SINGING at Wembley in front of thousands of people, having your performance described as ‘flawless’ by superstar Rita Ora and having a beer with a member of One Direction has not phased a former West Devon resident, who is currently competing on one of the biggest UK TV shows — the X Factor.

Twenty-seven-year-old Max Pahlsson, stage name Max Stone, is originally from Bradstone near Milton Abbot. He thought his time on the singing show was up on Sunday night during the ‘brutal’ six chair challenge, until he was brought back to be put through to the next stage of the competition.

Max sailed through his first Wembley audition with his rendition of Bob Marley’s No Woman, No Cry where judge Nick Grimshaw told him ‘Your voice is really, really great’. He managed to battle his way through Boot Camp where the acts were whittled down to 16 in each category and he held his nerve in a shock U-turn during the six chair challenge.

Max was brought up in Bradstone and attended Lifton Primary School before moving to Sweden when he was eight. He moved back to West Devon at 15 to take his GCSEs at Tavistock College. He has studied song writing and has been living in London for the past five years trying to get his break in the music industry.

‘I was applying to various record labels but got to the point where I didn’t have any control over what my sound would be’ said Max. ‘I thought about how I could take control more and thought the X Factor would give me the chance to get my voice out to the public.

‘Stepping out onto the stage at Wembley to sing in front of 5,000 people was a very strange feeling and seeing the four judges who I’m used to seeing on TV was very surreal. I thought I would try my best and after a few minutes on stage I got the four yeses I needed to get into Boot Camp.’

Max made it through the Boot Camp round, although he was not shown on TV, and said the contestants had to work all through the day and through most of the night.

‘It’s really hard. None of us slept for most of the time.’

Making it through the dreaded six chair challenge, which was aired on Sunday, was a shock for Max who thought his time was up when he had to give up his seat.

‘I was second on stage and what the viewers don’t see is that I did the performance at one o’clock in the morning. When I got on stage, Simon said that I looked half dead, but that’s because I was! I did my performance and got a seat and it was all good until all the chairs were filled. It is really, really brutal.’

He said that before the challenge producers had encouraged the audience to shout for their favourite or point to who they think should lose their seat.

‘When you’re sat there you can’t help noticing people pointing out your chair. When Simon said “sorry I’m going to swap you” I was gutted. I went off stage and thought it was over, thinking about what I was going to do next. About an hour later I thought I heard the audience chanting my name but I didn’t really believe it, until Olly Murs and Caroline Flack came backstage and said they wanted me back on stage. Simon said he was sorry and that he had made a mistake and wanted me to have a chair. The crowd was going mental — it was the best moment of my life.’

He said contrary to popular belief, the contestants do not know anything about what is going to happen on the show so the reactions seen on television are real.

Max has now already filmed the Judges’ Houses stage, which is due to be shown on Saturday, but in a change in format, contestants do not know if they have got through or not until a live segment at Wembley at the end of Saturday’s show.

At Simon’s chateau in France, Max met and shared a few beers with Louis Tomlinson from 1D, who was Simon’s mentor for the Judges’ Houses stage.

Max is now waiting with the rest of us for Saturday’s show to see if he will continue in the competition.

‘I really hope I get through. There’s so much more I can do in the competition and different styles I can show. It would be great to show everyone what else I can do.’