Justin Bonitz

Age
 Occupation

**Justin Bonitz** is an American singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, author, and comedian. He is the only person in his one-man-band **Hungry Lights.**

## Biography

### amnaeon

In 2000, Justin started playing guitar at ten years old. Justin says that he was playing a little bit of piano before that, so it seems he has always been a musician. In 2008, he started a four-man-band called, "**Blind Can't Follow**." After several name changes, the band eventually became "**amnæon**," and then all the members *except* Justin parted ways. Not wanting to give up on being a musician, Justin learned to play bass and drums, and then continued his work as a solo, studio artist under the name "**amnaeon**."

In 2013, Justin started up a YouTube channel where he uploaded his original music, lots of covers, and some very strange comedy videos. In just one year, he released three studio quality demos under the name amnaeon. These demos were titled, "**Aorta Borealis IV**," "**The Proamates III**," and "**Wolfpit Drive V**." In 2014, Justin released another demo titled, "**General Reem II**." He had been working on a fifth demo, which he made known would be under the title, "**Mt. Krell I**," when he suddenly announced he would be remastering his first demo again. Many fans were concerned that the songs would not be as good as the originals, but Justin disclosed that he had been revising and recreating some of his songs since 2006, and that they had technically never heard the "originals."

"*I am not a static person. I am constantly changing my beliefs, appearance, and my interests. My music is no different. Like me, it is alive and always changing, and you need to understand and accept that."* -Justin Bonitz

A month or so later, he uploaded a very emotional video to his YouTube channel where he explained that he was extremely upset that his fan-base preferred hearing him sing covers instead of his original tunes. He felt that they did not appreciate his true passion, and then he left all social media, deleting his YouTube channel, Soundcloud, Facebook page/account, Bandcamp, and taking what he could of his music with him. Before he vanished, he left one final post where he stated (paraphrasing),

"*I just cannot handle it anymore. I steered my channel in the wrong direction, and I need to start over. Please understand that I am not* quitting music. *Think of this as a tactical retreat. I will be back. Just search for 'Hungry Lights.'"* -Justin Bonitz

### Hungry Lights

Hungry Lights is without a doubt the successor to amnaeon. Like Justin, the music is "alive." It changed and evolved with him, and his fans seem to be doing the same.

On October 11, 2015, Justin released his debut album as Hungry Lights. It is titled, "**The Awry Ascent**," which is also the first part in a five part story called, "**From Windfall To Hell."** Most of, but not all the songs on "The Awry Ascent" are evolved and refined versions of songs from the "**Aorta Borealis IV**" demo, but mixed with some of the later material he began working with in 2010/2012. The compositions, mix, lyrics, concept, flow, and album art are all revised, new, and Justin is very happy and pleased with the final result. Although his fans were hesitant and resistant at first, the numbers show that people much prefer this new formula of his.

On December 8, 2015, Justin released an acoustic album titled, "**Mt. Garbage."** The project was unrelated to Hungry Lights and was released under his full name, "**Justin Bonitz.**" A year later, the album was removed from his YouTube channel, and it found its place on the "**Hungry Demos**" channel where Justin's failed projects go. He announced that he would be redoing the album (like he did with his amnaeon material), and that it would be re-titled, "**The Summit**" under the project name, **"From The Look Of Things."**

On August 8, 2016, Justin opened up his own contest where he said he would make an entire EP in twenty-four hours. He decided to live stream the event on his YouTube channel, and after twenty-four hours, he decided to extend it by two days and make an entire album instead. Four days and four streams later, he released an album called, "**Back To The Old Way**," under the project name, "**Call It Ego**." "Back To The Old Way" has since been removed from his YouTube channel, however the album is still available for stream and purchase on its respective Bandcamp page.

On November 15, 2016, Justin released his second official Hungry Lights album, "**Heavy Is The Crown**." It is the sequel to The Awry Ascent, and most of, but not all the songs, are revised versions from the "**The Proamates III**" demo, but mixed with some brand new material. Again, Justin claims (and the numbers show) that this album is superior to its amnaeon demo, and Justin is very pleased with the results.

### Dear Rudiff

On March 8, 2017, Justin unexpectedly released a full-length rap album titled, "**Dear Rudiff**" under the project name "**Prilly T.**" (which was a play off the main character of his **From Windfall To Hell** story, "**Prill Tel'vallo**"). While fans knew the album was coming because Justin talked about it several times and released a teaser, they did not expect it to be nearly as diverse and interesting as it turned out to be. Justin rapped here and there in his metal stuff, but he went to a completely different level with "Dear Rudiff." The lyrics, vocal inflections, and story concept is all very new compared to what fans had glimpsed before, and strangely enough, back in 2011, Justin had released a rap demo titled, "**As The Crow Flies**" under the project name "**General Reem.**" While not nearly as refined (or even complete), some of the instrumentals on this demo have been evolved into full, completed tracks on "Dear Rudiff." When asked about the album, Justin simply said that he had always wanted to release a rap album, and so when he felt like doing it, he did it. As of October 2018, Justin has said he will definitely be making a sequel to it, but he does not know when.

### The *Awry Ascent* novel

Justin is currently working on the novelization of his first album, "**The Awry Ascent**." In October 2016, he finished the first draft of the story, and now says he is editing the eleventh. He announced that the first draft was around five hundred pages in length, but that he has been trimming it down substantially since then. It was originally supposed to be released at the end of 2016, but Justin keeps pushing the release date because he says it is not ready, and since it is his first official novel, he does not want to rush anything. He does not want it to be like amnaeon all over again where he releases something to public before he is ready, then ends up changing his mind and deleting it. He says ninety percent of the novel will be characters, plot-points, and development that is not heard or revealed in the music.

### The Summit

On September 22, 2017, Justin released an acoustic-rock album titled, **"The Summit"** under the project name, **"From The Look Of Things."** This album is a rework of the 2015 album, **"Mt. Garbage,"** only the order of the tracks has been changed, everything was re-recorded with drums, bass, and some electric guitar, it has new lyrics, a different concept, and the title song "Mt. Garbage" was replaced by a song called, **"Zoomies,"** which had originally been a single called, **"Big Dog Runs"** that Justin wrote for his mother when her dog "Nazeer" died. Justin is very happy with how "The Summit" came out, has released it to Bandcamp, YouTube, iTunes etc. and has announced that he will be making a sequel to it called, **"Flicker,"** but he is not sure when.

On December 31, 2017, Justin released his third official Hungry Lights album, "**Three Gods & Me.**" The album contains a variety of songs from the amnaeon demos **"Wolfpit Drive V,"** and **"General Reem II,"** but also some new material. Justin revealed that he had been working on this album literally up until the last minute, and he managed to drop it around 11:57pm on Bandcamp. He is still a little shaky about the album cover, specifically the texture of Prill's clothing, but he said he is overall happy with the result.

### Tallah

On January 5, 2018, Justin announced that he was officially the front-man for a Pennsylvania hardcore/nu metal band called "Tallah" which featured Max Portnoy (son of the legendary Mike Portnoy) on drums. Tallah played their first show on January 7, 2018, and since then has played several shows, gone on two U.S. tours, and on August 16, 2018, dropped their debut, five track EP, "No One Should Read This."

### Beautiful Worthless Beings

On June 12, 2018, Justin released a new, progressive metal project that he made in only ten days titled, **"Beautiful Worthless Beings."** The album is a single, thirty minute concept track called, **"Give Me A Day."** It has over one hundred and sixty time signature changes, recurring themes, and is well... epic. Justin has said that he will be releasing more under this project name in the future, and that once he is finished with "From Windfall To Hell," it will likely become his main focus when it comes to his solo work.

## Comedy

Aside from his music, Justin was also known for comedic skits that he would upload onto YouTube during the amnaeon era. At the beginning of the Hungry Lights era, Justin had a separate comedy channel which he called "**Hungry Shadows**," but as of 2016, the channel was deleted. Since its deletion, Justin began uploading small segments of comedy on his gaming channel, **"Hungry Potoos,"** but he has disclosed that he is not quite as interested in comedy as he once was.

Justin was the co-host of a YouTube gaming show titled "**Zombie Horse**" with fellow comedian Rob Dyke, but it seems that they have both lost interest in the channel. However, all of the content still remains uploaded for viewing.

Justin also has a YouTube Channel titled that serves as his personal gaming channel.

On October 3, 2015, Justin released a satirical rock album that he made in twelve hours titled "**Uncle Tito**" under the band name "**Otto Rocket & The Proamates**." He seems to have taken the characters/concepts from the 90s cartoon "**Rocket Power**," and fused them into a garage band. Because of the strange vocals, "meaningful" lyrics, and concepts, it seems that Justin is using this satirical band as a means to make fun of himself.

On October 5, 2015 Justin released yet another satirical album, but this time he decided to hit the metal community. He titled the project "**Snailfetus Kidney Sacrifice,"** and the album is called, "**The Crawling.**" This album features rip-offs of popular metal songs, misheard lyrics that were written from incomprehensible screaming, extremely loud bass drops, and the entire thing was made in less than forty-eight hours.

On March 25, 2016, Justin released another Otto Rocket & The Proamates album titled, "**Elephant Seal,**" which sounded a lot more professional compared to "Uncle Tito," and took three days to create. Justin said that it was part of the joke, and that the band was supposed to have "improved," but singer Otto Rocket was still garbage. Because nobody got the humor, Justin has decided to redo the album and make it "crappier" before he continues the satirical band's music career.

## Discography

**6 Minutes To A Wheelchair (2008)**

**Blind Can't Follow (2009)**

**amnaeon (2009-2015) *"****amnÆon (2009-2011)"*

**Hungry Lights**

****Justin Bonitz****

**Prilly T.**

**From The Look Of Things**

**Beautiful Worthless Beings**

2018-*Give Me A Day*

**Tallah**

2018 - *No One Should Read This*

## Side Projects

**Wolfpit Drive**

**General Reem**

**Drudgework**

**Mt. Krell**

**Otto Rocket & The Proamates**

**Snail Fetus Kidney Sacrifice**

**Call It Ego**