Aston's aspiration was to play football professionally from a young age, however, a nerve problem in his foot lead to him experimenting with singing and acting. In 2002, he appeared as Michael Jackson on Stars in Their Eyes, he came second place in the talent show. Shortly after, Aston became an entertainer at the Pop Star Studios in his home city before leaving to focus on his music career. He also featured in an ITV Children’s Programme named Fun Song Factory alongside Laura Hamilton. In 2008, Aston’s friend that he had met through auditions, Marvin Humes, persuaded him to audition for his band UFO formed by Oritse Williams. Soon to be joined by JB Gill and they later changed their name to JLS and auditioned for the fifth series of the X-Factor, where they finished second place to Alexandra Burke.
Following their performance on the X-Factor, JLS soon were signed through Epic Records and they released four studio albums in total. They have five number one and four top ten singles and they have sold over 10 million records worldwide. They also released a film Eyes Wide Open that broke the box office records at the time. JLS split in 2013. Taking inspiration from Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake and Will Smith, Aston set his sights on a solo music career. In 2014, he signed up to Warner Bros Records whom he released his debut solo album Showstopper with. The leading single from this album later featured on the Samsung Galaxy S9 advert. He then continued to release new music in 2017 when he announced his EP Precious which was followed by a few singles in the following year.
His new music meant that he was picked as Elvis Duran’s Artist of the Month and featured on NBC’s Today Show in the US. Aston has made other TV appearances such as becoming a judge on the fourth series of Sky 1’s talent show Got To Dance. He also competed in the fifteenth series of Strictly Come Dancing where he reached the seventh week of the competition. During his time in JLS, Aston co-founded The JLS Foundation, which still remains. It aims to raise money for six charities in total including Cancer Research UK, Rays of Sunshine, Brook, Childline, MS Society and BeatBullying which is also a charity he is the ambassador of. A kind, charismatic and talented individual, Aston Merrygold is the ideal entertainment for any corporate event or music festival.
