A punk band based in Pune, India, writing a politically charged song about the United States, then remotely co-directing a music video with the people behind Pancake Mountain and the documentary “Salad Days” โ it sounds like a pitch someone would make up, but the whole thing came together in a matter of weeks.
Jaysdead is fronted by Jay Kinra, an American-born musician who grew up in Florida, Boston, and California before moving to India in 2008. He’s been there for 17 years now. His parents, Indian immigrants who arrived in the U.S. in the early 1970s, still live stateside. That split โ American upbringing, Indian present tense โ is the lens through which “God Save America” was written.
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The song didn’t come out in one sitting. Kinra wrote the first half in September 2025, around the time the Trump/Epstein files story resurfaced and started reaching international audiences. “The tipping point for me was when Jimmy Kimmel was pulled from the air just after Stephen Colbert,” he says. The first two verses and chorus came together fast. He has the voice note recordings to prove it.
What pulled him back in was the footage from Minnesota after Renรฉe Good and Alex Pretti were killed in mid-January 2026. Kinra was shaken by the response from leadership โ no sorrow, no empathy, an immediate pivot to calling both domestic terrorists. “I literally cried while writing that part of the song,” he says. “Even now it brings tears to my eyes writing about it.”
The track is currently being mastered by Hans DeKline, known for his work across punk and alternative stuff. The song and video are set for release on March 25, days before the No Kings Day rally scheduled for March 28, 2026.
Kinra had been posting acoustic snippets on YouTube under a recurring segment he calls “Sunday Riffing with Jaysdead” โ new songs in progress, informal, just him and a guitar. One of those shorts, featuring the first verse and chorus of “God Save America,” caught the attention of Jonathan Stein, a producer on the children’s punk rock show Pancake Mountain, which is currently going through a revival.
Stein reached out asking if a finished version existed. That started the conversation. Kinra asked if Stein could help promote the song, since he’d already been thinking about making a video. Stein came back with an idea: push the timeline and release it in time for No Kings Day. From there, he brought in Scott Crawford โ director of “Salad Days,” the DC punk documentary โ and Scott Stuckey, creator of Pancake Mountain, who took on the video edit.
The concept they landed on: a news broadcast gone wrong. Kinra delivers the news on air, then goes off script against the station director’s instructions and starts saying what he actually thinks. Chaos in the studio follows.
The shoot happened in a green-screen cyclorama studio in India while Stuckey, Crawford, and Stein watched and directed over Zoom from the U.S. All three cameras were fed to them live. They had the American team up on big monitors on set.
“Because we couldn’t physically control the camera, the process became much more collaborative,” Stein says. “Since we were really focused on nailing this newsroom concept, we always had something to point to.”
The time difference was the roughest part. “When we are up they are asleep and vice versa,” Stein adds. “Whatever time we choose to meet โ someone is ready to go to sleep.” Stuckey and Stein were directing from 10pm to 4am on their end.
Stuckey, whose video credits include work with Garbage, the Linda Lindas, and Pancake Mountain itself, handled the edit.
Crawford, with his background in punk documentary work and political filmmaking, served as a consultant โ limited on time but precise in his input. “Scott understands punk as a living dialogue,” Stein says. “He’s always looking for authenticity and has been able to point us in the right direction.”
Crawford himself put it simply: “It reminded me of how far-reaching punk has become. The message is universal and I’m happy to be involved in a project that illustrates that so powerfully.”
Kinra doesn’t feel safe when he travels back to the U.S. these days. He describes tension in the air, a more discriminatory atmosphere. When he talks politics with his father on the phone, his mother jumps in from the background telling them not to discuss it โ worried the government might be listening, worried there could be consequences.
“In general I feel fear when I go there,” he says.
He gets pushback on the song too. His own mother has told him multiple times not to release it, fearing backlash. “I guess that sentiment is heightened because I am a brown guy after all.”
The sentiment in India toward the current American administration isn’t warm either. “Many people here commonly say that a ‘mad man’ is running America,” Kinra says. “Their businesses have been affected by tariffs, and now with the war, travel costs, gas prices โ everything is affected.”
Stein sees value in that outside perspective. “In America, we are told that ‘we are respected’ and that we have ‘the hottest country in the world.’ Many of us know that is not true but it’s good to get confirmation,” he says. “The song isn’t disrespectful โ it is less like an attack and more like a reflection. Someone looking at the United States and asking what happened to the ideals it has historically projected.”
Punk in India
The punk scene in India is small. Kinra is honest about that. Most people there associate the genre with Green Day, who recently played India to what was reportedly one of their biggest shows. India isn’t particularly genre-conscious โ music culture revolves around Bollywood, or whatever America says is cool at the time.
Jaysdead are based in Pune, a few hours from Mumbai. They’ve got 16 originals in their live set. Two songs โ “My Hands” and “Me Love” โ are out on streaming platforms.
Another track, “Sugar Daddy,” isn’t released yet but gets crowd singalongs. They recently played a college festival to more than 1,000 people. “People jumped up on stage and moshed, and one guy even had a spray paint can which he lit on fire and shot flames into the air while we played one of our songs ‘Don’t Think,'” Kinra says.
Breaking into the circuit took work. A lot of knocking on doors and following up. But the skateboard scene’s growth in India over the last decade has helped โ there’s significant overlap between Jaysdead’s audience and the skate community, which Kinra, a lifelong skater, takes pride in.
As for other Indian artists to watch, Kinra points to Hanumankind and Girish and the Chronicles as recent crossover examples. “What Hanumankind has done in hip-hop, we want to do in pop-punk from India. Most people are honestly surprised to hear that this kind of music is coming out of India.”
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Kinra grew up on the Descendents, Minor Threat, Operation Ivy, Nirvana, Misfits, Nofx, Dinosaur Jr. His brother was the singer and songwriter for a punk band in Melbourne Beach, Florida called Dangling Nards โ “which still makes me laugh when I say it out loud” โ when Kinra was ten.
Writing in this style wasn’t a choice. It’s just what came out.
“Since I was already writing music, this song poured out of me because of how strongly I feel about the subject โ which ultimately is that the leadership in America is making me feel unwanted, unsafe, and honestly sad,” he says. “I just don’t like the collateral damage that I see and feel sitting here in India, and especially when I come back for visits.”
Stuckey offered his own reflection: “Working on a music video for a band in India reminded me that art has no borders. When different cultures come together โ different languages, rhythms, and perspectives โ the result is something bigger than any one of us.”
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Whether this stays a one-off or turns into something ongoing, both sides sound open. Kinra says the process brought them closer. Stein says he’d like to visit India if the right opportunity comes. “I hope that we can do more together,” he says. “I guess time will tell.”
“God Save America” drops March 25. Footage from Jaysdead’s live shows and behind-the-scenes stuff from the video shoot is available on their Instagram: @jaysdead_official.
