Bob Ezrin

Bob Ezrin
Bob Ezrin
Birth name	Robert Alan Ezrin
Born	1949
Origin	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Rock
Occupations	Record producer
Years active	1971–present
Associated acts	Alice Cooper, Kiss, Pink Floyd

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Robert Alan "Bob" Ezrin (born 1949 in Toronto, Ontario) is a Canadian record producer, known for his work with artists including Alice Cooper, Kiss and Pink Floyd. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2004.

[edit] Professional background

In a career as a music and entertainment producer that has, as of 2009, spanned 38 years, Bob Ezrin has worked on recordings with artists including: Alice Cooper, Kiss, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Roberta Flack, Peter Gabriel, Dr. John, Nils Lofgren, Kansas, Rod Stewart, Berlin, Hanoi Rocks, Nine Inch Nails, The Jayhawks, 30 Seconds to Mars, The Darkness, Jane's Addiction, Julian Lennon and The Deftones. He produced a live and TV extravaganza to reopen the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, starring Green Day and U2. He has also worked on an album and live opera with L'Orchestra di Piazza Vittorio from Rome, Italy.

Bob Ezrin has been described by Alice Cooper as "our George Martin"; having reconstructed the groups sound from his first produced album Love it to Death in 1971, Ezrin embarking on a collaboration that by 1973 would see with the release of the Billion Dollar Babies album a year after the success of School's Out, Alice Cooper established as the biggest act in the world. Ezrin further adding to his reputation in 1975 with Cooper's ground breaking Welcome To My Nightmare not just as a producer but co-writer and keyboard player.

As explained by Peter Criss during an interview in the documentary KISS: Krazy Killer (1994), Ezrin co-wrote and later performed the piano accompaniment to the song Beth on KISS's album, Destroyer, recorded in 1976.

Ezrin has worked with Pink Floyd on a number of occasions, co-producing the albums The Wall, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell. He has also co-written the music for their songs "The Trial", "Signs of Life", "Learning to Fly" and "Take It Back".

Ezrin created new theatrical, television and live events with @Radical.Media in New York including Jay-Z's feature film, Fade to Black. In 1993, he co-founded a computer software company called 7th Level which developed and published educational and entertainment CD-ROMs including a highly popular and groundbreaking series of Monty Python games. In 1999, he co-founded Enigma Digital, a pioneer internet radio provider. It was eventually sold to Clear Channel, where he became vice-chairman of Clear Channel Interactive. Ezrin was also Chairman of Live Nation Artists Recordings in 2007 and the first half of 2008.

Ezrin was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame during in April 2004 and into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in March, 2006. He is Chairman Emeritus of the Los Angeles Mentoring Partnership, Vice President of the The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, a founder of MusiCounts, CARAS' music education initiative and, along with U2's the Edge and Henry Juszkiewicz the CEO of Gibson Guitar Corporation, a co-founder of Music Rising (www.musicrising.org), an initiative to replace the musical instruments that were destroyed or lost in the gulf coast region due to the hurricanes and flooding of 2005. He is also a past Trustee and Governor of NARAS.

In 1982, Ezrin briefly appeared as the host of Enterprise, a City-TV panel show replacing Dr. Morton Shulman's The Schulman File. He has been a keynote speaker at numerous music, entertainment and business conferences as well as a guest lecturer at various universities and colleges around North America. He has also been a frequent interviewee for documentary films and television.

In 2007, Ezrin joined the Board of Advisors of Tonic, an online media site that produces and aggregates content around goodness.

Ezrin is now a partner in Big Picture Entertainment in Nashville, TN and continues his work in the studio as well as on film, television and in theatrical productions. In 2008 he helped to establish Beat Kangz electronics, a music technology start up focused on rap music equipment.^[1]

In 2009 Ezrin, along with Garth Richardson, started Nimbus School of Recording Arts in Vancouver, BC.[1]

He is married and has six grown children.