On his new single “boys don’t cry!” and five-track EP hold me, don’t hold back!, Jahson Paynter confronts heartbreak, emotional repression, and the complicated expectations surrounding masculinity. Blending alternative R&B, folk, and bedroom pop, the emerging artist transforms the aftermath of a relationship into a deeply personal exploration of what happens when the person who once understood you becomes a stranger. In an exclusive conversation with MUNDANE, Paynter opens up about learning to embrace his emotions, the chaotic production behind his latest release, and why growing older means allowing his music to evolve alongside him.
There is a particular kind of heartbreak that doesn’t begin when a relationship ends.
It begins afterward.
When the person who once knew every detail of your day suddenly becomes unreachable. When conversations that used to last until morning turn into unanswered messages. When someone promises they’ll always be there, only to disappear the moment you actually need them.
And perhaps most painfully, when you realize that the person you would normally turn to for comfort is the very person responsible for your sadness.
For Jahson Paynter, that contradiction lies at the center of his single “boys don’t cry!”, released October 14.
A soulful, emotionally charged R&B track, the song captures Paynter in the middle of a breakdown, confronting the uncomfortable reality of needing someone who is no longer available to him.
But beyond its immediate narrative of romantic disappointment, the song explores something more deeply rooted: the belief that men should conceal their emotions, even when doing so becomes unbearable.
“The older I got, the more I became secure in my emotions,” Paynter tells MUNDANE.
“My pops always used to tell me that letting people see your emotions is you losing in some way.”
It’s a lesson that shaped his early understanding of vulnerability, encouraging him to suppress feelings rather than confront them.
But growing older has challenged that belief.
Paynter now sees emotional honesty not as a surrender of strength, but as an essential part of understanding himself.
And on his latest project, he’s allowing that realization to become the foundation of his music.
When the Person You Need Is the Person Who Left
Despite its title, “boys don’t cry!” isn’t simply a statement about masculinity.
It’s also a song about the strange emotional negotiations that follow a breakup.
Paynter describes the frustration of hearing someone promise continued support after a relationship ends, only to discover that those promises don’t necessarily survive the separation.
“Like you said you’d be here, so I’m pulling up.”
There’s an uncomfortable honesty in that sentiment.
He recognizes that expecting someone to remain emotionally available after a breakup can be selfish.
But he also understands how difficult it is to suddenly lose access to someone who once occupied such an important place in your life.
The song captures that moment when rational understanding and emotional desperation collide.
You know the relationship has ended.
You know the other person may no longer owe you the intimacy you once shared.
But emotionally, you’re still searching for the familiarity that disappeared.
For Paynter, writing the track meant confronting those contradictions without attempting to make himself appear more reasonable or emotionally composed.
The result is a song that doesn’t offer an idealized version of heartbreak.
Instead, it captures the confusion of experiencing it in real time.
Five Different Ways to Feel Everything
“boys don’t cry!” appears on Paynter’s second EP of 2026, hold me, don’t hold back!, released October 29.
Across five tracks, the project explores different stages of intense emotional attachment, from the uncertainty of developing feelings to the frustration and disappointment that can accompany their collapse.
But Paynter is quick to clarify that the EP wasn’t conceived as an elaborate conceptual statement.
“I’m not going to sit here and say it was planned and it was this crazy conceptual thing.”
Instead, the songs emerged naturally from whatever he happened to be experiencing.
That spontaneity is central to his creative identity.
His earlier 2026 EP, is anybody home!?, explored his upbringing and eventual arrival in Los Angeles.
The new project turns inward, focusing on the emotional journey of becoming deeply attached to another person.
Even the title reflects an internal contradiction.
Hold me suggests patience, affection, and a willingness to give someone time.
Don’t hold back expresses the opposite impulse: frustration with uncertainty and the desire for an answer.
It’s the difference between wanting to respect someone’s emotional process and realizing that waiting indefinitely can become its own form of suffering.
The tension is particularly relevant to contemporary relationships, where ambiguity can sometimes feel more painful than rejection.
Paynter isn’t necessarily searching for the perfect outcome.
He’s searching for clarity.
Finding Freedom Beyond Genre
Musically, Paynter’s work moves between alternative R&B, folk, and bedroom pop without committing entirely to any one tradition.
For him, that fluidity isn’t a carefully constructed strategy.
It’s simply an extension of his personality.
“I never really know how to classify myself; I just want to make great music.”
The refusal to remain within a single genre also mirrors his approach to emotional expression.
Just as his feelings rarely fit into convenient categories, neither does his music.
Some songs require intimacy and restraint.
Others demand a more expansive or experimental approach.
And sometimes, the process of finding the right sound becomes as chaotic as the emotions behind it.
“boys don’t cry!” underwent four different versions before reaching its final form.
Paynter recalls that the production process was unusually difficult, with the final version uploaded only days before release.
The struggle became an unexpected reflection of the song itself.
A track about emotional instability emerged through a similarly unpredictable creative process.
And although Paynter remains committed to blending different musical influences, he’s beginning to think more deliberately about what artistic maturity might sound like.
“I just want to move away from nostalgia and walk in the direction of maturity in the music.”
It’s a fitting ambition for an artist whose latest work is fundamentally concerned with growing into a more honest relationship with himself.
In Conversation With Jahson Paynter
MUNDANE: “boys don’t cry!” captures a really raw moment of vulnerability on a friend’s front porch. What was the specific spark or moment that pushed you to turn that experience into a song?
Jahson Paynter: More so a failed relationship than friendship. It was that feeling of annoyance when people always say they will be there for you after something like that ends. Then you never hear from them again.
Like you said you’d be here, so I’m pulling up. It’s kind of selfish for sure, but I feel like everyone has that lapse for a moment when the only person that understands you doesn’t answer anymore…
MUNDANE: The title “boys don’t cry!” directly addresses a classic societal expectation around masculinity. How has your relationship with emotional expression evolved throughout your music journey?
Jahson Paynter: The older I got, the more I became secure in my emotions. My pops always used to tell me that letting people see your emotions is you losing in some way, so I never addressed them, or at least tried to.
But I got older and realized that emotions aren’t a bad thing in the slightest. We are human; we feel things, some people more than others, and that’s calm.
I realized that as long as I don’t make judgments solely based on emotions, it’s okay to acknowledge them.
MUNDANE: Your EP hold me, don’t hold back! explores five distinct modes of vulnerability. How did you approach giving each track its own emotional identity?
Jahson Paynter: I’m not going to sit here and say it was planned and it was this crazy conceptual thing. It honestly just came together by accident; I was just writing what I was feeling or going through. The same way I do every other song.
MUNDANE: Your sound blends alternative R&B, folk, and bedroom pop. How do these different genres help you express feelings that one genre alone might not fully capture?
Jahson Paynter: It’s odd cause I never really think of the genre when making songs. I never really know how to classify myself; I just want to make great music.
Being confined to one thing just doesn’t seem like me; I’m more than just one singular thing, and I want the music to reflect that it goes across so many different places and worlds.
MUNDANE: How did the production for “boys don’t cry!” come together to reflect the chaotic, mid-spiral feeling of the lyrics?
Jahson Paynter: “boys don’t cry!” was legit the longest I think me and the dawgs worked on a song; it went through like 4 different versions.
It’s still kind of surreal to know that it’s out and finished. I thought we’d never be done; the final got uploaded like 2 days before the song even came out.
It really put us through the wringer; we battled daily, to say the least, so the process of the production was just as chaotic as the feeling.
MUNDANE: You’re releasing two EPs in 2026. How does hold me, don’t hold back! build upon or contrast with your previous release?
Jahson Paynter: It’s a crazy thing; I gotta chill out putting out this much music… but they are so different.
“is anybody home!?” is really a quick touch on life growing up to finally getting to LA by the end of it.
“hold me, dont hold back!” is the journey of, I don’t want to say love, but just intense emotions for a person beginning to end.
MUNDANE: Was there a particular song on this new EP that felt especially difficult to write because of how honest it required you to be?
Jahson Paynter: “no self respect!” and “boys dont cry!”
“no self respect!” probably took me a day to really write cause it was like a bit of an internal thing that I’ve never admitted, and “boys dont cry!” was true emotion.
I wanted to make sure every word I said felt right to how I feel, about people going from sleeping on the phone to being blocked.
Thanks to Sacha because she helped me put the chorus together perfectly to sum that exact emotion.
MUNDANE: How does the tension between the two halves of the EP title — hold me versus don’t hold back! — play out across the five tracks?
Jahson Paynter: To be honest, it was that they were both one song when I first submitted it.
The tension there was polar opposite feelings of “it’s cool, take your time with figuring out what you want” and the second half being completely fed up with waiting and just wanting an answer so I don’t have to be in limbo.
Waiting over thinking whether the situation has changed or not.
MUNDANE: What do you hope listeners who are currently going through their own heavy or isolated moments take away from “boys don’t cry!”?
Jahson Paynter: They’re not the only ones going through it.
It’s annoying, but if they left and truly cared, they never truly left in the first place.
Give it a beat to cool off — if they come back around, then you know what it is.
MUNDANE: Looking at where you are creatively, where do you see your sound and story heading next?
Jahson Paynter: I have no clue; I’m kind of experimenting a bit more with flavours to add into the music.
I just want to move away from nostalgia and walk in the direction of maturity in the music.
Still blending, of course; that will never stop, but I’m getting older, and I want to grow up a bit more sonically.
That will come with time.
Learning That Feeling Is Part of Growing Up
What makes Paynter’s latest project compelling isn’t simply its willingness to explore heartbreak.
It’s the recognition that emotional maturity doesn’t necessarily mean becoming less emotional.
Sometimes it means learning how to experience difficult feelings without allowing them to define every decision.
On “boys don’t cry!”, Paynter confronts the expectations he inherited about masculinity while acknowledging his own contradictions.
He wants to be understood.
He wants reassurance.
He wants someone to remain available even after their relationship has changed.
And he recognizes that those desires aren’t always rational.
But rather than hiding that discomfort, he transforms it into music.
Across hold me, don’t hold back!, the same philosophy becomes an exploration of uncertainty, attachment, frustration, and acceptance.
There are no definitive answers.
No carefully constructed lessons about how heartbreak should unfold.
Just an artist documenting the emotional reality of where he finds himself.
And perhaps that’s what makes the project resonate.
Because vulnerability isn’t always graceful.
Sometimes it’s messy, inconvenient, contradictory, and difficult to explain.
But acknowledging those feelings can be the first step toward understanding them.
For Jahson Paynter, growing up doesn’t mean learning how to stop crying. It means realizing that allowing yourself to feel was never a weakness in the first place.
Artist: Jahson Paynter
Single: “boys don’t cry!”
Single release: October 14, 2026
EP: hold me, don’t hold back!
EP release: October 29, 2026
Genre: Alternative R&B, folk, bedroom pop
Previous EP: is anybody home!?
Listen: “boys don’t cry!” | hold me, don’t hold back!
