Justin Marler

Justin Marler (born July 29, 1972) is an American musician. He is known for being a founding member of the stoner rock band Sleep, and for leaving a burgeoning career in music to become a monk in an Eastern Orthodox monastery.

Justin Marler
Born (1972-07-29) July 29, 1972
OriginChico, California, U.S.
Genres
Years active1990, 1999–2009
LabelsLondon
Very Small
Earache
Tee Pee
The Music Cartel
Catacomb
Associated actsAsbestosdeath
Sleep
The Sabians

In 1990, Marler joined the members of a little-known band called Asbestosdeath (with Al Cisneros, Chris Hakius and Matt Pike), which the members later renamed as the band Sleep. Soon after recording Sleep's first full-length record, Volume One, Marler vanished, while the band went on to become metal icons.

Marler turned up at St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in northern California, and was later transferred to a monastery on a nearly-deserted island in Alaska.[1] During his seven-year stint as a monk, he founded the widely distributed zine titled Death to the World. The zine had a considerable impact on youth counterculture during the mid- to late-1990s,[2] which caught the attention of the mainstream press and quickly led to the release of Marler's first book, Youth of the Apocalypse, which he co-authored with a fellow monastic.

In 1999 Marler left his reclusive life in the monastery and returned to California where he restarted his music career, with former Sleep bandmate Chris Hakius, as the lead singer for an alternative band called The Sabians. Marler then moved to Austin, Texas in 2005 where he remained a musician and publishing author,[3] active in the Austin music scene with his current band, Shiny Empire.[4]

Books

  • Austin, San Antonio and the Hill Country, first edition 2005, Moon Handbooks
  • Door to Paradise, 1998, St. Herman Press
  • Youth of the Apocalypse, 1997, St. Herman Press

Discography

with Sleep

  • Sign Language, compilation (Allied Recordings, 1991)
  • Very Small World, LP compilation (Very Small Records, 1991)
  • Volume One (Tupelo Records, 1991)

as Monk John Marler

  • Lamentations (Catacomb Records, 1997)

with The Sabians

References

  1. Athitakis, Mark: "Riff Raff", SF Weekly, 2000.
  2. Duncan Collum, Danny: "Punks to Monks", Utne reader, 1997.
  3. Marler, Justin, "Austin, San Antonio and the Hill Country", Moon Handbooks, 2005.
  4. Ratigan, John: "A Spectacular Crap #28", http://combatmusicradio.com/aspectacularcrap/?p=373, 2010.

Sources

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