David Berman

David Cloud Berman (born David Craig Berman; January 4, 1967 – August 7, 2019) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and poet.

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, who he said had no literary or artistic inclinations.

Raised mostly in Texas, he did not personally know or interact with many other Jews.

He later said he had identified with Jews because he "felt like an outsider" in his youth.

For most of his life Berman identified as "ethnically Jewish" but not religious.

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 there.

He later described his childhood as "grindingly painful" and said he kept "mostly independent of family things" into his adulthood.

While he was an adolescent, his father rose to prominence as a corporate lobbyist representing firearms, alcohol, and other industries.

Berman came to dislike his father at an early age.

He was compelled to live with his father after 1979, despite his wishes to the contrary, because of 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, the burgeoning new wave scene in Dallas served as an early source of musical inspiration.

He took an interest in a friend's rare Fairlight keyboard, and in the music of bands like Art of Noise, Prefab Sprout, X, the Replacements, the Cure, New Order, and Echo and the Bunnymen.

In high school, he began experimenting with poetry by writing to girlfriends, considering the line "A cartoon lake. Wolf on skates" to be his first true foray into poetry.

Berman hoped that his poetry would resemble the lyrics of punk singers Jello Biafra and Exene Cervenka.

He read Henry Miller's The Rosy Crucifixion when he was 14: "It gave me 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 for 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.

In 1989, he founded the indie rock band Silver Jews with Pavement's Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich.

He graduated in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in English literature.

His only published volume of poetry, Actual Air, appeared in 1999, by which time he was strongly affected by addiction to heroin and crack cocaine, with substance abuse, depression and anxiety overcoming his career; he attempted suicide in 2003.

Afterward, he underwent rehabilitation, and engaged with Judaism.

Alongside his wife Cassie Berman he toured for the first time, but soon dissolved the band.

He was Silver Jews' only constant member until the band dissolved in 2009.

With Malkmus he developed the simple country-rock sound that characterized the early lo-fi recordings of both Pavement and Silver Jews.

He worked extensively on his abstract and autobiographical lyrics.

He returned to music in the mid-2010s adopted the name Purple Mountains, and released an eponymous debut album in July 2019.

He had planned a tour to pay off a US$100,000 credit card debt, but died by suicide in August 2019.

Although Berman believed his work was unappreciated, he cultivated a dedicated following and is regarded as a significant and influential indie rock cult figure.