Eric Carr - Early Life

Early Life

Carr was born and raised in Brooklyn. "It was the typical “Leave It To Beaver” kind of house.", he recalled in an interview in 1990. "It was great, basically pretty normal, I guess. My father worked real hard, so I really didn't see much of him, which is unfortunate. I realize that today, but he was working fifteen hours a day, six days a week...so I...never went to a baseball game or that kind of stuff – ever. I used to spend a lot of time alone. I used to play a lot by myself, with a lotta, lotta toy soldiers. And I used to make monsters, and have the soldiers fight the monsters." {Taped interview, 1990, KISS Alliance fanzine}.

Caravello grew up in the 1960s, in the Brownville section of East New York in New York City.

"I went...to...the High School of Art and Design. I went into be a cartoonist. They give you a chance to sample each major before you finally decide what you want. After the first three weeks...I decided to change and be a photographer, I don't know why. (W)ith the result that my high school years, typical high school kid, I wasted absolutely every day of high school. I got no work done, did nothing to further my career, wasted time, and wound up getting drunk in the darkroom with my friends all the time. We never got caught because we could see through the one-way glass whenever a teacher would come. It wasn't like I was getting drunk every day, you know. Half a cup of Vodka in those days was enough to get you drunk. It wasn't like we were doing bottles!I had a lotta fun with my friends in high school, I never kept track of any of them, but I had a really good time." {Taped KA interview, 1990}

Caravello did not look like all the other kids, mostly due to his love of the Beatles. "I was one of the two kids in the school that had long hair," he said in the same interview. "I used to Dippity-Do my hair down, to make it stay flat. I used to have a Beatles haircut, but my hair's curly, so I couldn't get it to lay flat like the Beatles'. So I'd get the stuff Dippity-Do, drench my hair with it, and I'd take a piece of my Mom's nylon stocking, tie a knot in one end, and pull it over my head like a burglar. I was sleeping like that for probably two years with that on my head every night. The weirdest part of that whole thing was that my parents let me do it! I would walk around the house, getting ready to go to bed, and I'd have this thing around my head. And they'd act like, Okay, well, no big deal. And I think about it now, and I say, they must have thought I was nuts!"

His parents were Albert and Connie Caravello. "My parents were real supportive, and they knew how much I loved the Beatles. They liked the fact that I was playing music, I was a real good kid. I didn't do anything to make trouble. They weren't going to pick on me for something like that. They're real good Italian parents. They're real good people. They've worked really hard, I owe them a lot. I try to do what I can for them now, but it's hard to make up for a whole lifetime of sacrifice. They're real proud of me." {Taped KA interview - April 25, 1990.}

Caravello graduated high school in 1968. "I don't remember my graduation. It was typical, you know. I stood there with that stupid cap and gown on! (The 1960s) got pretty nasty towards '67, '68, when all the riots were happening. I just happened to live where the riots were happening. My neighborhood was called Brownsville, East New York. As I was growing up...the black neighborhoods were right near where I lived. My neighborhood was old Italian and old Jewish. Little by little all the old Italians and the old Jews started moving out to Long Island, you know, Getting Out. And the black people were moving closer and closer. I never had any problems with anybody, I had black friends, and I never grew up thinking in those kinds of terms.

"From then on, basically, I played in a couple of Top-40 bands. Top-40 in those days was everything – funk, ballads, rock, country, and everything. It was a great time for radio, it really was. {Taped KA interview, 1990}