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In addition to his musical gifts, Eren, a self-proclaimed
"ham", is also a veteran actor. "For several years,
I was on 'As The World Turns' 'til I was six-and-a-half. I was cute
and an easy baby to work with. I was a friendly kid, too,"
he says proudly. "I also did a movie with Richard Bradford
called, 'Under the Cover of Darkness'. It was filmed on location
in Upstate New York." Fast-forward to adolescence: around age
thirteen, Eren started his own band with his friends. "The
songs weren't great, but they were getting there!" he notes.
"We were called Loose Cannon, and we played at high school
dances, parks and bars. It was a lot of fun. The guitar player and
I co-wrote all the songs. Eventually, we called it quits after a
couple of years. There were complications...normal kid's stuff,
like school problems, schedule problems, doctor's appointments,
et cetera." Eren decided to set up a Pro-Tools studio in his
basement, concentrating on playing guitar and writing songs by himself.
"My dad noticed the songs sounded really good....I kept writing
and dad thought my material was getting better," he says. "I
made friends with a bass player who was a graduate from Berkley
School of Music in Boston. We started doing shows together. It was
just acoustic guitar and bass. We did covers and originals. One
thing led to another and people started responding everywhere, like
at CBGB's Gallery and Circa New York." Soon the duo added a
guitarist and a drummer, and the band debuted their first gig in
Manhattan, at Le Bar Bat. "I started writing more songs and
I now have ten songs in place for an album," he says. Another
highlight for Eren, in early 2003, was the day he was notified that
he had been accepted into a brand-new program offered at New York
University (NYU) in Manhattan. Eren explains. "We heard Watch Eren's new music video "Part of Me" |
"There's
an infamous picture of me between ages one and two, sitting at the
console in my dad's studio," begins eighteen-year-old Eren
Cannata, Richie Cannata's prodigious son. "At age two, I did
a recording session with my dad. I sang 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little
Star'....All throughout childhood, I would write funny love songs."
The younger Cannata often accompanied dad when he was on tour. "When
dad played with the Beach Boys, we both got up on stage and I played
sax and percussion. That experience sparked my interest in becoming
a professional musician," he acknowledges. Having spent much
of his youth at dad's side in the studio, Eren learned the technical
as well as artistic side of music. He is self-taught on guitar as
well as drums and percussion (which he says he learned "through
osmosis"). Richie taught his enthusiastic son to play the saxophone.
Eren likewise studied piano and clarinet in the third grade. In
high school, he concentrated on voice, and became president of the
glee club as well as musical director of the school. 
that
Clive Davis was donating money to start a recorded music program
at NYU...so we looked into it. I definitely thought, 'I want to
go there!' Thousands of kids applied and I was one of twenty-five
who were accepted. I submitted my portfolio around the Christmas
holidays, and by February, I knew I'd been chosen." NYU is
renowned for producing some pretty fancy graduates, like Lorne Michaels,
Spike Lee and Martin Scorsese, who were all students in NYU's flagship
film class, and Eren affirms that "NYU anticipates similar
things from the recorded music program. It's going to be a historic
year for them. Again." The extravagant portfolio which he sent
to NYU opens up with that picture of Eren the toddler sitting at
the console. "That was my selling point!" he laughs. "I
included reviews of my shows in the portfolio. I put in an essay
I'd written on 'Who Is Influential in the Music Industry";
I did mine on Elvis Presley. I included two resumes, one artistic
and the other, academic. In the portfolio, I placed a cd of my song
'Part of Me' - which will probably be the single. I sent in photographs.
I had two letters of recommendation from men who are very influential
in the music industry: Rick Wake, V.P. of Epic Records (and my dad's
studio partner who's seen me grow up), as well as Bob D'loren, who
is an alumnus of NYU and owner and CEO of UCC Capital. I also included
a tribute called 'Stronger Men', which I'd written for two people
I knew from high school who died together in a car accident. 'Stronger
Men' was played at their funeral mass."
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