Though there are rumors, the cause of death remains undetermined, pending laboratory results due in a few weeks. Thus far, the only facts that anyone really knows for sure can be gleaned from the police report filled out by the officer at the scene. According to the report, Berggren and his wife went to bed around midnight on October 26. Melissa, 22, woke up around 4:45 p.m. and discovered Wes unconscious. She called his father, Don Berggren, who immediately contacted the police. When police and firefighters arrived, they were unable to revive Berggren. There were no obvious injuries to Berggren's body, which was taken to the medical examiner's office.
Doyle says that Berggren's father contacted her and DeLaughter about half an hour after he arrived at his apartment and that they rushed to Berggren's apartment. But there was nothing they could do.
Mark Graham
Wes Berggren, shortly before the release of Tripping Daisy's Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb in July 1998
Wes Berggren and Tim DeLaughter formed the Daisy in 1991, when they were attending the University of North Texas.
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"The only thing we know for sure is that he had probably been dead for a few hours," she says. "We're just trying to sort of figure things out, get some answers. It's kind of hazy."
To the band's large and loyal local following, even having the answers won't help much. They felt like members of the family too, since many of them had been there from the very beginning. Berggren formed Tripping Daisy with singer Tim DeLaughter and bassist Mark Pirro in 1991 while he was a student at the University of North Texas. One of his classmates, Julie Doyle, introduced him to DeLaughter, her boyfriend. The band had a few rough patches at first, such as their abortive first tour in Berggren's father's Ford Aerostar, playing gigs that didn't pay much, or more likely, at all. But Tripping Daisy was a local hit almost immediately, selling out Trees on a regular basis and headlining KDGE-FM's annual Edgefest concert.
"When it happened, it was like, Jesus Christ," Berggren said in an interview with the Dallas Observer last year, referring to the band's formation. "It was pretty awesome."
The band signed to Island records in 1993 and put out three albums on the label: the 1993 re-release of Bill, 1995's I Am an Elastic Firecracker, and last year's Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb. Earlier this year, the group founded its own label, Good Records, and had planned to release the Daisy's first full-length disc on the new label in late November. Those plans may change, but as Doyle says, "no one's really thinking about that right now." The pair of shows the band was going to play at Curtain Club on November 12 and 13 will instead be a tribute to Berggren and a benefit for his family. Lineups are still unconfirmed.
If Berggren were still here, he'd be the one keeping everyone calm as the band prepared to release its new album, helping to settle any disputes. After all, that's why he was such a favorite of Dennard and Keel. Being in a band for much of the last decade had taught him about who he was as a musician and a person. But it couldn't teach him everything.
"You learn a lot of things," he said then, in that interview that took place just over a year ago. "You age quite a bit. It's like two years per every normal year if you're in a band. It's not dog or cat years -- it's band years. You just learn a lot. Seven years is a long time for a band to be together. I've learned what not to do."
