Wolverhampton teen takes band to the X Factor

Three years later, he and his band New Bounce came third in the final of Britain's Got Talent.

Now four years on, the talented Finchfield teen is having another stab at stardom as he tries his luck on

X Factor with his new band Tribe.

The 17-year-old is now through to the Six Chair Challenge stage of the competition – which will be broadcast on ITV this Sunday from 7pm – after they got through the bootcamp round this weekend.

MJ said that the last few weeks had been 'absolutely incredible'.

"It's mind-blowing when you watch the TV and you're actually on it it's different", he said. "It's a lot different to what you would expect."

"People sending me texts saying 'I've just seen you on X Factor' and it's just crazy.

"When you have got 5,000 people in the background and you walk on the stage and everyone is screaming it is so overwhelming.

"When you've got so many people there singing your name it can put you off but obviously that's what your there to do. It's an amazing experience."

"Boot camp is hard but great fun. There's lots of stuff going on and the place that we went to was really beautiful."

The Walsall Studio School student was just 12-years-old when he first appeared on ITV's Britain's Got Talent with New Bounce.

Since then two members of the original line-up have left while MJ and Mitchell met Gideon and Luciel to form Tribe.

The quartet, who started the band at a family barbecue, have been together for around a year and a half now and take influence from the likes of Michael Jackson, Chris Brown, Usher and JLS.

MJ said: "We all met at a barbecue and then we just started jamming. So went in the studio tried this that and the other and it all just clicked.

"I've been in Tribe for a year and a half now and we've been in the studio deciding what direction to go in and thought X Factor would be a good place to showcase our ideas."

Before venturing into the world of television, MJ played Michael Jackson in Thriller Live on the West End.

The former Uplands Junior pupil from Finchfield was snapped up after initially being rejected for the plum role for being too young.

But aged 10, and still a year under the minimum age limit, the talented lad was just too good to turn away a second time.

He got the audition through Stagecoach, a theatre group he attended at Newhampton Arts Centre in Whitmore Reans.

MJ, who also attended the performing arts school BOA (Birmingham Ormiston Academy), is now hoping to put the place he calls home on the map.

"I'm proud to be from here – you've got to be," he said.

"Of course I'm proud of my roots it's where you've been brought up and you've got to represent.

"It was madness playing Michael Jackson – it was really good because I was so young as well. I was mainly on tour so I would go to Germany, France, Poland and places like that and then we'd swap with other people playing the same part and I'd go to West End.

"It doesn't matter where you go, everybody knows Michael Jackson so it was such an honour to get to play him. In the next five years I just hope we're touring, recording, selling out massive arenas and just make an impact on the world with music."

He sums up: "I'm just so excited for the future."

To keep up-to-date with Tribe follow them on Twitter here or find them on Facebook here.