A MUSICIAN who battled a rare cancer is using the release of his first album to help two charities which supported him in his fight.

Scott Beaton, from Gourock, was diagnosed with cancer of the bile duct in November 2019 - just three weeks after he received a new liver.

At the age of just 21, Scott found out he had primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), a rare disease of the bile ducts in the liver.

Around six years later, his condition worsened to the point that he needed a liver transplant.

Just three weeks after the major operation, medics in the pathology department at the hospital discovered that Scott had a tumour on a bile duct.

He had to go through a course of chemotherapy and more than a year on, Scott is now doing well at home with his wife Stacey and five-month-old son Harrison.

Scott, now 29, released his debut album 'Like Waves' this month, and all proceeds will be split evenly between the Beatson Cancer Charity and AMMF - the world's only bile duct cancer charity.

The singer-songwriter, who recorded all of the album himself, says he wants to make people more aware of the illness and help fund groundbreaking research.

Scott said: "Bile duct cancer is very difficult to detect in the body - I only found out I had it because I had to have a liver transplant.

"I've wanted to raise money for AMMF for a while as they do a lot of work in early detection.

"It's so important to make more people aware of this type of cancer.

"I got great support from both charities when I was going through my treatment, so this is my way of saying thank-you."

Scott was due to play a gig at McGeoch's last March to raise money for the charities but that was shelved due to coronavirus restrictions.

He still has some raffle prizes left that were due to be given out at the gig and plans to auction these on eBay to raise more funds.

The Gourock dad is thrilled to be releasing the album but admits the build-up to it has been very different.

Scott said: "It's been really strange - I would normally be out playing gigs just now and playing a gig to support the release of the album.

"I didn't even realise I was writing one - I just wrote a song at a time and realised I had enough material to release a record.

"I had a lot of songs already written but never got round to recording any of them.

"Lockdown gave me a lot of time to do that.

"I recorded five different versions of a couple of them, and some of them were recorded on a whim."

Scott is looking forward to hearing what fans think of the album - and as well as raising a lot of money for good causes, he has one main aim.

He said: "I just want to make people feel a bit happier.

"Hopefully the album will make people think about what's important in life and help them put a positive spin on things."

'Like Waves' is available on Bandcamp, in both digital and physical format.