On 23. June 1980, at 1:30 Paul Caravello (Eric Carr) auditions with Gene, Paul and Ace, at Star Rehersal Studios, NY, bashing out five tunes, including “Black Diamond”, “Firehouse”, “Strutter”, “Is That You?”, and “Detroit Rock City”. He then does a short drum solo, it’s all video recorded by the band. He manages to get the band’s autographs before leaving, just in case! But he is told to call back on Friday. This is the first of four days of auditions.
On 27. June 1980, Caravello is called back for his second audition with Kiss. They play again at S.I.R. Studios in New York at 1:30 p.m.
Article photo: Two of the photos Carr sent to Kiss.
Eric entered the audition room to find a huge double-kick drum set, brightly lit with a video camera in front of it; a long table in the back of the room full of gourmet food and the band members in the shadows near the back. After a short interview and a brief discussion about Eric singing harmonies, Eric set up his drum pedal, and the four began playing the five songs that were being used for the audition. “J don’t remember all of the details of it. The vocals sounded great right away—they would pick a note and I would pick a note and sing the harmonies and it sounded great. I did “Black Diamond” and they loved that. They were very impressed with the vocal stuff. What I do remember is that I knew the songs ten times better than they did. They were rusty, and when you’re rusty you get out of shape, and I guess when you don’t play for a while you don’t care. They were making mistakes all over the place. I remember that I would be playing a song, and I would just look at them when they made a mistake, like, ‘What are you guys doing?’
– “Black Diamond: the unauthorized biography of Kiss” by Dale Sherman
Eric Carr: “I got the telephone number of Aucoin Management and told them I was a drummer and I want to audition for Kiss. They said send a tape of your playing, a picture and a resume. I sent it in a bright orange folder because I figured that that there would be so many of these on the secretaries desk that maybe, just maybe it’ll attract her attention. Sure enough, that’s what happened. She saw my folder and grabbed it first.”
“They called me and I went in the next day to meet Bill Aucoin. He gave me a list of songs to learn for the audition, in the event I was called for the audition. He told me I should shave my moustache off because they wouldn’t want to see me in my moustache. I spent the rest of that day learning the five songs.”
Gene Simmons says in ‘Kiss and Make Up’: “I’ll never forget his audition. He came in and he had the biggest head of hair I’d ever seen. And he was shorter than any of us. Still he was great from the start, cute as a button with a heart of gold. At the end of the audition, he actually got up and thanked us and said ‘Before I leave can I have your autograph?’. It struck us all, even Ace, as being a sweet thing. He wanted this break so badly, in such a pure way while working as a stove cleaner.”
Bill Aucoin remembers the audition in ‘The Eric Carr Story’: “He was just one of many, so he came in, he tried out and we knew he could play well. I think it was a juxtaposition between two or three potential drummers and he just stood out. I think he stood out because of his personality. That really separated him from everyone”
Paul Stanley in his autobiography ‘Face the Music’: “At first I wasn’t blown away by his playing, but everyone else in the room, including Vini Poncia and Bill Aucoin, thought he was great.”
