Eric Carr was an important member of KISS from 1980 to 1991, stepping in to be the drummer following the departure of the band’s original drummer, Peter Criss. Bruce Kulick had shared some fond memories about the icon and his legacy with VRP Rocks.

Carr’s first album with KISS was 1981’s Music From “The Elder”, while his final recording with the band was for the song “God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll To You II”. The last time he worked with KISS was in July 1991 when they filmed a video for the above-mentioned song. Carr’s final appearance with KISS was at the MTV Video Music Awards in September 1991.

Eric Carr passed away on November 24, 1991, at 41 from cancer. 

In an excerpt from a new interview with VRP Rocks, former KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick reflected on Carr’s last days and his legacy.

Bruce Kulick said “I’m so happy that he was involved to a certain extent on Revenge (1992) by doing the video for ‘God Gave…’, and I have this incredible recording of only the voices where you really hear Eric’s voice in that quiet part where everyone’s singing ‘God Gave Rock N’ Roll To You’. What a tremendous artist. There was this drum solo (‘Carr Jam’) from this riff that he worked on with Ace (Frehley) that was never really released, (so we decided) let’s bring this out, re-do it, and I was the first one back to work after the funeral. Which was actually therapy because everybody was shattered.”

Carr was a powerful hard-hitting drummer and one of the first drummers to adopt the classic 1980s snare drum sound: a highly reverberated and low-tuned sound. In his 1980 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.” He listed drummers John Bonham, Keith Moon, and Lenny White as influences.

Carr’s interest in double bass drumming came from his admiration of Ginger Baker and John Bonham, once telling 16 magazines, “I just loved the way John Bonham played drums”. Carr also had a love of all types of music; songwriter Adam Mitchell once described Carr as knowing a lot about folk, R&B, and other non-rock styles.

In a 1983 interview, Carr told USA Network interviewer Al Bandero that he listened to “a lot” of Neil Young, and liked many different types of music. Simmons has stated that Carr’s harder drumming style pushed Kiss into becoming a heavier band than it had been when jazz-inspired Criss was the band’s drummer.