Bob Ezrin Renounces U.S. Citizenship, Returns to Canada

Bob Ezrin, the legendary music producer behind iconic albums from PINK FLOYD, ALICE COOPER, and KISS is renouncing his U.S. citizenship and returning to his native Canada. Known for his influential role in shaping rock history, Ezrin’s move comes amid political considerations, The Globe and Mail reports.

“I became a student of United States history,” Ezrin says. “I was in love with the country from a young age.”

But his relationship with the U.S. has ended. Last month, citing the intense political divisions there, the 75-year-old dual citizen began the process of renouncing his American citizenship and has since returned to his home in Toronto from Nashville.

“In the last few years, it seems as if America is split in half,” says Ezrin. “The voices of a radical right have become so much louder. Conspiracy theories abound, people are armed to the teeth, and it’s just a different place than the place I went to.”

In 1985, Ezrin moved to Los Angeles, where he balanced producing albums like KANSAS’s In the Spirit of Things and Rod Stewart’s Every Beat of My Heart with extensive community involvement. He chaired local mentoring and education programs, distributed food, and, with U2’s The Edge, co-founded Music Rising to replace instruments lost in disasters. Notably, he produced the SuperDome’s reopening concert after Hurricane Katrina.

“I was very engaged, very involved, very committed,” says Ezrin, who became a US citizen in the 1990s in order to vote. “I believed in the country and I believed in the American people, in spite of things like the Iraq War and the income inequality I saw growing, and in spite of the racism that was knitted into the fabric of American life. I still believed the goodness of the majority of Americans would prevail.”