“It started to feel a bit too much like Europe in the 1930s”: Music producer Bob Ezrin on why he moved from Nashville to Toronto
Ezrin has worked with the likes of Pink Floyd, Kiss and Alice Cooper. Here, he discusses how the US has deteriorated in the wake of Donald Trump’s second ascent to the White House
Who: Bob Ezrin, 76, music producer and philanthropist
Known for: Collaborating with Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Kiss and K’naan
Moved from: Nashville, Tennessee, in January of 2025
You were born in Toronto and moved to the US for work in your 20s. This past January, after decades, you decided to return to Canada full time. Why? I was a dual citizen, but Toronto has always been home. I was born at Toronto Western Hospital. My first house was on Deloraine Avenue in North York, and now my wife and I are living just a few blocks from there.
What are you working on now? I am committed to supporting Canadian artists. I have friends and colleagues here, and I’m talking to them about different projects—we haven’t fully started cooking yet. I am happy to help where I can. I am also very involved in a course of study in environmental activism at Trent University—I’ve been a guest lecturer on the climate emergency and the media there, and I’ve developed a video series for students on the importance of environmental activism. Related: Trump’s Loss, Toronto’s Gain—Meet the artists, professors, scientists and other luminaries ditching the US and moving north
Has the move involved any sacrifices? I’ve done a lot of recording in Toronto over the years, and most of the artists I work with have always been happy to come up. We did Deep Purple’s last album here. Alice Cooper has recorded here many times. I’ve collaborated with Canadian artists like Johnny Reid and Serena Ryder. Being in Toronto isn’t limiting in any way, plus it’s not like I can’t travel.
Fifteen years ago, you brought together a who’s who of Canadian artists to record a “We Are the World” version of “Wavin’ Flag” to benefit Haiti. What about doing something similar to benefit Canada in the face of the Trump administration? You’re not the first person to suggest that, but I don’t think it would work. We are living in an era of short attention spans, and with the exception of super pop, even number-one records only last a couple of weeks. I don’t think there’s space now for a top-down initiative. I’d rather see thousands of people on TikTok or whatever platform they love, writing and performing songs about unity and getting together.
Let’s go back to the first Trump victory, in 2016. Could you have predicted where you’d be now? No. I was shocked by his win, although in retrospect you can decipher what happened: a sea change in American society, but also the fact that the Democrats ran Hillary Clinton. I love the idea of her, and I thought she was super bright, but she had a lot of baggage, and she just wasn’t folksy enough. Trump has a genius for appealing to regular people and convincing them he’s their guy. He’s a great TV personality, he knows how to work it for a crowd and he’s unencumbered by the truth. He can say whatever he wants to get people going, and he did, and that got him elected. At the time, there was a feeling of doom. Four years later, Joe Biden won, and it sort of felt like, Okay, we’re back to normal.
And yet... It’s pretty clear now that there was a retrograde, rightward movement toward a bygone era, where traditional white Christian values were becoming the most important thing to a lot of people.
What did that look like in your industry, which tends to lean left? By then I’d moved from LA and had been living in Tennessee for a number of years, where the music business has a tendency to veer to the right. There are liberals in Nashville, but if you drive a few miles outside of the city, you are in Republican territory. These are good, observant, religious, ethical people who were reacting to what they saw as an assault on their values. They didn’t believe in “wokeism,” and Trump played on that. He has been successful not because his supporters are evil but because they are being manipulated. The tenor of American society began to change, and things began to look dangerous. Even before the last election, it was clear that Trump was going to win again, and we were dealing with Project 2025, the growing power of tech bros. It started to feel a bit too much like Europe in the 1930s to me.
Related: Inside the Ontario years of Elon Musk
How was this playing out in your day-to-day life? I noticed a huge uptick in anger on all sides. People on the right were angry with people on the left: “Liberals hate America,” that sort of thing. People on the left were saying that the Republicans were fascists, Nazis, that they hate America. Just hate, hate, hate. Don’t get me wrong—some of my closest friends are Republicans. One of the reasons we ended up moving to Nashville was because I was getting involved with the Christian music and entertainment business. I don’t view relationships in terms of political orientation unless they’re off the deep end. If they’re off the deep end, then it’s just not comfortable for me in terms of where I come from and my values.
Meaning what? I’m a Canadian Liberal Jew. The trifecta.
When did you decide to move back to Canada? I made the decision in the run-up to the 2024 elections, but I didn’t actually renounce my citizenship until this year, on January 6.
An auspicious date. Did you pick it? The date picked me, but I’m glad. January 6, 2021, was an attack on democracy, and January 6, 2025, was the day I decided to come back to a country I knew to be democratic.
Renouncing your American citizenship is a bold move. Did you consider just coming home for a few years and waiting to see how things shake out? What’s the point? I became a US citizen because I wanted to contribute to American society. I wanted to be politically and civically engaged in the place I was living. I thought, If I’m going to be a good citizen, I need to be a citizen. But now I feel like I don’t belong, not with the Republicans or with the Democrats—I’m a centrist stuck in the middle of extremes. Canada is a more rational place.
You’re not concerned about the divisive politics here? Canadian extremes are relatively tame. In a way, I am thankful for the excesses of the American administration, because they have brought Canadians together. Now we need to figure out what we stand for. Our unity can’t just be against something—we have to be unified in our commitment to Canadian values. We are a kinder, gentler nation. We don’t resolve our differences with violence. We are called “polite,” but I think that just means we are concerned about other people. There are worse things.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Courtney Shea is a freelance journalist in Toronto. She started her career as an intern at Toronto Life and continues to contribute frequently to the publication, including her 2022 National Magazine Award–winning feature, “The Death Cheaters,” her regular Q&As and her recent investigation into whether Taylor Swift hung out at a Toronto dive bar (she did not). Courtney was a producer and writer on the 2022 documentary The Talented Mr. Rosenberg, based on her 2014 Toronto Life magazine feature “The Yorkville Swindler.”
