A GWENT rock band which played to a crowd of 10,000 at a leading UK festival has discovered they have their own tribute acts in Brazil and Japan.

Five-piece band The Dirty Youth found out about their huge South American and Asian fan bases after a music video they posted went viral.

Guitarist Matt Bond, said: “Our biggest fan base is in Brazil with the tribute acts, but we also have fans in Spain, Poland and all across Europe. One video has more than 3,000,000 views.”

In June the band, fronted by lead singer Danni Monroe, played their biggest festival stage so far at Download Festival in Leicestershire.

Bassist Leon Watkins said: “We obviously started years back on the small stages and have worked our way up, and now we’ve played on the same stage as Status Quo.”

“It’s amazing really, we grew up listening to these bands and now we are playing the same festival as them.

The band also played their first headline slot at Scotland’s rock and heavy metal festival, LesFest, and will launch their first headline UK tour in October.

Mr Watkins, from Tredegar, said: “I’ve always wanted to do Glastonbury, that’s the dream. We’ve been pretty lucky and stuff to do some of the main festivals and travel.

“We’ve been round Europe quite a few times and did a tour across Europe with the Rasmus which was a total of 28 gigs.”

Guitarist Mr Bond said: “All the hard work is paying off. We also really want to do a Welsh tour but there just aren’t enough venues which is a real problem here.