Eric carr biography

His original character in the band which wore paint and costumes up until was to be a hawk, but his unhappiness with that look led to it being changed to a fox shortly before he was introduced in a press conference as the new Kiss drummer. Two sisters, Loretta and Sissy. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content. Learn more about contributing.

He was selected to be the drummer for the band "Kiss". From to , Eric played with "Kiss" and performed under the persona of The Fox. Alongside his work with the band, Carr pursued his own musical endeavors. He recorded several interesting compositions, which were later reissued by his friends. Eric Carr tragically passed away on November 24, Health issues for the musician began after the tour in support of the band's last album.

Doctors diagnosed him with heart cancer, giving little hope for a favorable outcome.

Eric carr biography

Contact About Privacy. Poor album sales and lower chart position did not allow Kiss to tour to support The Elder. During the summer of , KISS dedicated themselves to creating a hard rock album that predominantly featured Carr's drumming and his unique style. Creatures of the Night was released on October 25, The heavy reverb on Carr's drums was a unique sound not previously heard on a Kiss album.

The album featured nine songs, none of which were written by Carr. It was Carr's first North American tour. The tour was poorly attended and ended in early April after only 53 shows. In June Kiss played in Brazil for the first time. The pent-up demand for Kiss resulted in high attendance, with approximately , people at the Rio de Janeiro show.

Carr said he found writing lyrics harder than writing music. Besides drumming, Carr also played guitar, bass guitar and piano, and also sang background vocals. Occasionally he sang lead vocals, such as on " Black Diamond " and "Young and Wasted" live with Kiss. Carr recorded his version of the song in the same room in the Record Plant where the song was originally recorded, [ 25 ] using the same backing track as Criss.

In , he recorded a demo with Kiss lead guitarist Bruce Kulick. Carr wrote the music, played bass and drums, while Kulick played guitar. As Carr was not a proficient lyricist, he presented the demo to Simmons with the words to Marvin Gaye 's classic " Ain't That Peculiar ". Simmons wrote new lyrics, which Carr recorded for the subsequent Hot in the Shade release.

The song was released as " Little Caesar ". He performed the song a few times, but it wasn't performed beyond the first month of the tour. As a replacement member, Carr was a paid employee and did not have voting privileges, unlike the four founding members who shared profits and voting rights equally. He felt excluded and unfairly treated as a second-class Kiss citizen, for instance not being allowed to share Simmons' and Stanley's limousine, only getting minimal exposure in videos such as the Kiss eXposed VHS , or being partially cropped out of the Asylum album cover.

Unlike fellow bandmember Bruce Kulick with the same status, Carr grew ever more frustrated and unhappy, culminating in his feeling of being ditched by Kiss during his hospitalization. The two drummers were on friendly terms but did not regularly contact each other and were not friends. Carr allegedly fixated on the fact that he was neither going to be a founding member of Kiss, nor the band's first drummer.

After having just met drummer Eric Singer and remaining insecure despite being in good standing with Kiss, Carr made the prescient claim that Singer was going to replace him as the new drummer in the band, which ultimately did occur in after Carr's death. For long periods, he would not even talk to Stanley. In his book, Stanley also recalls several memorable Carr episodes, including one in which he went out with a female photographer who later took nude photos of him in a bathtub holding a glass of champagne, claiming that the photographer had promised not to publish them the photos were soon publicized in the journal with which the photographer was associated.

Carr was a powerful hard-hitting drummer and one of the first drummers to adopt the classic s snare drum sound: a highly reverberated and low-tuned sound. In his resume sent to Kiss, Carr stated that his drumming style ranged from heavy metal and hard rock to pop and new wave claiming that "I can adapt to most situations easily. In an interview he recalled, "I was caught up in the whole Beatlemania thing.

I guess I was attracted to the drums because of the feeling of the rhythm and how it moved you, just sitting in your seat. I loved the way Ringo moved. I identified with him at the time". Carr's interest in double bass drumming came from his admiration of Ginger Baker and John Bonham, once telling 16 magazine, "I just loved the way John Bonham played drums".

In February , Carr began feeling ill. Medical tests initially revealed what appeared to be manageable health issues. In April , Carr underwent a series of surgeries to remove tumors in his right atrium and lungs in an effort to restore heart function and prevent the cancer's growth. Soon after Carr's diagnosis, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons replaced him with session drummer Eric Singer to commence new recordings for the band's upcoming album Revenge.

After recovering from the multiple surgeries, Carr pressed Stanley and Simmons to let him back in the band. Stanley and Simmons refused; both have stated they repeatedly told Carr to focus on his cancer treatments and they would allow him to return to Kiss once he regained his health. The doctors refused to let Carr leave the hospital on any conditions, no matter how he pleaded with them.

Gene Simmons revealed that Eric Carr's favorite food was McDonald's, and that he and Paul Stanley would sneak out to bring back fries and other food to share with everyone, including Carr. Despite his poor health, Carr asked Stanley and Simmons to allow him to be in the video. They ultimately agreed, after the doctors let the band know that Carr had only two or three months left to live.

The doctors decided that Carr might as well do what he wanted and be happy in his last few weeks. Carr flew to Los Angeles to film the video in July During the filming of the video, Carr was in enormous pain, taking medications periodically throughout the filming. After the video shoot, Carr flew back to New York to continue cancer treatments; his health had deteriorated to the point where he was unable to play drums for the recording sessions for Revenge.

Carr's replacement, Eric Singer, played on the album's tracks. Not long afterwards, he suffered an aneurysm and was rushed to the hospital. Several days later, he suffered a brain hemorrhage and never regained consciousness. He died on November 24, , at the age of His death came on the same day as Freddie Mercury , the lead singer of the British rock band Queen , whose death attracted more media attention.

He had been planning on giving her an engagement ring for her birthday. In keeping with Carr's accessibility to his fans, his family decided to open his funeral service to the public while reserving the interment as a private event. Although it was not publicized at the time, Carr's death was considered controversial amongst his family and Kiss.

Both Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were labeled the "bad guys" by Carr for booting him out of the band and not supporting him in his time of need. The two were not made aware of this until they attended his funeral and were treated with hostility by Carr's family and friends. Stanley wrote in his autobiography that, at the time, he believed the allegation of mistreating Carr was simply untrue and that he did what he thought was right to support him.

However, during Carr's service, Stanley admitted to "sobbing uncontrollably" and came to regret how he had treated Carr during his illness. Former Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick , along with Carr's family, released Carr's first and only solo album in , titled Rockology , which featured many demos that Kulick and Carr worked on together along with songwriter and friend Adam Mitchell.

The CD features several songs with Carr on lead vocals as well as on bass guitar, along with Kulick on guitars and Mitchell assisting Carr with many of the background vocals. This album includes "Somebody's Waiting" and "Tiara", a song that he originally wrote for his planned children's cartoon show called Rockheads , a rock band parody featuring four characters Slider, Clive, Scruffy and Punky with different characteristics and personalities.

In , Carr's family released an album of his unreleased songs called Unfinished Business. The album consists of 18 songs and runs 43 minutes in length, and includes Carr singing Shandi , which was taken directly from his tape he sent into KISS for his audition. As a tribute, the group's release Revenge featured what is said to be the only drum solo Carr ever recorded with the band, [ 17 ] entitled "Carr Jam ", a jam session recorded for the Music From "The Elder" sessions former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley's original guitar part was overdubbed by Bruce Kulick.

Carr had for years been trying to get his hands on a copy of the solo for his personal collection, but his request was always rebuffed by Bob Ezrin with the excuse that he did not know where the masters for the session were. The Revenge album was dedicated to Carr. Carr would go on with the band until They enjoyed some success, performing as an opening act for established names such as Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone.

The band broke up in late After three weeks of rehearsals, they started playing at clubs. At this point he had become discouraged about his musical future after so many years trying to make it without a break, and considered settling down with a non-musical career. Really, really terrible. At that point, he considered quitting music, having reached the age of 30 without any real success.

Just for fun, he sent in an audition tape and resume. To his surprise he was called to audition. After returning several times he was chosen as the NEW.