His mother, Renalda Whittridge (née Green), was an Australian-born folk singer and dancer; she returned to Australia in 1980, with her son.
[6][7] In the late 1980s, he was a member of Hans Valen, which covered material by United States heavy rocker, Van Halen; and then he was in Gnomes of Zurich.
[9] In mid-1990, Thomas, as Jones (on lead guitar), worked alongside Buckle in John Farnham's backing band to record that artist's album, Chain Reaction (September 1990).
[8][11] Jones and Buckle toured Australia and Europe as members of Farnham's backing band to promote Chain Reaction.
During the 1990s, Thomas worked as a session musician on albums by other artists including Lisa Edwards' Thru the Hoop (June 1993),[14] Debra Byrne's Sleeping Child (July 1994),[15] Phil and Tommy Emmanuel's Terra Firma (April 1995),[6][16] Bachelor Girl's Waiting for the Day (November 1998),[9] and Farnham's Live at the Regent Theatre 1st July 1999 (1999) as well as touring in Farnham's backing band for the I Can't Believe He's 50 Tour.
[6][9] In 1996, Thomas and Donati formed a trio, Hong Kong Meeting, with Steve Hunter on bass guitar.
[6][17] Late in the next year Thomas and Donati joined Tina Arena's backing band for her national tour in support of her third solo studio album, In Deep (August 1997).
[6][9] In the following year, Thomas formed the Jack Jones Band with Garry Gary Beers on bass guitar (ex-INXS) and Alex Formosa on drums.
[6] In March 1998 they performed at the Good Vibrations benefit concert by various artists for Marc Hunter, the ailing lead singer of New Zealand-Australian band, Dragon, who had been diagnosed with throat cancer.