Bill Berry Net Worth

What Is Bill Berry's Net Worth?

Bill Berry is an American musician who has a net worth of $40 million.

Bill Berry is best known for being the drummer for the band R.E.M. In high school, he met bass player Mike Mills, and the two played in different bands together. The pair moved to Athens, Georgia, and met Michael Stipe and Peter Buck in 1978. The four formed R.E.M. in 1980. Berry played drums and also sometimes played guitar, bass, keyboards, piano, and mandolin and provided backing vocals. He also wrote some songs for the band, such as "Everybody Hurts" and "Man on the Moon." R.E.M. has released 15 studio albums and sold over 85 million records worldwide. They have had two albums hit #1 on the Billboard 200 chart and three albums certified 4x Platinum. They have had multiple hits including "The One I Love," "Orange Crush," "Stand," "Losing My Religion," "Drive," "Man on the Moon," "Everybody Hurts," "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?," and "The Great Beyond." Berry left the group in 1997, and R.E.M. disbanded in 2011. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. After leaving R.E.M., Bill became a farmer in Georgia, and he has occasionally reunited with the band. In 2022, he returned to the music industry.

Early Life

Bill Berry was born William Thomas Berry on July 31, 1958, in Duluth, Minnesota. He is the son of Anna and Don Berry. When Bill was three years old, he moved to Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, with his family, and they lived there for seven years before relocating to Sandusky, Ohio, in 1968. The family moved again in 1972, this time to Macon, Georgia, where Berry attended Northeast High School. He met bass guitarist Mike Mills there, and they played together in a few different bands, such as Shadowfax. The two later shared an apartment on Arlington Place, and Bill worked next door at the Paragon Booking Agency. In 1978, they moved to Athens, Georgia, and met their future R.E.M. bandmates Michael Stipe and Peter Buck. Berry was pre-law at the University of Georgia, but he dropped out before graduating.

Career

Berry, Stipe, Mills, and Buck formed R.E.M. in 1980, and before Bill left the band in 1997, they released the studio albums "Murmur" (1983), "Reckoning" (1984), "Fables of the Reconstruction" (1985), "Lifes Rich Pageant" (1986), "Document" (1987), "Green" (1988), "Out of Time" (1991), "Automatic for the People" (1992), "Monster" (1994), and "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" (1996). Beginning with "Out of Time," many of their albums reached #1 in several countries. The band had top 10 hits on the Billboard 200 chart with "The One I Love," "Stand," "Losing My Religion," and "Shiny Happy People." Berry contributed to the group as a songwriter on songs such as "Man on the Moon," "Everybody Hurts," and "I Took Your Name."

In 1984, Bill played drums for the band Hindu Love Gods, which featured Mills, Buck, Bryan Cook, and Warren Zevon. After leaving R.E.M., Berry became a farmer in Farmington, Georgia. R.E.M. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, and Bill said of the occasion, "It's a great chance to get back together and perform with R.E.M., which I always loved doing." In 2020, he appeared on an episode of the podcast "Song Exploder" about "Losing My Religion." In 2022, Bill formed the supergroup The Bad Ends with Mike Mantione, Geoff Melkonian, Dave Domizi, and Christian Lopez. The band released the single "All Your Friends Are Dying" in October 2022, followed by the album "The Power and the Glory" in January 2023.

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Personal Life

Bill married Mari Lou Burgi on March 22, 1986, and the couple moved to Farmington, Georgia, in the early '90s. During a 2019 interview with the "In Weird Cities" podcast, Berry stated, "In 1988, I decided that I would broaden my portfolio, which was pretty slim back then. It's not like I was rolling in dough. I wanted to buy land and found this spot. It's sixty acres, and it's far enough outside of town that it was cheap. It was, like, $2,000/acre back in '88. Land's more like $10–$12,000 now. It was strictly an investment; I was going to sell it later."

Bill and Mari divorced in 1997, and Berry welcomed a son with Cybele Lange in 2003.

In March 1995, Bill collapsed onstage at the Patinoire Auditorium in Switzerland during an R.E.M. concert due to a ruptured brain aneurysm. He underwent surgery and rejoined the band after his recovery, but he later decided to leave R.E.M. In 1997, Berry told MTV, "I wasn't specifically thinking about quitting the band, but maybe reassessing my priorities and things I want to do with the rest of my life." He added, "Maybe not as much travel, for one. Being away from home. I had a lot of time to lay around in a hospital bed and think about things. Maybe I started feeling sorry for myself."

Awards

R.E.M. received 13 Grammy nominations during Berry's time with the band, winning three in 1991: Best Alternative Music Album for "Out of Time" and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals and Best Music Video, Short Form for "Losing My Religion." They earned three Brit Awards for International Group (1992, 1993, and 1995), and in 1991, they won Billboard Music Awards for Top Modern Rock Artist and Top Billboard 200 Album for "Out of Time." R.E.M. has received numerous MTV Video Music Award nominations, and when Bill was in the band, they won for Best Post-Modern Video for "Orange Crush" (1989); Video of the Year, Best Group Video, Breakthrough Video, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, and Best Editing for "Losing My Religion" (1991); Breakthrough Video, Best Direction, Best Editing, and Best Cinematography for "Everybody Hurts" (1994); and the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award (1995).

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