Bob Ezrin (1949)
Bob Ezrin attended Oakwood Collegiate Institute High School in Toronto, graduating in 1967.
As a record producer, Ezrin first attained fame in the 1970s, producing classic albums for Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, and Kiss. Perhaps the most well-known work Ezrin produced is Pink Floyd's "The Wall". He has been described as having an intense personality, and as the "Francis Ford Coppola" of record producers. His production style tends to employ arranging techniques from classical music. On his first solo album Peter Gabriel felt that the track "Here Comes the Flood" was over-produced by Ezrin and thus Gabriel created a far simpler rendition which can be found on Robert Fripp's album, "Exposure". He is noted as an innovator and technical groundbreaker having been one of the earliest adopters of multi-machine recording and computer sequencing, sampling, and editing. In the 80's and 90's Ezrin worked with numerous artists including David Gilmour, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Rod Stewart, Heroes del Silencio, Julian Lennon, Bonham, The Jayhawks and Kula Shaker. Ezrin has continued to produce successfully into the late 90s and 00s working with such artists as 30 Seconds to Mars, Catherine Wheel, Jane's Addiction, The Darkness, Nine Inch Nails, Deftones and Army of Anyone.
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, an internet radio provider. It was eventually sold to Clear Channel, where he became vice-chairman of Clear Channel Interactive.
Ezrin co-produced the documentary film Fade to Black, starring Jay-Z, which was released in November 2004. Ezrin is currently represented as a producer by Global Positioning Services in Los Angeles and works with @radicalmedia in New York on film, television, and theatrical productions.
Ezrin was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame during the Juno Awards in April 2004 and into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in March, 2006. Ezrin is a trustee of NARAS, Vice President of the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, a member of MusiCan, 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.
In 1982, Ezrin briefly appeared as the host of Enterprise, a City-TV panel show replacing Dr. Morton Schulman's The Schulman File.