JORDAN Pearce had a shot at fame when he was chosen to appear in the X Factor TV auditions.

But he didn’t go because it clashed with his GCSEs.

Now the teenager from Park North has decided to go it alone and released his first album. And he’s hoping it will turn out to be a hit.

Jordan said: “I’ve thought about doing TV shows a lot. I know Phoebe Maddison, she went on The Voice and did really well for herself.

“I did get accepted to go on to the X-Factor, on to the TV auditions once but it was while I was doing my GCSE’s so I couldn’t go through with it.

“I’ve always liked the idea of bringing up my profile through music, my actual music, rather than being on TV and going that way.”

The 18-year-old, who is studying music production at New College, released the album The Things at the start of the month.

He said: “I’m hoping the album will be a commercial success but also that it just gets my name out there.

“I released an EP last year, which was a shorter version of this album – it only had four of the songs on, while I was making the rest of them.

“That put my name on the map of the Swindon music community and I feel that helped a lot.

“The album is a chance for me to show that I can make an entire album by myself and that I can design, mix, master, write, produce and perform everything on my own,” he explained.

“I’m only a local artist in Swindon and I haven’t had the opportunity, especially now we’re in lockdown, to go out and gig and spread my name and album around.”

Jordan,who learned to play the guitar after school to keep him busy, spent two years making the album.

He added: “I wasn’t planning on releasing it as soon as it was ready.

“But obviously since lockdown started I’ve had a lot of free time so I got working on it and eventually finished it.

“I’ve got nothing to lose really, I’ve been talking about it for a long time and a lot of people have been anticipating it, a lot of my friends and family. I was just ready to release it and finally show people that there was an album.”

Jordan first started exploring music when he started secondary school.

Since then he’s been taking inspiration from rock pop band Twenty One Pilot.

“My teachers and my parents noticed that I had a gift for music and I got invited to clubs outside of school,” he said.

“I got used to performing live, I learnt how to sing, I learnt how to play other instruments like the ukulele along the way.”

Jordan’s album,The Things, is available on Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon.