Eric Carr - Kiss Audition

Kiss Audition

Caravello was working for his father as an oven repair man for Jamaica Stove in Brooklyn while playing drums in "Flasher" when Kiss dismissed Criss. Caravello, who had played in cover bands throughout the 1970s, was told by former Flasher keyboardist Paul Turino that he should audition for Kiss. Along with the application, Caravello submitted a cassette tape of Kiss' current single "Shandi" but with his vocals over the music instead of Paul Stanley's.

"It sounded great!" he enthused years later. The application was put into a bright orange folder to make it stand out visually. Carr later stated that Jane Grod, a KISS staffer, told him later she had noticed the brightly colored envelope and so picked it to be one reviewed from the pile. {Taped KA interview, 1990}.

While sitting outside the actual room used for the audition, Caravello watched the three members of Kiss, Ace Frehley, Gene Simmons, and Paul Stanley, walk by to enter the room. He was one of the few people outside of the band's circle of friends, family, and music business partners, to see Kiss without make-up. "Paul, I knew right away", he told a fanzine in 1990 while interviewed on Kiss' tour bus. "The others I wasn't sure about." {Taped KA interview, 1990}.

Caravello was the last drummer to audition for the band and actually asked Stanley, Simmons and Frehley to autograph the list of Kiss songs he was to play with the band, in case he never saw them again. "But I knew I had it", he told a fanzine in 1990. According to Caravello, his audition was videotaped. He was also immediately comfortable, feeling the songs he had to play "...were a snap." He knew the arrangements better than the band did, from learning the recorded versions off Kiss' albums. "They had been on tour, and changed little things around," he said. He wasn't impressed with Kiss' performance at the audition. "They were awful!" he emphasized, "I had to remind them, "'No, I sing this harmony, you sing that one', stuff like that. It was great! Right away we were working together. I know it impressed them." {Taped KA interview, 1990}.

A significant advantage for Caravello may have been his relative anonymity, as it was important for the band to maintain the mystique surrounding the members. Said Paul Stanley, "It was really important to us that we got somebody who was unknown... We didn't want somebody who last week was in Rod Stewart's band or in Rainbow." The press release announcing the induction of Caravello into Kiss deducted two years from his actual age in order to confuse those seeking information about his true identity.