Reflecting on Philophobic: Absolutely Nothing with Jake Jones: Five Fast Facts

Jay Castellano
Jun 23
5 min read

Jake Jones is a multi-faceted artist based in Connecticut, demonstrating influence from R&B, rap, and hip-hop within his music. He has recently released the deluxe version of his 10th album, Philophobic: Absolutely Nothing. The full project contains 24 songs, with a handful being produced by Jake himself; it provides a sense of nostalgia and comfort that is difficult to achieve. Today we will dig deeper into the thought process, emotions, and inspiration that contributed to the making of these tracks.

JC: If you could go back and restart your musical journey from square one, is there anything that you would do differently? If so, what?
JJ: You know, the only thing I can think of is I wish I used Discord back in like 2020. I have so many friends now who look back on the 2020 Discord music-making era so fondly, and some of those friends found a lot of success in that time, and made friends that have turned into big connections as well. While I am friends with some of those “big connections” now, it’s harder to utilize them and collab with them since they’ve become so busy with being real full-time musicians now.
JC: What is currently your favorite genre of music to create and why?
JJ: Aww man this answer changes for me so frequently I can’t pick just one. I guess RIGHT NOW, I’m kinda trying to simplify my beats and re-teach myself how to make that mid to late 2010’s trap sound. Stuff like Pierre Bourne beats and like Metro Boomin beats. Stuff Uzi, Carti, Drake, Meek Mill, A Boogie, and 21 Savage used to rap on. I haven’t started rapping on those beats again yet, but I think that’s what’s next for me; not sure if they’ll release though haha. And of course I still love Pluggnb and Diary even though a lot of people say that sound is dead. I think that sound allows me to be the most honest with my emotions in my lyrics. Obviously I also love making R&B; the journey of learning how to do that for philophobic was so awesome because it was basically the music I always wanted to make but could never figure out, or I thought I wasn’t good enough for it. Lastly, I haven’t made anything like it yet, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Olivia Rodrigo; I'm gonna probably listen to the new album tonight, but I would love to make some melancholy, melodramatic breakup pop songs to really test my songwriting.
JC: After releasing the deluxe version of Philophobic: Absolutely Nothing, which song are you most proud of on the project?
JJ: Wow man it’s so hard to pick just one. I would say probably "Summer Turns to Fall" because it was self-produced and I think I really nailed the 80’s R&B sound from the beat, to the writing, to the recording, to the mixing. I can probably say that about all the songs on the deluxe for their respective sounds, but Summer Turns to Fall definitely has an advantage cause it was 97% done by me, minus the extra background vocals from Tye Chris on the hook.
JC: Do you prefer to write songs before recording or come up with lyrics on the spot? Is this how you made Philophobic: Absolutely Nothing?
JJ: Yeah, I kinda thrive when I’m just sitting in front of a mic singing/rapping what comes to my mind. There are songs I have written beforehand, mostly older stuff; the only one I can think of right now is Nothing for Me from the album Ars Longa, Vita Brevis. For Philophobic, it was mostly written as I recorded, punching each couple of lines in, but a few songs I wrote a verse to the beat or got an idea and put it in my voice memos. The ones that were prewritten were Glass Heart and if I said I would jump, but only like half of both. Don’t you forget me, I had writing help from my wonderful friend MONTEY! So that was entirely written beforehand, but for most of these songs I recorded the song 2 or 3 times. 1st time would be the “writing,” the second time might be finishing the writing, or re-recording specific parts where I didn’t like the writing, or the performance, and if there was a third recording, I was either re-recording the whole song, or doing all the background vocals.
JC: What is the biggest barrier that you typically face during the recording process? Was that the same with this record?
JJ: To be honest, sometimes I hate my singing voice, or my writing. I’ll leave the studio with an unfinished song and send it to a friend saying, “this sucks, I’m so washed,” just for them to be like, “you have to finish this, this is so good.” Usually I would listen back 3 days later and realize they were right haha. I don’t think this will ever not be the case for me; there are a few songs that I’ve released that I honestly think are bad, but usually those end up being someone’s favorite song of mine. So if there are any upcoming artists out there: DON’T BE AFRAID TO RELEASE SOMETHING JUST CAUSE YOU DON’T LIKE IT!!! As long as you don’t feel like it’s half effort, or insincere, it’s good enough to release.
JC: What is one song you wish Jake Jones wrote? JJ: Wow, this is a great question; I could probably list 100+ songs that I feel like this about. If I HAD to pick one though, I would probably say “the grudge” by Olivia Rodrigo, because (unfortunately) it’s nearly word for word what’s going on in my life right now. Honorable mention though: “pierce” by wassup; he’s such a good songwriter, especially for the diary scene. JC: What’s next for Jake Jones? JJ: Man, I’m currently back home in Connecticut with my parents, just working for the summer, but within the next year the goal is to move to New York with some friends and make this music thing full time. For me as an artist, I’m just hoping to get some placements, do some features, do some shows, and I have an idea for my next project, but I think since I basically just released my 10th album, I’m probably gonna slow down on projects and just drop some singles. I think a lot of artists would probably just slow down releasing altogether, but releasing music is so therapeutic to me; it feels like I genuinely get withdrawals if I take too long to drop.