Music Tech Forum: Bob Ezrin

Bob Ezrin is a producer that will be forever associated with The Wall. He is a producer that marks the record with own sound, but that sound is not the same sound every time. He interested me for his work with Pink Floyd, and through them he has stamped and influenced modern music. He is also a producer that seems to be good at conflict resolution. Pink Floyd during the Wall, Janes Addiction during Strays, and although it seems he failed to do so the Deftones on Saturday Night Wrist.

Looking through his works you can see he started out with Rock and Roll, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Lou Reed. After having worked with Alice Cooper for awhile I think maybe the idea of the concept album stuck in his head, the idea of having an underlying theme at least tying through the whole record is something that appears a lot on his records. He also from this early start gets a lot of writing and arranging credits for a producer, especially a producer working with such big name acts. I think this period really set the stage for his career, while the Wall really made him famous the first records he made are I think, the ones he wishes he could continue making forever. While is the Wall is easily the most well documented work he produced it is also documented from very biased points of view. I think Ezrin did an amazing job getting that record out and getting it to sound as good as it does, and I think that without him on that record it certainly would not have done as well. After the Wall he went on to produce the rest of Pink Floyds efforts without Roger Waters, a few more Alice Cooper records, and co-founded a multi-media company. Despite being active today this is where a lot of information on him stops. He doesn't produce many records a year, and maybe it's that he's very selective about what he chooses to do but he certainly hasn't stopped. In 2000 his did the last Jane Addiction album and the first 30 Seconds to Mars album and then not much until 2006 where he did the latest Deftones album.

The interesting thing about reading about him is that while he made a big difference in music, it seems he may have had his time. During the sessions for the Deftones record the singer left the project and had the vocals produced by someone else. Comments made during the Janes Addiction sessions make it sound like he tried to make them into something some of them didn't want to be. He still wants to produce rock records and it may be that the artists he's working with these days don't want to make them. I would like to see him paired with a band that really wanted that old Rock and Roll sound, granted he brings a great wall of sound technique to the artists he's working with today and their records have by no means been bad or ill received it seems that the band come out of the sessions less than happy with the results. He used to form partnerships, like with Alice Cooper, Kiss, and later Pink Floyd. Now it seems he's more freelance so I think he only comes out of the closet when a band or band member approaches him with a project he likes. This may be the reason with some members of the bands disliking him; they want a record like the Wall so they get the guy who produced it. Then when he tries to produce like he did when he was producing the Wall they feel like their 'sound' is being compromised.

While the common theme of concept records runs through his earlier work with people like Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Lou Reed it makes me think he loved something a bit over the top and theatrical. The first records he produced with Kiss weren't concept records but Kiss by nature are very theatrical. I think that this has a bearing on his production style, the orchestral arrangements on the Wall give a big sound later on however that sound big sound is achieved in a record like Saturday Night Wrist by creating an orchestra of distorted guitars. He also has used things like a children's choir to emphasize the point in a song, this was done on both Another Brick in the Wall Part II by Pink Floyd, and Schools Out by Alice Cooper. I think this is an example of using something from what the song is about, to emphasize the point of the song. Both those songs were about, or at least involved (depending on how you look at Another Brick in the Wall Part II) school children being unhappy with having to go to school. So by using a children's choir in the song it brings the meaning of the song closer to the listener.

Bob Ezrin seems like he may be becoming a producer that is out of date, not because he can't produce many of today's bands to a very good standard but because he wants to do it in a way that I don't think today's bands do. He wants to have more control over the project than the bands want him to. Maybe he wants to play god a little with the records he produces, take when the band has done and shape it into what he thinks it could be. I think that would explain the dissatisfaction express by some of the later acts who have worked with him anyway. All in all however he has most certainly become quite a stable brick in the wall of rock and roll history and will have a very lasting effect on it. I do hope there is a band out there today that can work with him to such a way that produces a record that works as well for both the band and the release itself as the records he used to produce, maybe we'll see Pink Floyd together again under him. It's possible..... Right?