David Slusser was born in Akron, Ohio in 1952. He began playing tenor saxophone at age 10, around the same time he started experimenting with reel to reel tape recorders.

Getting his first film sound job in 1975, he continued his career with a move to the San Francisco Bay area in 1977, where he joined Lucasfilm in 1984, and received an Emmy award for sound editing in 1993. He has worked often as a music editor for directors Francis Coppola, George Lucas and David Lynch, with whom he has co-composed music for their films.

On his own he has composed for documentaries and public radio, as well as his jazz group Rubber City. His sound design is in the collections of both the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Contempory Art in Los Angeles, though far more people have heard it in some of the more imaginative commercials on television.

He began an association with John Zorn in the mid eighties which led to his association with several Mr Bungle members.

In 1999 he received two prizes at the Julius Hemphill Composition Awards, including first for jazz orchestra.