The Testimonial of Cult Therapy’s Jason Duncan

This is the story behind one of the year’s most provocative, must-listen debuts. Cult Therapy are entrenched in the battle to overcome the most harrowing of traumas.

Get Fucked, Sinner! Cult Therapy Freak Baby 4 April 2025

Flint, Michigan-based Cult Therapy recently released one of the most provocative and essential records of the year. Get Fucked, Sinner is a harrowing and cathartic account of lead singer and lyricist Jason Duncan’s time spent in an abusive religious cult. It has cost him a lot, including his father and a close friend, who were victims of opioid addiction. Get Fucked, Sinner is an assertion of self and an attack on organized religion, and a pummeling rock record informed by 1990s alternative influences. It is a harrowing, but endlessly listenable, journey through Duncan’s exit from the cult and his journey toward healing.

The title and album cover are designed to attract listeners who are open to hearing Duncan’s story. “I wanted them to know right from the cover what they are getting into, and I think that that mindset comes from growing up in church. At first, it’s ‘come as you are’ because they are so eager to have you in the door. Once you’re assimilated, you realize that you’re not actually welcome to stay unless you believe exactly what they believe. Because I’m dealing with so much religious trauma, that’s another way of me saying fuck you to that mindset. I’m not doing anything the way I was brought up,” he tells PopMatters.

He continues: “I’m going to be very blunt, and it’s going to be right there on the surface. The title came from the message from the pulpit for someone like me. You don’t fit here. Your parents were divorced when you were young. You’re already screwed. I mean, I was studying to be a pastor, so our whole life revolved around church at one point, and so to come full circle and now have this. Yeah, it is very offensive, but like I tell my kids all the time, art is supposed to provoke a reaction. This art is not for everybody. That’s totally fine.”

Cult Therapy started a little before the pandemic, but time spent in lockdown cracked open the project for Duncan. “Losing my dad was a big deal, and I had been isolating myself anyway because of that. Then one afternoon, I saw some friends playing street hockey, and I decided I would join them. That helped me meet some other musicians, and then we started up, and it just evolved from there. I’d been writing these songs about going through some shit and I decided I wanted to put together a band, so off we went. I think we practiced for like a full year before we even started playing shows,” Duncan notes.

Cult Therapy are mostly Flint music scene veterans. Only the guitarist, Jacques Doucet, is not from Michigan. Duncan and his partner Jess were in the buzzy band Ari Thanos in the early 2000s. They had a “cult following”. “We were really big in Terre Haute, Indiana. We would play a show there, and 300 kids would show up,” he recounts. Then Ari Thanos ended, and they started another group called Bell Tree that didn’t last. Rhythm section Nick Mayberry and Jeff Buffmeyer have been playing in bands together for 20 years in the Flint scene. They are also the rhythm section in another notable Flint group, noise rockers Cold Joys. 

When it came time to record Get Fucked, Sinner, Cult Therapy chose highly respected Marc Jacob Hudson, who has worked with many notable bands, including Saves the Day, the Blood Brothers, Cursive, and Against Me! “Every time I work with Marc, I learn so much. My first time recording with him was when I was a teenager, and he literally taught me everything from the ground up,” Duncan explains. 

Hudson has a way of putting his bands at ease. “I was worried that our teenage band sucks, and I asked Marc point blank if it is the worst thing he’s ever recorded. Marc pulled up a drive of his worst projects, and we spent a couple of hours just listening to these terrible recordings. That gave me the confidence to keep going.”

Cult Therapy is the first project Jason Duncan worked on in years after spending time between his earlier work and current band playing in worship bands at church. Putting himself out there like he does in Cult Therapy was a risk, but one worth taking. “At times, recording was so restorative to me that I thought I should be paying Marc for recording and therapy,” Duncan laughs. “It was a rough go recording some of the vocals; not singing them, but the subject matter. Marc encouraged me to take a breath and keep going.”

For Cult Therapy’s sound, Duncan drew inspiration from his 1990s favorites, including Nirvana, the Toadies, Weezer, and Nada Surf. “I mainly wanted to be in a band where I could just yell and scream and get everything out and play loud. In my previous bands, I would write on an acoustic guitar and build out from there,” Duncan notes. “Writing for Cult Therapy, I’d crank my guitar as loud as I could, as a cathartic thing.”

“Cursive and Everclear are two other big influences. I always liked Art Alexakis’ songwriting. I learned to play guitar by listening to them. Jess was listening to a lot of female musicians while we were working on the songs, and I connected with the way their vocals were written. The subject matter was very upfront; it wasn’t shrouded in anything. I love bands like Hop Along and Wednesday,” Duncan explains.

One of the best things about the independent art and music scene in Michigan is the collaboration and support artists offer each other. Jason Duncan pitched a partnership with his friend Bryce Mata, who was starting Freak Baby, a Detroit-area zine, along with his partner and friends. Get Fucked, Sinner wound up being Freak Baby’s first music release.

“Bryce [Mata], his partner Angela, along with Sam and Evan, are running Freak Baby Records, which is part of the zine they are starting of the same name. I asked them if they’d be interested in putting out our record because it was already paid for and we were having trouble finding a label, so I pitched the idea of them putting out the record as a way to promote the launch of the zine,” Duncan recalls.

“We have gotten phenomenal support from them, from handling the pre-orders to monitoring the web store to packing all the orders. It blows my mind how much work they have put into supporting us. Mata is also a talented videographer, and he has directed the videos for Get Fucked, Sinner, which are highly recommended viewing.

Now that Get Fucked, Sinner has been released and Cult Therapy have played a handful of local shows to celebrate it, Jason Duncan hopes it finds people who are similarly struggling. “I hope the record helps people. When I left the church, I got to a point where I realized everything I was handed was bullshit, and I felt ill-equipped to just go out into the world because of all the messaging about how dangerous it is. Not only that, you’re kind of just awkward,” he notes.

“You don’t know how to connect to people because you’re not used to interacting meaningfully with the rest of the world. You want to move on, but you’re not quite ready. This record is my story, and I’m just adding to the voices of the people standing up and challenging religious hypocrisy and abuse.”