Jerry Harvey

Jerry Harvey was born in 1961 and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. His first break in the music business occurred in 1980, when the Gland Slam Superjam rock tour starring April Wine, Judas Priest, and Sammy Hagar performed at the St. Louis Busch Stadium. While Harvey was tinkering on his 1978 red Pontiac Trans Am, Hagar's people approached him on the street and asked to borrow his car in exchange for free tickets. They then used Harvey's car to drive on stage during Hagar's anthem "Trans Am (Highway Wonderland)."

The show's promoter gave Harvey a job as a gofer, which led to Harvey working as a roadie for the local band The Agents. He soon became the light, and ultimately, the sound guy for the band, even though he was still underage at most of their venues. Harvey soon began traveling the world mixing sound for performers such as Kiss, Morrissey and The Cult.

In 1986 Harvey met David Lee Roth at a bar, and soon began mixing sound for Roth, and then Van Halen, on tour. According to Inc. magazine, "From his perch on the left side of the stage behind a black drop, Harvey's job, essentially, was to make sure the band members liked what they heard (as opposed to the person behind the big board out in the crowd, who only has to please the drunken audience)."

Harvey's first marriage to Shelley Harvey produced a daughter, Jaime Harvey. He and Shelley divorced. Harvey married Melinda L. "Mindy" Harvey, who became his business partner with Ultimate Ears. Their divorce became final in June 1996. After meeting Brittany Gale at a David Lee Roth concert, Harvey married her in 2003; they had two children, Katie Harvey and Jerry Junior Harvey III. They divorced in 2013. Jerry married Amy Thomas in 2016. He divorced Amy in 2020.