were sadly never able to build on.

The band’s thoughtful, almost spiritual, former frontman Patrick Duff, who is out on the road with his second solo album, The Mad Straight Road, recalls what it was that separated Radiohead, whom Strangelove supported on the Pop Is Dead tour, from other floppy-haired janglers.

“We toured with them before they broke massive, and spent hours and hours with them. I knew they were going to be big. I could sense it.

“Not so much because of their music, they were still finding themselves. But there was an undeniable sensitivity and support for one another. And that becomes more interesting as time goes on because with their success you think about more as someone in a band who didn’t make it.

“Also, Thom was incredibly focused, very driven. I can remember seeing it. And I knew I didn’t have it at that time in my life. I just knew I didn’t have it.”

Duff’s voice drops a little as he says that last line, but he admits he never was that suited to the major label pressure to succeed, the sense there is an unforgiving financial clock, ticking with every release.

He soon perks up when I ask about the great line Radiohead bass player Ed O’Brian was supposed to have uttered in describing Strangelove: “We toured with them and changed quite a bit after. They were inspirational. Apart from their trousers.”

The quote sounds too good to be true, and he soon attributes it to Caitlin Moran, a journalist now working at The Times, before qualifying, “The bit about our music was right, though …”

Duff is rewarding to listen to, especially when he analyses the creative process which has seen his sound mature from angry young man riling at a corrupt world to contented semi-elder penning polka-esque ballads and folk confessionals.

The follow-up to Luxury Dreams has an antiquated sound; on influences, he says Robert Johnson is an obvious but succinct example: not only because Johnson is a man who lived a chaotic life, but also because there is a romance to his recordings: the scratchy notes and snapshot to a particular place in time.

“I like things that are old, but that has taken a long time to hit my bloodstream,” Duff enthuses. “There is a thrill in hearing something from people who are dead, hearing their voice coming through now.

“With Robert Johnson there is something very mysterious – an exciting not knowing. There is an authenticity. And with most modern music it takes a while to find out if it’s any good.”

The madness Robert Johnson felt in being randomly taken to a room to record one day and disappearing the next is pertinent for Duff. He has always found band-life chaotic, especially recording because the decisions made then are decisions one has to live with for life.

He recalls his last time in Brighton in 1994, which epitomises the mania.

“Back then all the bands on EMI were invited to an annual conference,” he says. “It could have been Berlin or Dublin, but that year it was Brighton. Blur were there, Adam Ant, people like that. I can remember Alex James from Blur saying to me, ‘Get drunk, be a tart, enjoy yourself,’ which summed it up really.”

Duff woke up on Brighton beach to the sight of ghosts dancing round the ruins of the West Pier. “I was in a right state,” he says. “I was picked up by police for being a lunatic. But there was something beautiful about the pier, like the old music we were talking about. It was out of reach and untouchable.”

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