Bob Ezrin — the acclaimed Canadian music producer who has worked with Pink Floyd, KISS, Peter Gabriel, Deep Purple, Deftones, Alice Cooper and many more — has renounced his US citizenship.
A new interview with The Globe and Mail reveals that Ezrin, 75, began the "lengthy" process of renouncing American citizenship last month, and has already returned to his birthplace of Toronto from Nashville, TN.
"In the last few years, it seems as if America is split in half," Ezrin told The Globe. "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."
The Globe notes that Ezrin and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1985, and became a naturalized citizen in the '90s. By this time, the Canadian had worked on albums like Pink Floyd's The Wall, Lou Reed's Berlin, KISS's Destroyer, Peter Gabriel's self-titled debut, and a series of albums for Alice Cooper spawning hits like "School's Out," "Billion Dollar Babies" and "I'm Eighteen."
"I was very engaged, very involved, very committed," Ezrin shared of his time in the US. "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."
Ezrin — whose Canadian honours include being named a Governor General's Performing Arts Award laureate, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame and Canada's Walk of Fame — had already made his decision to return to Toronto ahead of Donald Trump declaring a trade war on Canada and threatening to make the country America's 51st state, telling The Globe, "All that underscored the rightness of what I'd decided to do."
"Those of us who are lucky enough and privileged enough to be recognized by our country, we have a responsibility to earn it," he continued. "It's not about the work we've done in the past. It's about the fight we're going to fight now. We need to speak up and stand up, all of us, and be thankful for our country."