Jerry was born in Anaheim, California to father Mark Willis and mother Janice Willis. His father was a musician in a relatively unknown band, and this prompted a move to the UK with his band. Mark was a bit of a drug addict, and died of an overdose when Jerry was only 5 years old. This left Jerry with his single mother, and no other family. Jerry’s mother did not have enough money to move back over to the USA, so they stayed in the UK.
Jerry started school, and was in the same class as Warren. Jerry and Warren hated each other. They would regularly get into arguments and fights, but when Jerry’s father died of a drug overdose, Warren changed his mind about Jerry and supported him through the tough time of loosing his father. Jerry didn’t know what to think about Warren, but it wasn’t long before they became good friends.
By the age of 11, Jerry had taught himself how to play the Drums, and had actually taught Warren how to do it too! He also taught himself how to play the Mandolin and Guitar by the time he was 16.
On Warren’s 14th birthday, Jerry met Chris. They instantly became friends, having a lot in common. Chris had very similar interests to Jerry, which made them gel very easily. Jerry, Warren and Chris all become very close, and liked to play music together as it was always fun to see what sort of sound they could play. All 3 of them could sing relatively well, but Jerry was easily better than the other two. By the time he had hit 21, Jerry had become relatively well known locally for going on open-mic nights and winning local singing competitions.
While at Chris’ house for a party, he met Peter. Peter only lived next door to Chris, so Jerry was surprised that he had never met him before. They got talking and eventually got onto the subject of music. It turned out that Peter could play several instruments as well, and wasn’t too bad a singer. The four of them got incredibly drunk that night, and were recorded singing as a four piece on a karaoke machine, which was then posted all over facebook. Hundreds of people saw this video, and were shocked by how good they all sounded together. This prompted them to all get together and have a go at being a band. They each tried playing different instruments, but in the end decided that one instrument each was not enough, and that they would switch throughout performances.
This was the start of Kingdom.