Remembering TV on the Radio's Gerard Smith

Last week, TV on the Radio bassist Gerard Smith died of lung cancer at age 36.
In his time with the band, Smith was a designated role player, and it was a position he embraced. “Bassist” was his common title, but he also put in time on guitar, piano, organ and synth.

As bassists tend to be, Smith seemed reserved, especially when compared to his distinguished bandmates. Tunde Adebimpe is the hyper-ambitious frontman, not only the primary singer and songwriter for the band he co-founded, but also an accomplished film director and actor who starred in “Rachel Getting Married” opposite Anne Hathaway. David Sitek is the decorated producer whose touch has been applied to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Jane’s Addiction.

Smith, on the other hand, focused strictly on his job. Band interviews including him were rare. Music videos starring the band featured him on screen the least. During late night television performances you could find him in the shadows if you tried, with his back to the audience, locked in with drummer Jaleel Bunton while Adebimpe, Sitek and Malone seized the spotlight.

“I usually try to stay off to the side because I don’t write the lyrics for the songs, and I try to stay mostly peripheral because I don’t want to become this nuisance,” Smith told L.A. Record in 2008. Yet from the start of its heyday in the mid-aughts until Wednesday of last week, TV on the Radio had five members, no more, no less.

Rock ’n’ roll lore is majestic, filled with stories of rebirth, tragedy and improbable fallouts of time and circumstance. Smith’s is one you might not have heard.

“I never imagined I was going to be in a band,” Smith said in the interview. “I’d never really studied music seriously.” He claimed he studied art history in high school and practiced visual art but became frustrated with both quickly and gave them up.

In the early 2000s, Smith played music on a subway platform in Manhattan, N.Y., during downtime from his day job. There was one man who would regularly stop to listen and donate money. Smith recognized him but couldn’t remember where from. Fatefully, the man came back around enough times for Smith to realize it was Adebimpe, who played the lead role in one of his favorite independent films, “Jump Tomorrow.” 

Adebimpe would remember Smith’s style of playing as “so far above what was normally down there that I can’t even describe it.” At the time, Smith didn’t even know Adebimpe was a musician too.

But one thing led to another after the two exchanged compliments on each other’s art. Adebimpe invited Smith to his apartment to record music on his roommate Sitek’s equipment. Soon after, Smith agreed to join TV on the Radio for one tour.

One tour turned into eight years, and Smith would play a central role in the studio for three successful albums despite the modest one he played outside of it.

His first one with the band, 2006’s “Return to Cookie Mountain,” turned the band into a giant of the industry and ended up a top-five album on numerous year-end lists. 2008’s “Dear Science” one-upped that — at least according to Rolling Stone, Spin, The Guardian and MTV, which all gave it Album of the Year honors.

“Nine Types of Light,” the band’s brand new album that was released just nine days before Smith’s untimely passing, was his last work. The band did music videos for each song that Adebimpe strung together into an hour-long film. Some contained acting and speaking roles by all five members, including Smith. Appropriately, Smith’s final project finally featured him in the spotlight.

Rest in peace, Mr. Smith. Thank you for the music, and thank you for choosing that specific subway platform.