Apostasy (8)

Apostasy was a death metal band from New Orleans who were active from 1990- '96. They recorded a well-received cassette in 1993 called "Unholy Conversion" which was sold & traded throughout the tape-trading underground of the 1990s. The band's first vocalist, Sal Khan, went on to form the Khan Academy, which is a non-profit organization that is revolutionizing education across the planet. Josh Eustis (Nine Inch Nails / Puscifer / Telefon Tel Aviv) was a vocalist in the band for a brief period. The band's live shows were notorious: audience members were often bombarded with raw meat, buckets of cow blood, maggot-infested dead birds, & other grisly items. In 1994, the band performed their final show at the Abstract Bookstore & Café alongside friends' bands Hangnail & The Satanic whose lineups included members of Flesh Parade, Crowbar, Mule Skinner, Eyehategod, Paralysis, Pantera, & Superjoint Ritual. A massive brawl broke out in the audience halfway through The Satanic's set, causing the show to end abruptly before its full completion. The show is considered by many to be legendary in New Orleans underground music history. The band's key composer & arranger, Jason A. Pizzolato, went on to create a heavy, beat-driven, dark ambient dub project called Mind of God. Apostasy appears in the book Tape Dealer, which was released by Seven Metal Inches Records in 2020. The book is an ode to the origins of Death Metal and the tape-trading phenomena, covering the years 1984 to 1994. Apostasy has a two-page spread in the book, including an interview with guitarist Jason A. Pizzolato in which he discusses the recording of the "Unholy Conversion" demo, what gigs were like in New Orleans in the '80s & '90s, & the underground tape-trading network.