If you love modern rock, thank Bob Ezrin

To hear Bob Ezrin tell it, there's a universe where some of today's most-loved albums (think Lou Reed's Berlin, Kiss's Destroyer and Pink Floyd's The Wall) almost didn't happen. 

Ezrin, a legendary music producer who's worked with everyone from Taylor Swift to U2 (and produced all the albums just mentioned), is a 2025 Governor General's Performing Arts Award recipient who has undeniably shaped popular music. A gifted musician, writer and arranger, he works something like a film director, crafting the entire production of an album. 

But his original plan was something else all together. "When I first started in this business, I thought I was going into the movie business," he told the CBC in 2023, saying he always envisioned making film scores. "I have a particular reverence for film study, and I love it." 

Thankfully for music lovers everywhere, things didn't work out that way. (Though it is worth noting that that same year, Ezrin did make good on his cinephile ambitions, co-producing an immersive short film titled In The Wake Of Progress. He also has credits in the realms of TV and live event production.)

But back to the music: Ezrin's love affair with the medium came long before he became the producer for Peter Gabriel or Deep Purple, each of whom he's produced multiple albums for. In an interview on CBC's The Current from March of this year, he recalls the moment he knew he belonged in the recording studio.

"The most important thing for me was the music," Ezrin recalls of his childhood, which featured many excursions to the United States (Ezrin was a dual citizen until recently, when he renounced his U.S. citizenship). "My uncle was a collector. I would sit in his basement. He had a great stereo, which I think may be the reason that I ended up being a record producer in the first place. But I would listen downstairs to music from New Orleans and music from New York and from Chicago, and I would imagine these mythical places. The music was so magical that the places had to be as well, didn't they?"

Soon, he'd find out for himself, setting off to Michigan to work with Alice Cooper, a longtime collaborator — Ezrin produced Cooper's School's Out and Killer, alongside almost every other entry in the eyeliner-ed rocker's discography — and, later, a career zig-zagging from the sound booth at Toronto's Nimbus 9 Productions to launching a charity in L.A. with U2's The Edge that replaces music instruments lost to natural disasters. 

The charity, called Music Rising, is one of several philanthropic ventures Ezrin takes part in when he's not mixing instant classics, showing a commitment to helping others have their own music-filled imaginations.

"I've had the opportunity to work with some of my childhood heroes, and every single thing I've done has been a highlight on one level or another," Ezrin says in a Governor General's Award release announcing him as the 2025 Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for popular music. "It's a blessing and a privilege and an honour, and I'm thankful for it every single day."