David Berman was a musician, poet, and seminal indie rock figure. Born to a secular Jewish family in Williamsburg, Virginia, he lived between his parents’ households in Wooster, Ohio, and Dallas, Texas, after their divorce in 1974. As a teenager, he began to seek escape from his lifelong depression via literature, music, and drugs.
At the University of Virginia, Berman formed the band Ectoslavia with friends Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich, later co-founders of the influential indie band Pavement, and James McNew, who would go on to join Yo La Tengo. After he graduated with his bachelor’s degree in English literature, Berman moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, with Malkmus and Nastanovich. He and Malkmus both worked as security guards at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1989, the trio began recording EPs as Silver Jews, while Pavement released its own early work. Pavement quickly found a devoted audience, which helped bring the lo-fi, self-aware Americana of the Silver Jews its own listeners, as well as a record deal with Drag City. Berman then began attending University of Massachusetts Amherst for his master’s degree in poetry.
Silver Jews’ debut full-length Starlite Walker was released in 1994, followed by The Natural Bridge in 1996. The band’s sound began to shift, moving away from its lo-fi origins toward a more accessible sound, but retaining Berman’s simple chords and wry, world-weary, famously quotable lyrics. Berman wrote The Natural Bridge without the support of Malkmus and Nastanovich, which began the band’s run as a David Berman project with a changing set of contributors. Malkmus came back for 1998’s American Water. Berman began abusing hard drugs during this especially dark period.
1999 saw the release of Actual Air, Berman’s first and only poetry collection. He published it with Open City Books, an arm of Open City Magazine founded explicitly to release his book. Around this time, Berman met his future wife, Cassie, who would contribute vocals and bass to his albums and needed stability to his life. The two moved to Nashville and released Bright Flight in 2001. The following years were difficult for Berman: he attempted suicide and entered rehab. He looked to Judaism and study of the Torah to find grounding, and he was able to leave behind his use of hard drugs.
Berman released Tanglewood Numbers in 2005 with Cassie and former collaborators. After years of refusing to tour, deeming it too stressful, he and the group traveled around the country for upwards of 100 shows over the next three years. Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, followed during this period. It would be Silver Jews’ final album: Berman shuttered the project because he felt that his father’s work as an industrial lobbyist was so unethical that it poisoned his own creative output. They played their final show in January 2009. After this, Berman pulled away markedly from his friends, though he did collaborate during this period with artist Friedrich Kunath, creating the book You Owe Me a Feeling. He also published The Portable February, a book of cartoons.
2018 brought a new solo project, Purple Mountains, and an eponymous debut LP, which was well-received by both critics and listeners. However, Berman was struggling financially, his marriage to Cassie had broken down, and his depressive tendencies still colored his life. He committed suicide on August 7th, 2019, in Brooklyn. He was mourned—and covered, eulogized, and written tributes—by his fans and the many musicians and poets he’d influenced over his three decades of creative work.
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More David Berman
Text: Read poems by Berman at the Academy of American Poets
Video: Berman reads at Gainesville Headquarters Library (Part 2 of the reading)
Text: Devin Kelly looks at Berman's poem "Classic Water" in his newsletter, Ordinary Plots