When I last spoke to Aled Clifford from Henry’s Funeral Shoe a year ago for The Guide’s Meet the Band feature things were really taking off for the Ystrad Mynach band. Both Aled and his brother Brennig had recently had their song Dog Scratched Ear included in Fiat’s American TV commercial featuring Charlie Sheen.

“We toured off the back of that,” Aled tells me. “It gives you more clout because there are millions of bands out there.”

The clout subsequently landed Henry’s Funeral Shoe on a US cruise ship tour supporting rock legends such as Kiss and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Aled continues: “We got to mix with them and they were into us so it wasn’t just bands blowing smoke.”

Playing cruise ships with rock legends is a quick jump for Henry’s Funeral Shoe who was formed by the brothers just under five years ago. They have achieved so much in a short time, particularly in the States, yet still remain relatively unknown on their home ground.

“I’d been in bands for years,” Aled tells me, “I was doing a lot of solo stuff and I did session work with a band and seen a really ugly side of the business and thought okay I’m going to do my own thing. We got signed and they said: “Have you got an album’s worth of songs?” and we said “yeah!” We didn’t. We had like four songs we rehashed a lot of my older acoustic songs and made them into band songs and everything worked and then we got offered a tour.

We went on it and it just snowballed, we didn’t turn anything down we just did everything. We’ve just been relentless for the length of time we could.

Following the cruise ship tour which found Henry’s Funeral Shoe sailing on the tail end of a hurricane the band found themselves back on home soil prior to Christmas selling out packed venues in Cardiff and Ebbw Vale.

“When your touring you’ve got to find your hotel after the gig when you’re playing local it’s nice to come home to your own bed!” laughs Aled.

The band will play Abertillery Blues Festival. It’s a gig Aled is particularly looking forward to.

“Abertillery Blues Festival is something I’ve gone to for a couple of years so to go as an artist is going to be really enjoyable.” He says, “We’re going to be playing some new songs, we’ll be playing old songs, we’ll be playing some crowd pleasers.”

Beyond Abertillery, Henry’s Funeral Shoe hope to take in another rock cruise as well as releasing a third album which will be made up of tracks from their first two albums but with further production.

"We started off as a punk blues band and ended up giving the punters a bit more quality so we want to spend more money on songs that deserve it,” confirms Aled. “That’s the objective and were going to tour it as well as making an EP to take us into Europe which should be released by the end of the year so we’re trying to cover all bases really!”

  • Weekend tickets for July 12 and 13 are £40 and available from abertillerybluesfestival.co.uk or call 01495 355800. Friday, Saturday and Blues Club Member tickets are available, but only through the box office. Camping is available on site for £10 per tent, there is limited space for camper vans which needs to be booked in advance.