The Barry Horns are an eleven-piece brass band, made up of fans of the Welsh national team. The band's name is a homage to retired Welsh footballer Barry Horne. The band has a five-point mission statement called the Barryfesto, which notes that the band exists in order
Musically the band play a variety of songs, many of which are associated with Wales and/or football, including "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", "Just Can't Get Enough" and "Zombie Nation".
The Barry Horns' first public appearance was outside the Wales v England World Cup Qualifying match in Cardiff on 26 March 2011. They also appeared at the Welsh Cup Final in the same year,[3] which was broadcast on S4C.
Their other media appearances include performing on BBC1's flagship football programme Football Focus,[4] BBC Radio Five Live and in a short promotional campaign for BBC Wales' coverage of Welsh national football.[1] In December 2011, they were the house band on the Jamie and Louise programme on BBC Radio Wales, playing a variety of Christmas related songs including an interpretation of East 17's 'Stay Another Day'.[5]
In February 2012, The Barry Horns released a video for their version of the Rocky theme, which they recorded as the anthem for Wales's World Cup 2014 qualifying campaign.[6] The video featured members of the band in various training scenarios as a parody of the training montage from the film.
In December 2013, the band released a cover of the song "Only You", 30 years after the cover by The Flying Pickets had earned a Christmas Number 1. The recording failed to make the UK charts but proceeds were donated to the charity Prostate Cymru, with a dedication made to the Flying Pickets' lead vocalist, Brian Hibbard, who died of prostate cancer in 2012. A music video released on YouTube paid homage to the original Pickets video from 1983.
In June 2016, the band released "This is Wales"[7] to coincide with their support of Welsh football team's Euro 2016 finals campaign.[8] The tournament also saw a popular reworking of “Push It” by Salt 'n Pepa, with new lyrics pertaining to the footballer, Hal Robson-Kanu. On the evening of Wales' semi-final defeat to eventual tournament winners, Portugal, The Barry Horns played on the BBC Six O Clock news, outside the Elephant & Castle pub in Lyon.
In March 2017, the band was controversially banned by the FAI from the Republic of Ireland vs. Wales World Cup 2018 qualifying match in Dublin.[9] In September that same year, The Barry Horns gave a headline performance at the first Welsh Independence music festival in association with Yes Cymru, held at Clwb Ifor Bach in Cardiff.[10]
In November 2019, the band's Twitter account operated by 'The Man From Uncle' was controversially closed down. Following a degree of public outcry, the account was reinstated by Twitter in December the same year.[11]
In July 2021, the band released the bilingual single 'Cymru Rydd' to coincide with the delayed EURO 2020 Championships. The single included a sample of Michael Sheen taken from the Raymond Williams lecture series of 2017. The Barry Horns performed an instrumental-only version of 'Cymru Rydd' on S4C's Y Wal Goch as the lyrics were censored by the station for political reasons.[12] This occurrence prompted Welsh folk singer, Dafydd Iwan, to write an article in the periodical, Barn, defending freedom of creative expression on Welsh language television.