Stephen Jaymes, the punk folk hero hell-bent on saving the human race, is welcoming 2026 by releasing his sixth new single after his debut album, King Jaymes, wowed critics at the start of last summer. His latest, Not Going, covers a relationship ending, a country losing its way, and a person finding their footing in the ruins of both. The final verse — "the vast empire of theft / there isn't anything left" — arrives not as a political statement but as an emotional one, the moment when private grief and public disillusionment become the same feeling.

A gifted multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, singer, and producer, Stephen Jaymes is a self-contained artist. He might be described as Charles Bukowski ditching whiskey for psychedelic mushrooms while feverishly ingesting Rumi poetry, Jungian thought, and Phil Ochs records. He writes with a strutting but sensitive flair, bringing to life dark realities in order to highlight, with a raised eyebrow, the brightness underneath.