Upon graduation from the University of Virginia, the trio moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, where they shared an apartment. In 1989, they adopted the moniker Silver Jews recording discordant tapes in their living room. Berman was a security guard at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. Working in this environment influenced him artistically. On the band's early recordings, Malkmus and Nastanovich used aliases, but it backfired when people learned who "Hazel Figurine" and "Bobby N." really were. Malkmus would occasionally act as co-writer alongside Berman.