Canadian music industry legend Bob Ezrin is back with his elbows all the way up
- Bob Ezrin, a renowned Canadian music producer behind iconic works like Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Lou Reed’s Berlin, renounced his American citizenship after Donald Trump’s second presidential term.
- Ezrin has an extensive career spanning over 50 years, working with legendary artists such as Alice Cooper, Elton John, U2, Taylor Swift, Rod Stewart, and Jay-Z, and has been honored with inductions into Canadian Music and Industry Halls of Fame.
- In addition to music, Ezrin contributed to interactive entertainment by founding 7th Level Inc. and produced notable projects like the Superdome reopening concert and K’naan’s Haiti relief single Wavin’ Flag.
- Inspired by Canadian honors and disheartened by political polarization in the U.S., Ezrin decided to move back to Toronto in 2025, emphasizing his responsibility to his homeland and criticizing the divisive atmosphere in America.
Welcome to one Canadian’s nightmare.
Bob Ezrin, one of the most successful producers in music industry history, period, made no bones about his position on American politics after Donald Trump was elected to a second term as president.
The good Toronto boy renounced his American citizenship and came home.
The stars on Ezrin’s metaphorical World Cup jersey include The Wall, arguably peak Pink Floyd, Lou Reed’s Berlin and Peter Gabriel’s self-titled 1977 solo debut.
Any number of comparisons and turns of phrase can be pulled out of the air when a Canadian of Ezrin’s significant and continued professional success is the subject. An Officer in the Order of Canada, Ezrin has been working with the monsters of recorded sound for more than 50 years, from Reed and Elton John to U2 and Taylor Swift, as apty summed up by The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Names left off that list include Rod Stewart and Jay-Z — you get the idea.
Like so many musical masterminds, Ezrin, who was born in Toronto in 1949, is comfortable behind a two-tone keyboard. No shock, either, that his mother was a classical pianist and his father played bass in the Bobby Gimby Orchestra.
After an internship with The Guess Who producer Jack Richardson, Ezrin worked with Alice Cooper to boil down songs including I’m Eighteen on the band’s third album, Love It to Death, and with Roger Waters to expand the story and fill in the gaps in a little-known release called The Wall — ever heard of it? He co-wrote The Trial. Take a moment to let that sink in: The man punched up prog rock’s crowning achievement. Just another day at the office, eh?
All the Halls are aware of this: Ezrin has been inducted into both the Canadian Music and Music Industry Halls of Fame, and Canada’s Walk of Fame.
New Orleans residents may know him as the producer of the 2006 Superdome reopening after Hurricane Katrina. Gamers may not know it, but Ezrin entered their lives when he founded the first PC-based interactive entertainment company, 7th Level Inc., in 1992.
Ezrin also produced the smash hit and Haiti relief fundraising track Wavin’ Flag by K’naan, which won the 2011 Juno for Single of the Year.
Speaking of waving flags brings us back to January 2025, when Ezrin announced he’d moved from Nashville to Toronto and begun the process of renouncing the U.S. citizenship he was granted in the 1990s. Also according to the Encyclopedia, the father of five said honours such as his 2013 Walk induction and his Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, presented in February 2025, played a part in inspiring him to stand up for his home and native land.
“Those of us who are lucky enough and privileged enough to be recognized by our country, we have a responsibility to earn it,” he told The Globe and Mail, while lamenting the polarization in the United States. “Conspiracy theories abound, people are armed to the teeth, and it’s just a different place than the place I went to.”
From the Titan tamer who convinced Kiss to soften their image just in time for Destroyer, their commercial breakthrough (and co-wrote Beth, too, no biggie), these are words that should continue to resonate.