Some might say I’m chasing my youth in my attempt to find the art scene vibe I grew up in. I’ve found out that what I’m actually chasing is the spirit of the artist, which seems to dissipate as you get older – and as an artist of an older age I’ve noticed a lot of my artist friends that I grew up with left the art scene, they got straight jobs, a family, kids and turned into lames.
When I seek the spirit of art I usually find it in youthful artists – sure there are some adventurous elders who have clung to the ideals of the artist and remained youthful and wondrous – but they are few.

The Broken Souls Cult collective is a group of young American musicians and artists from Chicago that will cling to the artistic ideals until their last breath. They embody the spirit of the arts and artists.
My wish is that they remain forever young and wondrous.
I recently chatted to two members of Broken Souls Cult, Jatan & Vomit to learn more about them.

Broken Souls Cult logo.

Read a transcript of our conversation, below…

Shane Bugbee [0:03]
I’m gonna start with maybe… this is an abstract question – Do you consider what you do art?

Vomit [0:11]
Yes.

Shane Bugbee [0:12]
Why?

Vomit [0:14]
Because music is art, that is a form of art, just like you would say painting or creating sculptures or anything of the sort.
I would say music is a form of art.

Jatan [0:25]
I think everything is art subconsciously and it becomes art just by its being.
Everything is art, just inevitably.

Shane Bugbee [0:39]
I don’t, you know, I like to have the pretense of being a great artist. And no one can create anything like me. I don’t know if a plumber or cashier is making art when they’re doing cash register stuff.

I think you need to define your art, I think artwork has a lot of intent to it. Like, even if you don’t know what it is, you’re like birthing these fucking emotions. And you look back on it a year later, and you think, oh, that’s what this was…
I got a 30 year career. I look back on some shit I did in the beginning . I’m not proud of some of it and some of it I’m embarrassed by it. And I’m like, that meant something different to me then. And today it has a whole different interpretation.
But my intent was always pure, my intent was to express myself.

And so I think artwork has a lot to do with expression and intention. Because then you can say school shooters are artists, because they’re expressing themselves.

Vomit [1:31]
That can be misconstrued that way.

Jatan [1:34]
Everything has the potential to be art. It’s what I would change my answer to be – everything has potential and everything has energy.
But nurturing something is what makes it art.

Shane Bugbee [1:50]
Nurturing something. Yeah.
But intent too, don’t you think?

Vomit [1:54]
Yeah, 100%

Jatan [1:54]
So sometimes there’s a lot of art that’s not even meant to be as important – that is, is from the artists and it’s just like something that someone did and it’s art because of how others perceive it.

Vomit [2:06]
…takes on a life of it’s own.

Shane Bugbee [2:07]
Motherfucker, Jatan – you gotta beat poet mind. I love that, that’s what we talked about, the Beats‘ concept of “first thought – best thought.”
And Jatan, you told me how you write…

Jatan [2:17]
I freestyle.

(Photos of Jatan below.)

Shane Bugbee [2:20]
Right, just whatever comes to your mind first goes, and I’m like, that’s the beats’ ‘first thought best thought’ idea.
And you Jatan were like, what is that? The old beat poets, came out of this era, where poetry was this, you know, pretentious shit. And they’re like, no first thought, best thought.
So they would write with impulsive, very much like what you do.

How do you write? Vomit?

Vomit [2:48]
I’ll sit down and take a while to write and make sure that every word that I’m writing down is what I want to say.

I feel like a lot of my impulsive thoughts – you can’t broadcast things like that, because I think a lot of weird shit. You can’t always say exactly what you mean and exactly what you think, it’s gonna get me in a lot of trouble.

Jatan [3:06]
That’s, that’s beautiful.
That’s beautiful.

Vomit [3:07]
I contemplate what I’m saying and what’s going to happen when I say something and the effect it’s going to take on everybody else and like my environment as well.

Jatan [Interjecting]
I wouldn’t have guessed that you say some gnarly shit. Anyway…

Vomit [In reply]
…I thought about it before I said it.

Jatan [3:23]
So it must have been a lot worse when you thought it.

Vomit [3:27]
Watered down or give everybody the watered down version.

(Photos of Vomit below.)

Shane Bugbee [3:34]
I’m the exact opposite of that.
Not only am I not really going to think about what I’m saying. I don’t really mind if I hurt people’s feelings… But that’s also more of my old days my old art. Today I want to just paint flowers – I’m not really, I’m not the same state of mind as I was. A great body of my work is ugly. And people will respond – “That’s fucking horrible”.
My art is what was all around me. You kidding me?

You ever see the movie Precious?

Jatan [4:04]
I love that movie.

Shane Bugbee [4:07]
So when I saw Precious I cried but I was like, finally motherfucker told the real deal they always show abuse like it’s like sexy.
No, that film showed the fucking real deal when your parents beat on you.

Jatan [4:20]
That film had an ugly ending from an ugly start.
…and it was just like, oh, so it’s not…

Vomit [4:27]
….so it’s no like one of those films where it get’s better and better.

Jatan [4:30]
No. She’s just like – she’s struggling struggling struggling.

Shane Bugbee [4:32]
In the movie it doesn’t get better.
But her life, she’s a writer. She survived, and she’s a poet and she survived.

Vomit [4:40]
So the movie paints the picture?

Shane Bugbee [4:41]
Oh yeah – it shows a real beating a real like oh my God moment. And when you watch a 10 year old take a belt beating for five minutes. Getting beaten like that’s like, it’s dramatic.
It’s a child.
But I related to that and I was like, that’s the ugly I wanted to put forward in my art – I want to put that honesty forward because how the fuck are you going to learn a lesson? You know, fuck everyone around me. I was screaming out windows and no one helped me so I’m gonna keep screaming until someone changes shit.

Vomit [5:14]
That’s a very good perspective to have.

Shane Bugbee [5:15]
Yeah but my art is also very misunderstood.
I’m not as thoughtful as yourself.

Jatan [5:21]
I’m like the opposite of thoughtful a lot of times. I like to intentionally annoy the fuck out of people.
I like have softer lyrics where I say you should be dead and I changed it into “you should kill yourself because you’re not me.”

Shane Bugbee [5:38]
That was the first thing I had trouble for. I put out a zine with how to kill yourself. Like the front four pages and like the mayor of a small town maybe Villa Park, Il. or something like that was all like “ban this zine”; and I’m like, why?
And they’re like you’re telling people how to kill themselves? I’m like, Yeah.
I didn’t see any problem with it.

Jatan [5:55]
I see the beauty in that.
That seems like something I can read and be like yuh.

Shane Bugbee [6:00]
…but my old-man self looks back and thinks “man that’s not right.” Why would you do that? They need help and counselling!
You know, it’s just what happens. You get old, you change and you learn about all this shit.

Jatan [6:11]
You might have taught a lot of people the beauty in reading inadvertently, or they’re reading. They’re like, Oh, what a good book. I have something to live for.
Now I’d like to look at ropes for a living. I’m a rope enthusiast now.
I don’t want to kill myself.
You got to get a good rope.

Shane Bugbee [6:32]
Between the two of you guys are like a partnership with Broken Souls Cult. Right?

Vomit [6:35]
Yeah.

Shane Bugbee [6:36]
So between the two of you, it’s great. Because you’re like the yin/yang of free-will VS. impulse.
The concept of freewill, which is a concept a lot of religious people will say we have free will. You don’t have to be the way you want. You are and I say no, we don’t have free will. I think free-will is a human made thing. We’re impulsive. We’re energy, we’re impulsive. And our society stops us.
It’s like you said Vomit, “I don’t want to get in trouble for some of the things I say”. So that’s free will taking over but the concept of free will used by the religious is like, you have free wiil so you don’t have to be gay. You can just think yourself out of it.
And I think we’re impulsive.
You are who you are.

I’ve lived my whole life. And it’s like, since I was a child, I’ve today gotten nothing but picked on for who I am and what I say. It’s not like I stole something from you or physically hurt you. It’s just me being me.
And I’ll say “fuck the world.” He’d be like, No, doude, fuck you. I’m like, come on, burn the flag. No, dude, and you get angry at me. And I’m like, but I’m just being me. I’m just doing me. I don’t even burn the fucking flag and people want to knock me around because I say I’m okay with flag burning.
And now, because I say that, it’s like, I’m just being me. Yo, I’m just that’s just my opinion. But it’s just not acceptable.

Maybe I should self censor is what you are say.

Jatan [7:53]
Yeah.

Here’s the dilemma I’ve been struggling with – With art is; which is better and which is more true – premeditated art or just impulsive art, which has the best energy put towards it?
If I just like do something when I wake up or I plan it and I think about it too much. Am I thinking about it for me? Am I thinking about it for others? Does it become mine anymore? I just like to do and have it be what it is?

Shane Bugbee [8:28]
Vomit, do you like impulsive art? When you consume art – Do you like impulsive art? Do you like it very thoughtful?

Vomit [8:35]
I think it really just depends with what mental state you’re in at that exact moment.
You know, you could like impulsive art one day or one hour, then maybe your mood changes and you’re thinking is a different perspective.

Jatan [8:49]
I don’t like to become my emotion.
So I like to be my reaction to my emotions.

I don’t like to make just angry music for the sake of being angry. I like to display my reaction towards anything that pisses me off that day or anything makes me happy.
I’m not just happy because I’m happy. I’m happy because bitches or something.
My reaction is my art.

Shane Bugbee [9:13]
I like to consume, well, I imagine I’m consuming impulsive art, but that’s probably not true. People are thoughtful about it, it just looks impulsive. They’re thoughtful about what they let me see.
Like I make a lot of shit. Some stuff I don’t show to anyone because it’s just too personal. It’s too harsh. Maybe it’s just too… It’s just too much. As an artist you give yourself away.

For me at this age. I don’t even exist anymore to people. They project themselves onto me. They’ll tell me what I am. I’m all these things and it’s like, I can only be myself to a kitty cat or a plant. No one else sees me for me. They see me for what I’ve created. And they see it through their lens

Vomit [9:59]
And they judge your character based on that, right?

Shane Bugbee [10:01]
If they’re you, Christian or something, let’s say, they’ll judge me based on their lens, but it’s like, I was friends with you before you found out about my Sataninc artwork.
But I’ve had places, like coffee shops, and made friends. Everything’s great. And then they look me up online. I’ll go in there and it’s dark. They’re dark.

Vomit [10:24]
Oh, fuck its him again…

Shane Bugbee [10:25]
Right!? Oh my god, what? Oh, okay you looked me up on-line?

Now I’m able to say that to people: “So, you’ve looked me up on-line? You’re afraid of me now?”

Jatan [10:35]
I love that

Shane Bugbee [10:37]
But how did anything change? I’m the same guy that you were friends with. I’m the same person that you liked.
But because you saw something and projected your fear on to me.

It’s a weird situation for me.

Jatan [10:49]
I love that. I thrive off that.
I love people painting myself in their minds as whatever they want me to be in their mind, just so I can like fuck with them and say, yeah, you thought this was me? Well, here’s me now. And here’s how dumb you are. And blah, blah, blah.

Shane Bugbee [11:13]
Yeah. It’s weird. That kind of shit’s weird.
You know, I don’t understand it to this day how opinions are attacked or ideas are attacked. I mean, I shouldn’t have been physically attacked. I think a bad idea should be attacked with better ideas, words and thougts. You know, like you should be “that’s fucked up”. I think there’s an exchange.

I don’t think slapping an artist on stage is something of virtue.

Jatan [12:08]
That’s an interruption.
That’s the death of what could have been or what was.

Shane Bugbee [12:12]
That’s the foundation of fascism?

Jatan [12:14]
Yeah, that’s exactly what it is.

Shane Bugbee [12:17]
Especially as artists, even though that entire situation caused such a great conversation. And that’s what art is – We cause a stir we cause a ruckus, we cause conversation, we spark a million births of thought. Because our music was so sexy, let’s say and, you know, you get people to fuck all over the place.
Whatever it is, we’re the creators, we’re the ones that create this world.

Jatan [12:37]
Controversy is something I love the most. it’s either I love people being happy about what I create, or being lovely about what I create, or being angry and hateful about it. The in between is nothing.
I’d rather have them be mad as fuck than not have them say anything about it. And that’s the art in it.

Vomit [12:44]
You thrive off a reaction.
You want the reaction from people.

Jatan [13:02]
That’s what makes you memorable.
It’s energy.

Shane Bugbee [13:05]
What do you want out of art?
What are you looking for vomit? What’s your end goal?

Vomit [13:12]
What am I looking for…?

Jatan [13:13]
Well, that’s not my end goal. My reaction is for them to become them, to first react to it whichever way they want, and then think for themselves after they have that reaction. And like, become something of themselves.

And then my last fucking goal is to be remembered.

So hate me or love me. I’m stuck in your head pussy.

Vomit [13:36]
Yeah. To not have this life be a waste. To be able to have made an impact on this earth and the people who are like, able to see it. You know, to be able to have people talking about you, in like history books. I think that’s pretty gnarly to have impacted the world in such a way.

Jatan [13:58]
And that way, you will never die.

(The video for I Wanna Die by Jatan + Vomit.)

Shane Bugbee [14:04]
There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with that. When you’re, when you become a person that is in history books and you’re living, it becomes a heavy burden, but it’s great. And my thought about that when I was younger was more in an ego way. I want to be seen. I deserve to be seen. My fucking words are special. I’m genius.
And then I grew and was like, I’m just giving back to life. Because what is life? You have to live. You have to be seen to honor the life you’ve been given.

If you just hide and just consume and never have a word. What life did you do? You could have caused evil you could have caused love, you could have done something. And if you did nothing, you just took life and wasted it. And there’s so many people that could use that life, they died early. It’s not fair.
So I just like when people are going and creating.

I used to like everything that was being expressed under the sun. I didn’t care what was said. I’m older now and it’s a different perspective.

Jatan [15:57]
I love all art because it’s someone trying, its energy put into something, all art is beautiful in its own way.

The only art I hate is like, anti art, that’s like shit, like Nazi symbols or something that goes against whatever someone else is doing.

Shane Bugbee [16:51]
Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols, he put on a swastika.
David Bowie, he dressed up as Nazi.
When you’re younger, It’s like something you do – Like Nirvana and Rape Me, you use these provocative things when you’re younger, and it’s like, but now that I’m older, I’m like, I used to think free speech is gold. Everyone should have it. Even Nazis.
But now that I’ve thought about that theory is like, yeah, you really don’t want to give free speech that people want to take away speech.

Jatan [17:26]
Yes, exactly.

Shane Bugbee [17:28]
So that that’s where I’m like, huh, that’s a real hard one to give free speech to someone who wants to destroy and control speech.
I don’t know how I can do that.

Jatan [17:38]
It’s a paradox.
It’s truly a paradox.

Shane Bugbee [17:43]
Well, it’s your world now. So what you guys are saying in a lot of ways. That’s how it’s gonna be, you gotta shape the future and say that’s no longer acceptable.

I try to understand and maybe you can explain it to me, what young people’s perspectives are on free speech – What does free speech mean to you? Because a lot of people say something that was said should not have been said. And at some point, I have to go yeah, you know what, I don’t give a fuck about your feelings. I’m gonna express myself the way I do.

Jatan [17:45]
Free speech nowadays is just hurting other people’s feelings.

Shane Bugbee [18:15]
Is that what it means today?

Jatan [18:19]
No but that’s what they take it as: “I use free speech. So I can say fuck, black people or trans people.”
Nah, man.

Vomit [18:27]
I feel like they like to pick and choose as to what’s acceptable as far as free speech.
Who’s they?
Anybody really in America! I’m not even speaking about the rest of the world because they have a different whole deal. They’re not allowed to say shit because there’ll be executed in the fucking middle town square. You know?

Shane Bugbee [18:49]
What I see it a lot of ways now, especially white culture, like American white culture. We’re only like 300 years old. We don’t have much culture. We have Mickey Mouse, Elvis and TV.
Where you have Hispanic folks coming in. They got hundreds of 1000s of years of culture. You got Chinese people here. They got hundreds of 1000s of years of fucking culture like, they’re the fucking parents. They’re the adults in the room. We’re like children, white Americans, and when I see Karen’s and Chad’s on the internet. I’m like, were little infants we’re culturally infants…
Watch those videos really close and you’ll see people of color looking at karen like a parent would look at a child crying in the corner – like what the fuck is wrong with you?

Jatan [19:59]
They seem to be very reactionary creatures. I don’t see anything that’s energy, like they’re spiteful in their entire being, people who hate are very…
It’s not even just white people but like people in general who hate don’t have a reason to live themselves, so they’re just like insecure seeing other people doing what they do and they’re like I have nothing so how dare they do this.

Vomit [20:16]
They’re spiteful because they don’t have it themselves.

Shane Bugbee [20:35]
There’s a level of hate that’s dangerous. And that comes from our Ivy League educated, that comes from really educated people. They understand they have the all the books in the world and they’ve decided to side with hate. Their super scary – but the ignorant people like my immediate fam – I know they don’t read books. They’re fucking ignorant and I feel sorry for them.

Jatan [20:58]
The ignorant hate is the most dangerous type of hate.

Shane Bugbee [21:02]
I don’t know.
I think ignorant hate is… you can beat them.
You can confuse them and they start drooling and become dumbfounded.

Jatan [21:12]
They’ll get angry!

Shane Bugbee [21:12]
Yeah, but think about a guy that’s a general in the army and their full of hate. He’s got all the education in the world. Someone that comes out of Harvard, where they have all the education in the world and they’re like, “not only do I hate I know how to cover it up. I know how to phrase it in a way that you’re not gonna understand it. I know how to fuck you over credit, wise…” and all that.

Everyone complains about art & artists. No one complains about the judges in America, judges are fucking King hate in this country. And they got all the power.
They’re the ones deciding who goes to prison and they seem to lock up a certain class of person.

Jatan [21:52]
Artists, blue collar – Anyone who expresses themselves.

Shane Bugbee [21:56]
Poor people go to jail rich people don’t

Jatan [21:58]
They jail anyone who has a fucking mind.
Whoever goes against them, whoever opposes them in any certain fashion. People who have the power to stop them.

Vomit [22:09]
… and they can do it on a grand scale.

Shane Bugbee [22:14]
A lot of the ignorant hate I see as coming from trauma. Like I got to go to therapy and my whole world changed. I was able to see other people’s problems, I was able to see the world, before that I could only see my trauma. And how if you looked at me wrong, I want to kill you.
And so it was all this trauma from my childhood, you know, from having a bad childhood. But once I got to deal with that, I was able to go oh, wow. Even in my my worst part of life. There’s a lot of people kind of way worse. I didn’t even realize that because I’m just stuck in my trauma. I had all that shit happen to me. And it was awful. And I barely survived. And people have worse than that? Oh my god.

Vomit [22:51]
That kind of puts things in perspective.

Shane Bugbee [22:52]
It’s crippling, it makes me want to cry now. Because I know what I went through. And I understand I have a certain amount of privilege just being being a white man. And so it’s like, people have it worse than that.
The pain I have to endure every day through my life. That’s heavy. The pain I have is too much a lot of times, you know. And so it’s like, holy shit.

Vomit [23:21]
It gets worse?

Shane Bugbee [23:23]
Yeah, that’s fucked up. It’s heavy.
Let’s get back to art.

You seem to do a lot. Do you do video or just do music. Ha! just do music!! Doing music is a lot. That’s enough burden, writing music, but okay… what else do you do as far as being creative goes?

Jatan [24:11]
I can edit and I can shoot video.

Shane Bugbee [24:15]
You do doodles? You do drawings, correct?

Jatan [24:17]
I do draw as well, I can edit videos, I can edit music.

I feel like if you can do one form of art, you can put that into anything if you just have like the time.

Art for the Broken Souls Cult track Scary.

Vomit [24:32]
Art is like a language if you know how to do it. You know how to do it all across the board.

Shane Bugbee [24:37]
I see art as sculpting.

I’m a sculptor. I make sculptures, but I see painting as layers. You know, it’s layers. So everything is layers.
To me writing is just someone’s like, like I put up this book but I don’t say I wrote the book, rather it’s a word sculpture? I don’t do it to make sense to you. I just stack words and it looks and sounds okay to me, but that’s what I do.

Jatan [25:05]
Part of it is my fucking like fixation on things, a little bit of autism but like I have to have everything look a certain way and I have to have everything in my own vision because I’m an aesthetic fucking junkie and I am so OCD about how everything looks, I have to have my say and everything.
So I literally taught myself how to edit videos how to draw how to do anything I had to do to make my shits sound the fucking way I like.

Vomit [25:34]
You want it done right, you have to do it yourself.

Shane Bugbee [25:36]
So Jatan has a touch of autism – Vomit, do you have any Asperger’s or autism?

Vomit [25:41]
No, I do have ADHD.

Shane Bugbee [25:44]
I have that. I also have some autism stuff. And they say people with autism start to link with others on the spectrum. They’re like, we have a similar mind and I feel linked.
I feel like sometimes I relate to Jaten’s process.

Jatan [25:56]
I’m very OCD

Shane Bugbee [25:57]
I too can do everything, I edit video. I do all the shit. And I have to have things a certain way, like, pinks and yellows. I gotta do 13 different faces on a new t-shirt series I’ve just produced.
No one’s gonna understand it but me.

We’re gonna get into some specifics about what the fuck Broken Souls Cult is. What do you call the music you put out? Is it trap metal? As an artist, I hate all those labels. I’ve always hated that shit.

Jatan [26:33]
We never had a label when it began.
But trap metal is the word that took off. That’s what everyone ran with.

Vomit [26:39]
Even then, though I would not even call what we do that. I would say we started trap metal but the music has evolved into like an EDM metal.

Jatan [26:51]
Damn near just experimental.

Vomit [26:53]
Yeah, experimental.

It’s evolved to a whole new point where we just started doing new things that haven’t been heard yet, at least to me,

Shane Bugbee [27:02]
I agree with you Vomit, when I started to get really into what BSC is doing I looked up trap metal to understand the genre, I was listening to a bunch of it. Listen to what you guys do. And I’m like, There’s something different with the BSC crew & I wonder what it is and if they’re gonna come up with a new name for it.

Jatan [27:23]
Never! I’m never gonna call my shit a name. I don’t even like my name being over my shit. Because it’s everything. I just make, I don’t even call my stuff music. I make movies. I make visual. When you listen to my shit there’s a lot of layers to it.
It’s an ending credit conclusion.

Vomit [27:42]
An audio movie.
Painting a picture with sound.

Jatan [Interjecting]
Yeah!

Shane Bugbee [27:53]
The only thing I consider myself is underground, like street or underground artist.
People put the title artist on me for a long time. And I hated it. I was like, I just create, I didn’t want that pretentious word stuck to me, it made me feel weird. I have accepted the title presently, because so many people have called me an artist I’m fine with it.

I feel like artists are societies’ top tier, we’re the ones that do everything. We are science.We are engineering. Our society is shaped by using the creative mind – art, science, engineering. We’re the the ones that create the world around us.

Vomit [28:24]
Putting creative energy into the masses. Yeah.

Shane Bugbee [28:27]
Right, create the future.

We create the conversations, we create new words.

Vomit [28:32]
Look at Shakespeare he created a lot of modern English that we use today.

Jatan [28:38]
Swag – He used the word Swag.

Shane Bugbee [28:40]
My generation came up with words like “blog” & “podcast” boom – new words. But it came out of creation. It came to be because we wanted something else.
But when we used a new word, like podcast, older people would respond with what the fuck is a podcast? So to get through we’d have to phrase it as “we do internet radio” because no one knew what the word podcasting was. You know, so we would have to say the words that they would understand. As you must know, your generation is coming up with new words.

Jatan [29:16]
Cap, flogging, a merge.

Vomit [29:20]
That’s Chicago shit bro.

Jatan [29:21]
Tweaking, phono.

Shane Bugbee [29:23]
Vomit, you wear a Baphomet around your neck and Jatan, you’ve taken the name of Satan.

Are you Satanists? And if so, define what that means to you.

Vomit [29:37]
I like to wear the Baphomet around my neck as a representation of the individual that I am. So when you meet somebody, they can understand that oh, this is that kind of person, an individual so he has that kind of philosophy. So they understand right off the bat how my mental processes starts

Shane Bugbee [29:53]
So you take satanism as a philosophy of one.
You make yours?

Vomit [29:58]
Yes, I like to pick and choose I create my own thought process based on all the different philosophies that I like.

Shane Bugbee [30:04]
That’s my deal too.

Jatan [30:07]
I wouldn’t even technically call myself a Satanist. When anyone asks me yes, I’m a Satanist but for me to have a genre – like I’m a type of music – I’m genreless.

I don’t have one way of thinking but that’s really exactly what Satanism is.

Shane Bugbee [30:24]
That’s right. You’re the perfect Satanist.
When I hung out with Anton LaVey. I said the same things. He’s say you’re Satanist and I’d be nah, I’m a Shane-ist, not a fucking Satanist bro. He laughed and said the best Satanists are the ones that deny they are Satanists. And I meet people that are like yeah, I’ve read the Satanic Bible but I’m me, not a Satanist.
They don’t join, they don’t really feel comfortable.

Jatan [31:01]
I’m a Jatanist

Shane Bugbee [30:48]
When I was younger, I remember talking to an old man. And I tell him I joined the Church of Satan. He laughed and said “You can’t join Satanism”. At the time I discounted him with a whatever old man.
Growing up, being the old man today – I get what he was saying. He was right. Satanism isn’t a team sport.

Vomit [31:40]
It’s like contradictory to the point of Satanism.

Shane Bugbee [31:49]
Satanism today, in this moment, is a lot of people getting together out of fear.
You know, you put on goats and stuff like that to make others fear you, very much like the foundation of the tattoo subculture – When tattoos were originally going It was about putting tattoos on, not to fit in but to take ownership of the outcast status heaped upon the working class outlaw. It was only the outcast that had tattoos and we found a way to get the right people to stay the fuck away from us, to fear us. Even though everyone I ever met that had tattoos was the most sensitive motherfucker.

Vomit [32:40]
it’s like a response to trauma.

Shane Bugbee [32:44]
That’s how I saw it. Totally.

Okay – First thought best thought!

Jatan [32:52]
I even think the Bible has some good ideas.

Shane Bugbee [32:54]
Yeah, well it does. The Bible is culture vulched.
You want to talk about artwork that I hate. I hate culture vultures. I try not to have a violent tone anymore. But when the culture vulching happens, it’s like, oh, I want to see you burn. I fucking hate culture vultures.
And the Bible was cultural vulched.

Jatan [33:27]
It very much is – none of it is theirs and then they sold it to the American dream.
If you wanted to be American or white, you have to be Christian. And now the people who go against it are just as dumb because you’re not supposed to go against the fucking Bible you go against the Bible’s fans.
The Bible itself is a good fucking book, but the way they misconstrued it, it’s fucking dangerous, and they’ve sold it to be them, to make sure that people fall in line.

Vomit [34:14]
I feel like they use the Bible as a tool for fear. Oh, if you don’t live this way, you’re going to go to hell.
Even if you look at the Conquistadors in South America when they invaded South America, they use the Bible to get soldiers to start murdering & raping the other people of South America and they use the Bible as a tool to get them to fear God so they’re able to carry through with their plans.
They use the fear of God to get gold & riches.

Shane Bugbee [34:47]
That’s similar to what LaVey says – He says we created God to meet our purposes and then somewhere along the line it turned into God created us, even though we created God.

Jatan [35:04]
That’s hard.

Shane Bugbee [35:05]
I see what you’re saying Jatan – you’re saying the Bible is a good read.
It has some good parables, good stories and stuff like that.

Jatan [35:12]
Dumb-asses took it literal and dumb-asses sold it back to us.

Vomit [35:12]
It’s meant to be an allegory.
A guide to living more or less the good life.

Shane Bugbee [35:19]
I’m so angry at religion, obviously. I think religion is the worst fucking thing in the world.
Obviously, that’s my life I hate I fucking hate religion. I hate religious thought.
I like what people think but I don’t I think religions were you go to think – Religion is where thought goes to die.

Vomit [35:44]
It took away from people’s ability to be able to have free thought.

Shane Bugbee [35:48]
…and then the devoutly religious feel justified and righteous.

Vomit [35:55]
High and mighty kinda shit.

Shane Bugbee [35:57]
And then they judge you! They judge you or someone’s sexuality.
They’re able to apply their book and their rules to someone to fucking hurt them.

I say fuck you to that and the religious.

Jatan [36:08]
You know what Christianity did?
It put us down and nailed our hands to the cross.

Shane Bugbee [36:15]
My dick is circumcised and it pissed me off.

Jatan [36:20]
We are Jesus.

Shane Bugbee [36:21]
Is Broken Souls Cult an art collective?
What is the intent behind this collective and who is it a collective of ?

A Broken Souls Cult group photo – Featuring (clockwise, from bottom left) Lil Vampling, Kidd Rott, Eli Rome, Vomit Dastardly, Rumi, Jatan Satan, 4_n_6_3_1, Vanity and an unknown person crouching.

Jatan [37:12]
It’s exactly a broken cult. It’s an oxymoron. It’s a paradox.
We’re so anti cult – we’re so free will that we take in the people that are broken and allow people to express themselves freely. Your soul that’s broken your soul that’s anywhere and everywhere. Broken Souls Cult is just us getting together and being who we are – When we are.

Vomit [37:46]
A collective of like minded individuals.

Jatan [37:49]
Bounded by flesh.
That’s actually the slogan were just bound to our flesh. But we are souls that are not meant to be fixed in any type of way. We’re broken. You’re not fixed you’re broken. Soul be broken.

Shane Bugbee [38:04]
When you go to a Broken Souls Cult show, there’s this energy there and it reminds me of the early days of black metal. It was so pure.

I love watching y’all operate it looks like you help each other out to be better as artists and maybe people. It looks like y’all challenge each other in that you know and help each other. It’s really cool and such special moment in your life.
Savour it.
It all changes.

Anything else you want to say about broken souls cult?

Jatan [38:27]
Join us. That’s it. Join us.
If you’re something you already are us.

Broken Souls Cult are performing, along with many others, at first annual Witches Sabbath (presented by Shane Bugbee) in Chicago, Il, USA – April 30th to May 1st 2022.
For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit the Event Page.

The flyer for the Witches Sabbath event – Presented by Shane Bugbee & featuring an appearance from Broken Souls Cult along with many others!
(Poster art by Nik Gernert)

Links

Interview header photo shows Shane with Jatan and Vomit – Photo by Shane.

All images supplied by Shane Bugbee.
Interview transcript edited for clarity.