David Cloud Berman (born David Craig Berman; January 4, 1967 – August 7, 2019) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and poet. He founded – and was the only constant member of – the indie rock band Silver Jews with Pavement's Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich.
Initially lo-fi and increasingly country-inspired, Berman helped develop the sound of the band and provided the lyrical material. His lyrical themes often overlapped with his poetry, of which he published one volume with Open City. His lyrics were multifaceted and cynical, often discussing his struggle with substance abuse and depression. These struggles culminated in a suicide attempt in 2003, after which he underwent rehabilitation, engaged with Judaism, and toured for the first time, but soon dissolved the band and largely withdrew from public life.
After several years of seclusion, he decided to return to music, adopting the stage name Purple Mountains and releasing an eponymous album in July 2019. A month after its release, he died by suicide. Purple Mountains was well received critically, and garnered acclaim from his dedicated following. He is regarded as a significant and influential indie rock cult figure.
David Craig Berman was born on January 4, 1967, in Williamsburg, Virginia. At that time, his father Richard Berman worked as an attorney practicing labor law for the United States Chamber of Commerce, while his mother was a housewife. He came from a secular Jewish family, lacking in literary or artistic inclinations. Raised mostly in Texas, he did not personally know or interact with many other Jews but maintained an identification beyond his youth, although with little religiosity.
Berman's parents divorced when he was seven. Thereafter, he split time between each parent's household until he entered college. His father relocated to Dallas for a position as a lobbyist on behalf of foodservice businesses, while his mother moved back in with her parents in Wooster, Ohio, and became a teacher. He later described his childhood as "grindingly painful" and said he kept "mostly independent of family things" into his adulthood. During his adolescence, his father rose to prominence as a corporate lobbyist representing firearms, alcohol, and other industries; by this point Berman had come to dislike him. He was "forced" to live with his father after 1979, despite his own wishes to the contrary, due to his father's concern he was "growing up to be a wimp".
He attended high school at Greenhill School in Addison, Texas. During his teenage years, his father sent him to see a psychiatrist. Berman suffered from depression throughout his life and later said the condition had become resistant to treatment. By the age of 15, he said he began taking "every drug in every way", and said he had smoked PCP every day during his second year of college.
For Berman, Dallas' burgeoning new wave scene served as an early source of musical inspiration. He took an interest in a friend's rare Fairlight keyboard, and in the likes of Art of Noise, Prefab Sprout, X, the Replacements, the Cure, New Order, and Echo and the Bunnymen. Hoping to imitate the lyrics of Jello Biafra and Exene Cervenka, he began experimenting with poetry by writing to high school girlfriends. He read Henry Miller's The Rosy Crucifixion when he was 14, of which he said provided him with "permission to enjoy life". Reading significantly in his life, Berman said, reinforced his empathy, especially for those also troubled; he cited William Faulkner as an influence.
Berman went to the University of Virginia in 1985. He had been, by his own admission, "too lazy" to apply to college, so his father's secretary completed and submitted applications on his behalf. At university, Berman met fellow students Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, and James McNew. He frequently attended concerts, shared records, and discussed obscure bands with Malkmus and Nastanovich, having first encountered the former in a carpool to a show. The quartet formed the band Ectoslavia. He graduated in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in English literature.
Origin of Silver Jews: 1989–1994
Upon graduation, Berman, Malkmus, and Nastanovich moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they shared an apartment. In 1989, they adopted the band name Silver Jews and recorded discordant tapes in their living room – that same year, Malkmus' band Pavement released their debut extended play (EP), Slay Tracks: 1933–1969. Malkmus and Berman worked as security guards at The Whitney Museum of American Art, and Berman was inspired by some of the museum's collection (such as the art of Bruce Nauman, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sherri Levine and Louise Lawler). He wrote lyrics and poems while working shifts at the museum, occasionally in collaboration with Malkmus, who along with Berman would "get high" at Central Park on their lunch breaks. According to Berman's longtime friend Kevin Guthrie, Malkmus and Berman had a harmonious friendship, and Nastanovich revered both artists' creativity. "It was mostly drinking beer and seeing grunge bands", Malkmus said regarding this time period and recalled that Berman appeared as a somewhat "scary goth" but was kind and enthusiastic, strongly desiring to be involved with Jewish culture.
Though Berman sometimes felt irritated by a common view that Silver Jews were merely a side project to Pavement, the connection led to his signing with indie label Drag City, which would later release all of his albums. The band's relation to Pavement was responsible for them amassing a "national audience", a notice great enough that the resulting sales meant Berman did not have to tour. The band's first extended-plays (EPs) Dime Map of the Reef and The Arizona Record were not commercially successful but gained them attention. Kim Gordon was an admirer and Will Oldham said Dime Map of the Reef inspired him to send recordings to Drag City.
Following the EPs, Berman began studying for a master's degree in poetry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dubbing this time an "academic exile", Matthew Shaer, in a 2006 Boston Globe article, speculated that Berman's extended time studying may have been an attempt to distance himself from Pavement. In 2003, Berman himself reflected upon his postgraduate experience: after "meet[ing] grown dignified men who play with fucking words all day," he felt he had "permission to believe that I could try for that life". He attempted to have poems published in the American Poetry Review but was rejected, which increased his interest in music, "despite scarcely knowing how to sing or play guitar". By 2005, Berman's public appearances mostly consisted of poetry readings.
By October 1994, Silver Jews had enough material for their debut album Starlite Walker. The release established respect in the indie rock scene, although with some detractors. Malkmus and Nastanovich's involvement with Pavement meant they were unavailable for the next Silver Jews album The Natural Bridge, and only Berman and Peyton Pinkerton continued writing for it. Pavement's success proved difficult for Berman, who became suspicious of fame and resented the people with whom he interacted, deeming them "cruel". He felt somewhat abandoned by Malkmus and Nastanovich, although he understood the circumstances permitted little else. Berman's personal life was affected by the deaths of friends, which would influence his songwriting. A close friendship between Oldham and Berman arose at this time and the two conceptualized—although never released—a collaborative project, entitled Silver Palace.
Silver Jews was part of a "moment in underground music" of songwriters who looked to the 1970s and 1980s for inspiration, and were one of Drag City's seminal groups alongside Smog, Pavement, Royal Trux, and Palace, bands that "made American music frightening again by tapping into its most tangled roots". Berman wished to "distinguish his brand of songwriting from the depressive-narcissistic strain of 1990s rock" and later sought to break away from Drag City's "cryptic and prankish" style. The line-up of Silver Jews constantly changed around Berman, who remained its principal songwriter and "main creative driver" and led the band's creative direction since the start. "Malkmus and Nastanovich [were] there to serve his ideas more than offer their own," said Ian Gormely of Exclaim!.