Damon Carroll was born in Orlando, Florida where he lived for 12 years before moving to Tallahassee, Florida. After 3 years of playing football for the Florida State Seminoles he sustained a career ending knee injury. Damon rehabilitated his knee back to full strength before having to be hospitalized again. After months of being misdiagnosed, Damon was sent to Shands Hospital. Over the course of 2 years Damon fought for his life and emerged in a way even his doctors can not explain. With his health better than ever, Damon began to pursue the career he had always wanted, music. After parting ways as the lead singer and writer for the bands Corbin and Keroseen; Damon started his solo career. He has played shows to record breaking crowds in Tallahassee and opened for the likes of: Sugar Ray , Everclear , Better Than Ezra , Southern Culture on the Skids , Bonnie Rait , Ingram Hill , Socialburn , No Address , and many more. No longer having the restraints of a band, Damon has found his niche in a blend of rock/ alternative/ country. He is currently working on new material and career opportunities in Nashville.
Damon Carroll: From 39 in the FSU backfield to 1 on the charts & at the box office
By PHIL SWEETLAND Country music contributor, The New York Times Owner, Country Insider weekly Enewsletter for Radio
NASHVILLE, May 15, 2007 – Not long ago Damon Carroll played for Bobby Bowden. Now he sings for the whole wide world.
As a fullback at Florida State in the mid-1990s, Carroll was a bruising runner who often carried enemy tacklers on his back as he battled for a first down or a touchdown. Damon’s blocks were heard as well as felt – he exploded into opposing linebackers and linemen, barreling them over as he cleared paths for the likes of teammates Laveranues Coles.
But unlike Coles, Bowden, and nearly everyone else associated with NCAA football, Damon Carroll wanted something far more than he wanted the bright lights and big cities of the NFL. He wanted to make records. He wanted to write songs and perform them. He was more comfortable with a guitar in his hands than he was with a tackling dummy in his sights.
This unusual combination is, quite frankly, a slam dunk for Country Radio programmers, or Pop Radio programmers, or Alternative AAA Radio programmers - - - or any programmers, because Damon still looks like a FSU fullback.
Like another former FSU jock, the current BMG star Jake Owen, Damon Carroll has kept his suntanned Florida looks. But Jake was a golfer whose PGA Tour dreams were foreshortened due to injry, and Damon was a football player. He has the same natural appeal to all of Country’s female P1 demographics (a similar demographic as in all the other formats) that Billy Ray Cyrus had in the early 1990s, and Rap artists like Young Buck do these days.
But Carroll is anything but a dumb jock. He’s been living in Nashville about 1 year now, and is working with the hottest producers on Music Row - - - Chip and Billy Davis, who have recently finished Chip’s debut album which Doug Johnson at Curb/Asylum has already pounced upon for consideration.
Damon’s songs really aren’t Country. His musical heroes and mentors are more like Angus Young of AC/DC, Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty, and Butch Walker than they are Tim McGraw: Remember that Damon’s background was in the hyper-tense, hyper-violent world of college football, not the laid-back world of honky-tonks.
There is a snarl of anger in some of his songs. Carroll is really just starting to find his songwriting and performing voice, but the upside is massive. And he is the very essence of a coachable singer: Bobby Bowden and the entire Seminoles staff loved coaching Damon and would have loved to have had him return after his playing days as an assistant at Florida State.
Then there is Damon’s potential as an actor, something which until this week he’d never considered. But with the type of looks Carroll possess and his athleticism, he is an easy selection for film and TV roles in NY or LA. Think, for instance, of the long career of another former FSU stalwart – Burt Reynolds. And think of the ex-Princeton standout Dean Cain.
Guess what? Damon Carroll is more talented than either of those fellas.
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BY PHIL SWEETLAND [email protected] 615 269 7947
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