Justin Marler

Justin Marler (born July 29, 1972, in Chico, California) is an American musician and author. He is known for being a founding member of the seminal doom metal band Sleep, and for leaving a burgeoning career in music to become a monk in an Eastern Orthodox monastery. In 1990 Justin joined the members of a little known band called Asbestos Death (Al Cisneros, Chris Hakius and Matt Pike) and they renamed the band Sleep. Soon after recording their first full length record, Volume One, Justin Marler vanished, while Sleep went on to become metal icons.

Marler turned up at St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in northern California and later was transferred to a monastery on a nearly deserted island in Alaska. 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, which caught the attention of mainstream press, and quickly led to the release of his first book, Youth of the Apocalypse, (co-authored with a fellow monastic). In 1999, Justin 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 the alternative band The Sabians. Marler moved to Austin, Texas in 2005, and is a musician and publishing author. Marler is active in the Austin music scene with current band Shiny Empire.