Carmel Ceravolo comes from a strong Italian family that values hard work, success, a strong work ethic and above all family. A world-renown turntablist Dj/Music producer turned film Director; Carmel has proven that family trumps all in his recent choice to leave his massively successful career to raise his son.
“I worked hard my entire life to get where I am now,” he said. “But now my life is about my son Carmel Juliano Ceravolo who is a year and a half now. But don’t get me wrong, I do miss getting in front of thousands of people and making them go crazy; it was a lot of fun.”
As a self-made man, Carmel is proud of how hard he has worked and how much he has achieved since growing up in the Fort Walton Beach area. He’s always followed his passions in music, film, and extreme sports.
“I spent the first few years of my life in different parts of California and moved here when I was four years old,” he said. “My grandfather put Fort Walton Beach on the map for the Italian people. He was a great business guy; he owned liquor stores, lounges, and clubs and made the Ceravolo name a household one in the 70’s and 80’s in the community.”
After his grandfather's passing, Carmel’s grandmother Josey decided to retire from the industry and shift her entire focus to family. But with the family business gone, life was not easy. Carmel said he learned grit and his work ethic grew at a young age, thanks to the fact that his mother Angela raised him and two sisters on her own. Starting out in the time-share telemarketing business at just 16 years old, Carmel has always played to his strengths when it comes to making money. By the time he was 18, he had mastered his craft, opening his own call center in a different industry.
“I was making good money at 18-19 years old, while still being able to elevate my music career,” he said. “It was a dream come true to make money and still chase my dreams in the industry. I never second guessed myself and always believed I would make it.”
Carmel said he always had a gift for music and a knack for talking big so that people would let him in the door. His philosophy was simple; the more shots he took, the more he missed, but the ones that went in positioned him to win.
“I was a prodigy guitar player as a kid, my neighbor was a Vietnam Navy seal that taught me how to play. I played fast like Slayer, Megadeth, and old Metallica, with fast fingers; super technical,” he said. “But once I touched turntables for the first time I was like, ‘This is going to be my thing!’”
In the music industry, Carmel went by the moniker Prolific (Underground), and later Earbutter for commercial projects and toured the world, performing and producing music in places like the Middle East, Russia, Europe, South and Central America to name a few.
“I was sharing stages with names like Wu-Tang, A-Trak, Goldie, Skrillex, and 12th Planet,” Carmel said. “I started doing these Hip Hop & Drum and Base shows in the early 2000’s and touring globally and then dubstep exploded around 2010 and that’s when the crowds and the check got bigger.
Featured on various TV platforms such as BET, a U.S. Hip Hop TV channel, Carmel participated in a show called Spring Bling with Ludacris and Lil’ Wayne judging DJ’s on-air battles. He continued thriving in the music scene, but with the emergence of DJ controllers making what he did on turntables look like anyone could do it, he said the DJ lifestyle began to lose its flavor.
“I got to this point where I was running businesses outside of the music scene,” Carmel said. “I wanted to walk away from music because I didn’t feel for the most part like I was around authentic and sober thinking people in the scene and wanted a change.”
Thus Carmel entered his film era. With his music connections, he turned his RED cameras towards his fellow musicians and big brands while never looking back. He started making music videos for platinum recording artists, commercials for Fortune 500 companies, and eventually filmed and produced the Amazon documentary Green Is the New Gold with Tyler Eveleth and Imagination which have both streamed over a million minutes on Amazon Prime Video’s platform.
“I got into the film game, and just killed it,” Carmel said. “I filmed everything you can imagine; food products, commercials, major universities, two projects for NASA, robotics laboratories and astronauts. I’ve done a lot of great projects. But in 2021 my grandmother passed away, that’s my best friend. I’m a Sicilian, and losing someone that close jammed me up.”
The funeral got Carmel focused on wanting a family and building his empire. With a baby on the way, he said he wanted to be fully present in raising his son and decided that the Destin area would be the best place to do that. Bringing his son back to Florida after a hard-fought custody battle was a crazy ordeal, but now that he’s here, Carmel said he just wants to share his lifestyle with his baby and his family here.
"I want my son to have every opportunity to go big like I did, riding freestyle BMX, skating, wakeboarding, and wake surfing,” Carmel said, adding that he now owns and operates Wake Surf Destin which teaches wake boarding and wake surfing to new riders of all ages.
Though he plans on returning to filming once his son is older, Carmel said that for now, he is focused on his newly found passions of building vacation homes and operating Seaside Towing which services our local community.
"I worked hard my entire life to get where I am now," Carmel Ceravolo.