I found Marvin through a mutual friend. Marvin said that he knew a guy called Aston from the audition circuit who was worth looking at. I called Aston while he was on the football pitch. He didn’t even know what he’d said yes to!
I was a bit of a naughty boy when it came to auditioning people: I was sneaking into the rehearsal rooms at the Dance Attic Studios and holding them there. Sometimes I asked them for a favour, but I kind of pushed the favour: I said, ‘I just need it for fifteen minutes,’ when I really needed it for half an hour. But I had no money and I wanted to audition the boys somewhere that looked professional. Then I’d go back home and put their pictures up next to mine to see who complemented whom.
Once I’d accepted Marvin and Aston for the band, I realised that I needed somebody who specifically complemented my look. I also needed someone who had more of a musical ear and could master harmonies. That was JB. So everything I looked for, I found.
I found JB indirectly through The X Factor 2007. They were holding auditions next door to my university. When I came out for a break one day, I saw the queues and thought, maybe I can scout for my last member down the line!
There was an artists’ development company there called Major Music and they were also scouting. We got talking and they said that they had somebody under development called Jonathan Benjamin Gill. He was working with a voice coach called Karla. They gave me his MySpace
The boredom became so extreme that I began to feel I was losing myself. So I picked up my guitar and, although I couldn’t really play guitar, I plucked away and wrote songs from chords. I wrote, wrote, wrote and sang, sang, sang: that’s all I did.
details and his phone number and I checked him out. My first thought was, Wow, he really complements me physically. I just need to check out his vocals.
Straight away it was obvious that JB had the right attitude. I could see he was very determined, just like me. He had this great falsetto and his harmony ability was just amazing. He is the king of harmonies.
I said to the boys, ‘Jump in this car with me and I promise I’ll take you to the moon. I promise that I won’t let you down.’ I also assured all their families that we were going to be successful, no matter what.
There was a real vibe the first time we all sang together. Marvin turned to me and said, ‘Well done, the band is definitely complete.’ We started rehearsing straight away. What was fantastic was that we didn’t just get along from a musical perspective; we also got along outside of music, because we liked the same things, we liked the same music, we liked the same movies and we liked the same sports.
JB and I share a rugby background; Aston and Marvin share a football background; Aston and I have an athletics background; we all like R&B, pop and soul. I think my music tastes are a bit more out there, because I love rock too. I love Lenny Kravitz—he’s an idol of mine—but I also love Stevie Wonder and Tina Turner.
We began to dedicate ourselves to the band and make sacrifices for it. Marvin started to slow down with his work. Aston was struggling with jobs. I still needed to bring money in, because there were many times when my mum needed money. So I gave out the London Paper during the day and worked long nights in the West End, hustling for clubs till three o’clock in the morning. I’d get paid at four and then I’d go off to sing with the buskers at Piccadilly Circus until the sun rose. I often walked part of the way home, because the night buses didn’t go all the way to where I lived. Sometimes it was pouring with rain, it was dark and cold, there were thugs in the street and I had cash in my pocket, so I’d walk along very cautiously. I’ve seen the vultures come out at night.
I was determined to make it in music, no matter what happened. My passion and desire lies in music and in singing and in songwriting, in creativity and creative thinking and creative writing. When I do those things, that’s when I feel alive.
I have goals and I’m obsessed by the objectives I want to achieve, but I also have my silly moments. When I’m most silly is when I’m around my friends and we do stupid things like dancing in the middle of the road in the middle of the night, or when we end up singing and dancing with the buskers in central London until the early hours of the morning. It’s usually when I’m with my friends that I get really stupid.
As for girls, a dream date would be to fly to the Caribbean on separate planes and meet each other on a beach in the evening. On this beach there would be a table laden with beautiful fruit cocktails and lovely seafood. A more practical date would be going to a live Latin music night to have a little wiggle. I try to salsa but I’m terrible at it. I’m still working on it!
Girls and guys are definitely equal, but different. I believe in equality in every relationship. I don’t believe that guys should dominate women or that women should overrule guys. There should be a mutual connection, give and take. We’re all human beings.
OVERLEAF: MY MUM PUT ME IN THIS, SHE LOVED THIS OUTFIT FOR ME, LITTLE SANTA CLAUS, SO EMBARRASSING, ‘LOVE YOU MUMMY!’
If I took a girl out on a first date and she offered to pay, or pay half, I wouldn’t want to accept because I’m a gentleman. But if she were insistent, I would give in. I’d say, ‘If you do become my lady, then I’ll pay next time.’
If I had no money and she wanted to pay for me? That’s happened to me, in fact—I’m not going to lie—and I had no shame in accepting. On one of my first dates, the girl paid for everything. At first, I said, ‘I can’t accept this!’ But she said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ It didn’t make me feel bad, because she was older, had more money and was in a different place in her life. I was a student and she was in music.
When I advertised for a supergroup, I was thinking about how it would be if I took a member of each of the greatest boy bands that have ever been and put them in one band. So, rather than modelling the band on one group, I modelled the band on many groups. And in a way you could say that we’ve got the ’N Sync in Aston, the Backstreet Boys in Marvin, New Edition in JB, Boyz II Men and Jodeci in me, and The Temptations and Jackson Five in all of us.
I keep things very innovative and I don’t settle for the easy option. I’m always looking for the best for us, always looking for better, and I believe that we can be great, not just good. I constantly encourage everybody to do their best and to sing their best.
I believe in the ethos of treating people the way you want to be treated. I believe in a higher power, whether it’s the universe or God or whatever you want to call it. Red is my colour because it’s passionate, powerful and it’s strong. Red is a little bit dangerous. My mantra is, ‘From victory to victory.’
The night before our first X Factor audition with the judges, I couldn’t sing because I was really ill. I was so scared. I had some kind of flu that blocked my throat and I literally could not sing a note. I was actually thinking about giving my part to somebody else, but then I thought, ‘You know what, Oritsé? Just be determined and don’t think about being sick. Just pretend you’re 100 per cent fine, give it your best and you’ll get through it.’
It was nerve-racking waiting to go in. There’s no turning back now, I thought. It was make or break. Yes or no.
Marvin never usually gets nervous but he was really nervous then. It’s the most nervous I’ve ever seen Marvin. We walked in and I looked at the judges and thought, I am not going back: I am only going forward from here; my whole life will change in this moment. We’re only going forward and we’re going to get through this, because we’ve worked too hard and we’ve sacrificed too much not to.
After