By Anisa Ayoob.

JLS (Jack the Lad Swing) were an independent-sometimes referred to as indie-British boy band consisting of band members JB Gill, Marvin Humes, Aston Merrygold and Oritse Williams.

AstonJB Marvin Oritsè

Full name: Oritse Jolomi Matthew Soloman Williams.

Born 27 November 1986. Attended St Edwards School in West London,

where he was known as Music Boy. He attended the British International School in

Lagos, Nigeria. Here he befriended English/Nigerian singer L Marshall (who also attended the school) and won his first talent show performing alongside L in his final year.

Williams dreamed of being a solo artist from a very young age.

He was recruited for many boy bands but believed that a good boy band has to have a good bond between the members.

He decided to put together his own boy band, UFO, who later changed their name to JLS.

He wrote the song ‘Wow Oh Wow’ for JEdward.

Williams won the first series of the ITV dancing show Stepping Out, hosted by Davina McCall.

Full name: Martin Richard James Humes.

Born 18 March 1985. Is the oldest member of the band. Humes was previously a member of

another band called VS, created by Blue member Simon Webbe, but they split shortly after releasing an album.

After meeting future fellow band member Aston Merrygold, Humes joined UFO.

Humes has been in a public relationship with Rochelle Wiseman since March 2010.

They got engaged on 31 December 2011 and got married on 27 July 2012.

It was announced on Twitter on 22 November that they are expecting their first child and on 20 May 2013, Rochelle gave birth to their daughter Alaia-Mai.

Full name: Jonathan Benjamin Gill. Born 7 December 1986. Gill spent the first five years of his life living in Antigua,

discovering his musical talent at a very early age. After completing his exams at university, he decided to

audition for The X Factor in 2007. It was at this point that he came into contact with the other members of JLS.

Gill grew up, mostly, in Croydon and began making music at the age of seven when he played the recorder, piano, flute and guitar.

At the age of nine, he joined the choir and went onto perform at the local church. Gill concentrated on his music and began studying at The Centre for Young Musicians (CYM). After leaving the CYM, Gill stayed involved with the school music scene.

He played Mercado in the play Mercado and was involved with the choir at school. He continued this until he was 15 but had to give it up due to the pressures from the school to concentrate on his rugby career; he was involved with London Irish rugby club until he was 18.

Gill eventually decided that he wanted to sing rather than play rugby and took up vocal coaching during a year out before attending university. During this period, Gill was contacted by Oritse to try out for the band because of his musical ear and attention to harmonies.

JB Gill is now an owner of a farm in Scotland and he will take a pause from music and start a different life as a farmer.

Born 13 February 1988. In 2002, Merrygold entered

Stars in Their Eyes where he appeared as Michael Jackson, singing “Rockin' Robin” and finished in second place.

He came in second yet again with JLS on The X Factor at age 20.

His initial aspiration was to play football professionally. However, after developing a nerve problem in his left foot, he tried singing and acting instead.

Through acting, he met Humes. As a result, he received a call from Williams about joining a boy band.

Oritsé Williams decided to get into the music business mainly because his mother has multiple sclerosis and he wanted to raise money to help find a cure.

Williams decided to form his own boy band and, through friends, met Marvin Humes who had experience in R&B and pop music, being a part of VS in 2004.

Next to join was Aston Merrygold, who was once cast in the ITV children's programme Fun Song Factory, because of his athletic ability.

Last to join the group was JB Gill, for his "musical ear" and harmonies.

They bonded, became friends and together they were called UFO (Unique Famous Outrageous).

In 2008, UFO auditioned for the fifth series of The X Factor, but had to change their name because it was already being used by another group, so they decided to go with the name JLS (Jack the Lad Swing.

They originally signed to Tracklacers production company New Track City. Throughout the live shows the judges called them the best band ever to come

out of The X Factor. They made it to the final and performed their own version of the winner's song,

"Hallelujah", which the other finalist Alexandra Burke also performed. The public voted for the second time that night and Burke won the competition,

JLS coming second. They were the fourth band to make the final. Following their success on The X Factor, Cowell's record company, Syco,

announced that they were to sign JLS with an advance payment of £75,000. The Sun later reported on 20 January 2009 that Cowell had revoked this offer,

having instead decided to focus on Alexandra Burke. JLS's manager thought the band would be well suited to Epic Records, with

whom they signed a record contract in January 2009.

As soon as the contract was signed, Epic A&Rs began album preparation by contacting the pop songwriters and producers who they thought to be the best in the industry.

These included Steve Mac, Wayne Hector, J.R. Rotem and DEEKAY. When they went to see Mac he played them "Beat Again", a song he had written with Hector, and the pair enthusiastically agreed that it was perfect for JLS. Charrington said: "Once you've got that special song everything else seems to fall into place."

The song was released as the debut single in July, only six months after the band had signed with the label.

It reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart on 19 July 2009. On 9 November 2009 JLS released their debut album, JLS. The album debuted at No. 1 on the UK Album

Chart, selling over 1 million copies and named the sixth best selling album in the UK during 2009. Their second single "Everybody in Love", released on 2 November 2009, also topped the UK Singles

Chart. Their third single, "One Shot", peaked at number six despite a physical release, however it did stay in the

charts for a number of weeks despite the drop. Due to the success of their album, the group went on their first headline tour, with twenty-five dates

around the UK and Ireland. The group also became the first The X Factor contestants to win a BRIT Award in 2010, winning the

British Breakthrough and Best British Single for "Beat Again".

"The Club Is Alive" was announced as the lead single in April and released on 4 July 2010.

on 4 July 2010. The group promoted the single on Britain's Got Talent and GMTV. The single debuted at number one, becoming the group's third UK number one single.

On 16 September 2010 the group unveiled the second single, "Love You More" and was a BBC Children in Need single. It was their 4th UK number-one.

The group wrote the song with Toby Gad and Wayne Hector. Outta This World was released on 22 November 2010 and debuted at number 2 on

the UK Albums Chart selling 152,000 copies, being held off the number 1 spot by the second week sales of Take That's record breaking Progress album.

The album's third single "Eyes Wide Shut" was remixed to feature Tinie Tempah, and has so far reached number eight on the UK Singles Chart.

Merrygold also revealed that the group had teamed up with Bruno Mars for songs on the album, and had spoken about the possibility of working with Usher or Rihanna.

On 7 January 2011 the album was certified double platinum by BPI, representing sales of over 600,000 in the UK.

JLS began working on their third album, Jukebox in March 2011. In May 2011 it was confirmed that the first single will feature American singer-songwriter Dev, and is titled "She Makes Me Wanna“.

The album was released on 14 November 2011, and the band will embark on another UK arena tour in support of the album in March and April 2012.

On 15 September, JLS announced that "Take a Chance on Me" would be their second single from their album Jukebox. It was released on 4 November 2011, and charted at number two on the UK Singles Chart.

The band's third single "Do You Feel What I Feel?" was released on 1 January 2012 and became their lowest charting single to date, peaking at number sixteen. The album charted at number 2 on the UK Album Charts, making it the second consecutive album to miss the number 1 spot, and entered the Irish Album Charts at number 5.

In 2012, JLS recorded the official Sport Relief charity single, "Proud". It was released on 18 March 2012. The band were among the performers at the Diamond Jubilee concert held outside Buckingham Palace on 4

June 2012. On 7 June 2012, they performed at the Royal Albert Hall for the Rays of Sunshine concert, which grants wishes

for seriously ill youngsters in the UK aged 3–18 years old. On 8 June 2012, they were announced to perform at the iTunes Festival 2012, along with The X Factor alumni Olly

Murs, One Direction and Rebecca Ferguson. On 21 August 2012, JLS began filming a music video for "Hottest Girl in the World", the lead single from their

fourth album. On 25 August, the band announced that their upcoming fourth album would be called Evolution. The album will

be released on 5 November. On the direction of the album Merrygold said; "We didn't go by any kind of guidelines or anything like that, we just made what felt right and we're really excited about it.“

The single was released on 21 October and debuted at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart.

On 14 December 2012, JLS were invited to Friday Download as a special guest on the CBBC channel for British children.

On 17 December, Humes revealed that the group were to release a follow-up album to Evolution in 2013. On 1 February 2013, it was confirmed that work on their fifth studio album had begun.

On 23 April 2013, JLS released a statement on their official website announcing that they would be splitting up after releasing their greatest hits collection and completing their third and final arena tour.

On 24 April 2013, the band confirmed plans to release Goodbye –The Greatest Hits in late 2013, which would be preceded by a new single to coincide with their farewell arena tour across the UK.

It was confirmed on 26 September that their final single will be called "Billion Lights" and is due to be released on 17 November 2013.

JLS have said they decided to split because they felt there was nothing left for them to achieve —but are remaining tight-lipped about a possible reunion.

The boy band, who came second on X Factor in 2008, became one of the show’s biggest success stories when they went on to win Brit and Mobo awards and sell more than 10 million records.

Since announcing the split in April, they have been preparing their farewell tour, which comes to the O2 arena on December 21.

Chart-topping boy band JLS have told Newsround that the decision to split up "hit them very hard".

The group announced in April that they'd be parting ways - but not until after a final single, greatest hits album and goodbye tour!

Aston explained: "Things change, we've all grown up a lot since that very first X Factor audition and we've all got different, more goals individually."

Marvin said: "The final tour's going to be amazing. It's the first tour where we're taking a live band on the road with us.“

Video-JLS talk split and goodbye tour.