AN ASPIRING musician has become the face of a nationwide TV advertising campaign and is on a mission to create a “superband” featuring as many people as possible jamming together.

Josh Ward, from Steventon, near Abingdon, struck a chord with executives at Saatchi & Saatchi while on his way to a gig and has since had his face plastered across billboards, buses and bins.

He has even been seen by 13 million people watching commercial breaks during ITV’s X Factor.

Approached in London before playing bass with his band Alphabet Backwards, Mr Ward was asked by phone company T-Mobile what he would do with free text messages for life.

His off-the-cuff reply – that he would gather people together for a massive jamming session – caught the company’s imagination and he was handed a camera and a phone and challenged to do just that.

Using just a mobile phone and the power of the Internet, he is hoping to meet as many different people as he can for a series of impromptu jamming sessions.

The idea is to assemble as many musicians as possible playing together.

Mr Ward filmed his latest advert with a gaggle of musicians in the Half Moon pub in St Clement’s.

The 25-year-old former John Mason School pupil said: “I was just about to play a gig in Brick Lane with my band when we saw these guys with cameras filming the vox pop adverts.

“I thought I’d give it a go as I’ve just graduated and they said there would be a little bit of money in it if it went on TV.

“They sounded really interested and came to the gig, spoke to me afterwards and asked me to do more.”

Since then, Mr Ward’s quest to meet musicians from all over the country has been captured on film and posters of his face have popped up nationwide, including on bins in Oxford’s Westgate Centre.

He said: “It has completely taken over my life. When people put you on the side of a bus everyone you have ever known gets in touch.

“I’ve also met lots of people I would have never met before – I’ve been contacted by musicians from all over the country.

“It could be a big thing, but I’m playing it by ear – I don’t really consider it a job, more as an opportunity to meet people and play music with them.”

The campaign is the brainchild of art director Rick Dodds and copywriter Steve Howell, who were also responsible for T-Mobile’s mass sing-alongs in Trafalgar Square and the “flash mob” dancing at Liverpool Street train station.

Mr Dodds said: “He’s so charismatic and articulate and full of passion.

“It’s a unique campaign because it’s real – he’s a real person using his own social networks and we are watching it unfold.”

To join Mr Ward’s superband go to myspace.com/joshward84 tairs@oxfordmail.co.uk