Jason A. Pizzolato

Jason A. Pizzolato is a musician from New Orleans, LA. Guitarist, composer, electronic music producer, digital visual artist, & rare-music archivist. Co-founder of, and guitarist for, the infamous New Orleans death metal band Apostasy from 1990- '96. Apostasy recorded a well-received cassette in 1993 called "Unholy Conversion" which was sold & traded throughout the tape-trading underground of the 1990s. 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. After some years of musical inactivity, he began writing songs on guitar again in 2007. In February of 2013, he started an electronic music project called Mind of God, which is influenced by the likes of Scorn, Coil, & early SPK. Mind of God produces heavy, beat-driven, dark ambient dub. The project has received impressive accolades from Tristan Shone (Author & Punisher), John Everall (Tactile), members of Eyehategod, Loincloth, Nine Inch Nails, as well as Heathen Harvest Periodical, Tironas Magazine, & other notables. Several MOG albums have been released by various record labels, & the project's videos can be seen on YouTube & Vimeo. 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 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.