Will Brown, who now goes by Astronaut Jumpshot professionally, is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter based in Philadelphia, but he loves basketball more than he loves music. That was really the takeaway from this interview. Bre and I chatted with Will over Zoom for no less than three hours to get to the bottom of why he feels that he can’t properly unpack his emotions, what mindless tasks he’s keeping himself busy with while quarantined, and what he’d deep fry us for dinner if he could have guests right now. He also just dropped a live video that he’s calling his very own house show with an EP to follow. You can watch that below but only after you read this. You’re going to laugh and cry and your competitive edge is going to be brought out every time he says he’s really, really good at basketball.

Why the rebrand? What’s your reasoning behind a new band name, and is your music also going to be reflective of that?

Will: The way the streaming platforms work - whenever anyone else named Will Brown uploads music to their artist page, it just would automatically go to mine. There’s a Latin artist named Will Brown with songs on my Apple Music page. There’s an electronic Will Brown. Any time they’d upload something I’d have to petition to get them taken down, and sometimes it would take like six months for it to go through. Half the time it didn’t even work. I actually got in contact with another one of the Will Browns and I was like, “hey man, you probably know this has been happening too. Your music’s great but neither of us can do anything about it.” So I finally decided to just do a new thing, and the drummer in my band came up with the name Astronaut Jumpshot. I Googled it and nobody else has the name so I was like, “Great. Perfect.”

Emily: How’d he come up with it?

Will: I like reverb and I like basketball. It’s spacey music, but I also like basketball. It all fits.

Bre: Flawless logic.

Will: Did you say “ball is logic?”

Bre: Flawless logic.

Will: I like “ball is logic,” that’s great.

Emily: That can be our podcast outro. [an idea we actually are playing around with, basketball reference not included]

Bre: “And you’ve been listening to Ball Is Logic.”

Emily: Oh, also - before we get into music just so you know the rules. We’re going to make a playlist that’s reflective of the interview so whenever you think of a song let us know.

Will: Just “Basketball” by Bow Wow.

Emily: Actually, we’ll put every other Will Brown on the playlist and none of your songs.

Will: God that was such a headache. But I’m releasing some stuff soon so I figured if I wanted to change the name I’d better do it now.

Emily: Are you changing your sound at all?

Will: Sort of - the next thing I’m going to release isn’t like anything that’s coming after that because I’ve had it ready to go for like six yeas, so I just need to put it out. The next EP is probably the most musically technical thing I’ll ever do, and then after that it feels more like a pop/indie record.

Bre: This is my personal question - are we going to hear more of your vocals? [I sent Bre “Birthday Punches” the night before the interview and she was like “this is great but what does he sound like” lmfao]

Will: Great question. The next EP that I’m releasing like four weeks - no. There are very few vocals. After that, the next thing is like all vocal-driven. There aren’t even a lot of guitar solos.

Bre: I was saying to Emily, “he’s a great musician but I want to hear his voice!”

Will: Then you’re not going to like the next EP at all.

Bre: I’m not even going to listen to it.

Will: Great - it’s stuff I’ve been working on for so long that I’m not even that excited about. It’s just stuff that needs to come out. I’m just gonna drop it and make an Instagram post.

Emily: Are you kidding me. This is our job, we can promo it for you.

Will: I really don’t even want to. It’s really not that representative of the direction I’m going, but it’s also some songs that I play live that go over really well so I need them online for context.

Emily: Does it have a title.

Will: “Bedroom Prog.”

Emily: [silence]

Bre: [silence]

Will: You guys hate it. It’s like fifteen minutes of prog rock that I made in my bedroom so it sounds like Billie Eilish or something. Like Pink Floyd prog.

Emily: I argue that prog just isn’t a thing. You can’t put “prog” in front of something to try and redefine a genre. I had a friend try to sell me on prog rap and prog metal and I was like, “NONE of those things are things.” They tried to tell me JPEGMAFIA is a prog rapper and he’s definitely not.

Will: Oh I love him. He’s one of my favorites right now. No, not prog.

How has quarantine been for you? Do you feel like you’re struggling with an overload of creativity or a lack thereof?

Will: I mean, it’s hard. It was weird at first because it still doesn’t feel like it’s been eight weeks. It kind of just blurred together into one long day. When it first started I went super hard working on music. The first two weeks I just didn’t stop and then I got burnt out. I’ve never had this much time to only do music, and then my roommate came downstairs one night at like four am and I was still trying to record a vocal track and I was just yelling because it wasn’t working. And he was like, “you have to stop.”

Emily: That’s prog.

Will: He told me the next day, “You need to take a break.” So I took a couple days off and now I’ve just been trying to segment my days. When I first wake up I’ll try and make a hiphop beat, then I’ll take my dog for a walk, then I’ll cook. Then at night I’ll try to work on some original stuff or record guitar parts for other people. I try to stop by midnight and spend the rest of the night doing something mindless.

Bre: Maybe it’s just me, but I can sit here and do a ton of stuff, but it takes me like a week to build up the desire to like, go make a meal. It’s taken me so long to progress and do something that requires actual movement. I’ll get random bursts of energy, but then I’ll sit for four more days after that. It’s been hard to just put my energy into normal things.

Will: You have to give yourself monotonous tasks during the day to replace what a job was. If I was doing an 8-hour work day, I would plan out everything I wanted to do later at home and then recording or whatever would be a nice thing to do to unwind. Now, I don’t have any time to actually do that planning and all these things are just in front of me.

Bre: I’m the type of person who lives for the next event. Like, if there’s a concert on Thursday then that’s all I’m thinking about even if today is only Sunday. Or an interview in four days. Now that there’s nothing to physically look forward to that’s totally offset my whole schedule.

Emily: I have a calendar in my kitchen, and from like November to March I had something written down for every day. Whether that was like written content, concerts, interviews. I was always doing something. I looked at it today and there is absolutely nothing written on it for April. I have no concept of time right now and it’s really messing with me. I published an interview yesterday, and I remember sending the initial questions a while ago, and then I blinked and nine days had just passed. I don’t know where everything is going.

Will: This is a historical time that we’re living through. Nobody has ever experienced something to this scale before. Eventually we’re going to get through it and people will look back on this time and be like “wow, what an exciting time,” but no. I was just getting drunk in my house. We all were.

What are some of your quarantine hacks?

Will: I’ve been watching a lot of old basketball games obviously. I broke out my PlayStation 2.

Emily: That’s probably older than all of us.

Will: I got it in 2002 I think. I’ve been playing NBA Live 2007, Sly Cooper, Star Wars Battlefront.

Bre: Okay but. Did you ever play the Over The Hedge game?

Emily: No, Bre. I haven’t. [she makes me laugh]

Will: Another mindless thing that I’ll do is just play and sing country music for fun. Just doing it to do it. Like outlaw country shit.

Bre: Old timey cowboy music.

Wil: Yeah, tractor emo. That’s been the move. I just need that time to do something other than be creative.

Bre: What’s Barney’s favorite song of yours?

Will: Ha.

Emily: I’m convinced he’s deaf because he just sleeps in the background of all your playthrough videos.

Will: I have to take him on walks beforehand because if I don’t then he howls the whole time.

[at this point he did actually show us and it made me want to sell both of my cats and adopt a Beagle-Basset Hound]

If you were to make us dinner right now what would you make us?

Will: Oh man. [he really liked this question] So I have a deep fryer. I’ve been deep frying tons of things. I did chicken and onion rings the other day. I’d probably do that. My next mission is mac and cheese balls.

Bre: You have to do fried pickles.

Will: I don’t love pickles. I like un-pickled pickles.

Bre: Deep fried pb&j is great.

Emily: Ugh. There’s a restaurant in Manayunk called Lucky’s that’s famous for their pb&j burger and I will not get it. I used to go there all the time because I lived close by in West Philly and it just frightened me every time I saw it.

Bre: I have to interrupt and share that PECO has been forgetting to charge us for gas for the last few months and I just got hit with a huge Venmo request.

Will: There goes that extra $1000 of unemployment money.

Bre: This on top of paying rent for a place that I’m not even staying in. Love it.

Emily: This is why I didn’t go home. I’d rather be stuck here by myself than have to pay for an apartment that I’m not living in.

Will: I’m so glad I stayed in Philly.

Bre: Only reason I’m happy about being home is that my parents will make me dinner.

Emily: Yeah see there’s give and take. I’m not eating. We’re not okay over here.

Will: Oh I’ve been eating. [he said that really emphatically]

Emily: That involves going out and getting groceries though.

Bre: And effort. I’m all about Easy Mac.

Emily: Yeah this was my check in. My cry for help.

Bre: These interviews are also essentially vent sessions for Emily and I to talk about our problems in front of other people.

Will: No that’s good, normally musicians are putting their problems onto the listeners so this is a good role reversal. I think I’m done writing songs.

You’ve clearly written songs for people. Have you ever played it for them in person? How did they react?

Will: I feel like this is normal for songwriters. I used to just write country music, so I would have an experience and then write about it but expand upon it a lot. Like an event inspired by something and not specifically about it. And I don’t truly have any hard feelings about anybody. So I have on occasion let them know that a song is coming out and that it’s not a true reflection of how I feel, it’s not real. I’ve never had anyone be pissed about it. And it’s also just an easy thing to write about. I haven’t really had the urge to write a song about healthcare in the US.

Bre: You should listen to Corey Kilgannon, he uses his platform to talk about politics and stuff but his sound went from pop to country to folk. He has a really interesting way of combining a mainstream sound with topical issues. His new stuff has a cool country bar feel.

Will: I honestly don’t really even care about my lyrics. It’s just whatever comes to mind. I’ll write and record the whole song before I melodies and then I’ll just find some melodies and sounds that work. I’m never like “oh man this one particular experience hit me really hard, how do I word that” kind of thing. I just put the lyrics there to have them. Sometimes they turn out but sometimes they don’t.

Bre: Do you think you have to sit in your feelings for a little before you can write a song about it or do you think you write better in the moment?

Will: I think it kind of depends. One of the songs I have on the live video is new, it’s called “Outside,” and I sat down to write it thinking that it would probably be a song about a girl. And then the more I worked on it it just became something different. So I guess “both” is the answer.

Bre: I think sometimes songwriting is hard because it forces you to really think about things that you don’t want to think about.

Will: I don’t usually put raw emotion into lyrics. I do it with guitar solos for sure. I feel like I can convey feeling better that way, so if I’m feeling really fucked up about something I’ll wait until a time when I’m feeling some kind of way and record it. I think it’s more expressive.

Emily: That’s super interesting. We haven’t had anyone come from the “music over lyrics” angle yet. Moody songwriters tend to be our target audience.

Will: Yeah I truly just don’t pay attention to lyrics. Like - I love Sza, but I couldn’t tell you any of her lyrics. She sounds great, I think the arrangements are amazing, and I know generally what she’s singing about, but I can’t sit there and sing back one of her songs.

Emily: When I interviewed Slomo Sapiens about their recent album, Ceallaigh said he just kind of word-vomits some sounds into some demos and they focus on the music first. Then he’ll go back and get really thoughtful with his songwriting. But that’s just never a way I’d ever think to go about it.

Will: Yeah, it’s hard. And it’s super vulnerable. I know when a song is worth pursuing if I listen back to a recording and it makes me uncomfortable. Like, as the person who wrote it, it’s making me feel exposed, so there’s probably something there.

Emily: Do you have a specific song you can reference?

Will: The single you wrote up. “A Thing (Our Thing).” That one has the most lyrics in it, and up until the day I put it out I wasn’t even sure I was going to release it. I was really just putting myself out there. This has nothing to do with basketball.

Emily: Everything is about basketball if you dig deep enough.

Will: They’re all Allen Iverson tributes.

Emily: Did you know - I went to college at Saint Joe’s, and there’s a Chili’s on City Ave really close to campus that Allen Iverson went to once and blew like $50,000 in a single night?

Will: I went to Temple for journalism and I knew a guy who used to cover Allen Iverson and he would tell me all this crazy shit about him. They went out drinking together one night before he had a big game, and he said Iverson was doing kickflips on a skateboard in the streets of Old City at like 4 am and then the next day dropped like 40 points. An absolute machine of a man. [see, everything is about basketball]

Are you actually any good at basketball?

Will: Okay. I mean.

Bre: Are you truly any good or is it just an image thing?

Emily: I don’t think Bre follows your Instagram dunk highlight. This is an actual listed question.

Will: I will go play pickup basketball at random courts and parks all over the city.

Emily: You mean you just hop in with a bunch of strangers?

Will: Yeah, I mean you just show up in your sneakers or whatever - wait no. You show up in slides and then you sit on the bench and pull your sneakers out of your bag so they know you’re getting ready to play. And then whenever the game ends and they need more people I’ll jump in. I usually don’t have a problem getting on the court because I’m tall.

Emily: Bre, Will is like seven feet tall.

Will: [this is the most essential line in the entire interview] I’m 6’6”, I’m the same height as Michael Jordan.

Bre: Title: “Will Brown Is Just As Good At Basketball As Michael Jordan.”

Will: Alright, I’m calling him out. I’ll play him one-on-one.

Emily: You do know he’ll see this.

Will: He won’t. If he does I’d be ecstatic.

Bre: I work at a camp in the summers and I’ve seen how serious these little kids take basketball. You’re right, the whole “walk up in your slides, try to look cool, watch from the bench” thing is real. It’s hilarious.

Will: It’s legit. I’ve ended up in games where I realized I had no business being there. But for the most part I’m not hurting the quality of the game. But if you put me on the court with like, Division 1 college players I’d have to leave. There’s a reason I’m playing music right now and not in pursuing a career in the NBA.

What’s the cringiest thing you’ve ever done to avoid talking about your feelings?

Will: [he laughed way too hard and then got super uncomfortable]

Bre: One time this guy and I were watching tv in his dorm, and he tried to kiss me but he’d just eaten ravioli, so absolutely not. So I told him I had to feed my fish and I left. Another time some guy at a party kissed me and then asked “what are we?” And I told him I had to leave.

Will: I’m trying to think. I’m sure they exist, but I can’t think of one thing that was so outrightly awkward. I think it’s just been one long con of pretending I don’t have feelings. If I’m dating someone and they’re prying at me I’m usually just like, “I don’t particularly want to talk about this right now.”

Bre: Yep, I do the same thing.

Will: I also grew up very religious, so I was always pretty fearful of women. I never had any idea what to do.

Bre: I’m great at the buildup. I’m great at flirting, I can hold a conversation. But when it comes to committing, I’m out. I lose it.

Can you describe Fishtown in 10 words or less?

Will: [a long pause]

Emily: ...That’s where you live right??? Well you’re a musician, it’s fine.

Will: Alright, I’ll just start saying things and see if I can just formulate a sentence. Reminder that I don’t like lyrics so I’m not good with words.

Emily: Go for it.

Will: Alright. Bearded dudes, Trump supporters, sometimes… no no no. Wait.

Emily: This hasn’t really been my impression of Fishtown at all.

Will: People forget about them but there are tons of old dude Trump supporters out there. They’re real.

Bre: Okay try again.

Will: “Bearded dudes.” Those two words are in there. “Double-parked cars.” That’s five. This is really hard.

Emily: The follow up is harder.

Will: “Good bagels. Public drunkenness accepted.”

Emily: Perfect. Follow up: can you describe Fishtown dudes in 10 words or less?

Bre: Or even Fishtown musicians.

Will: Ugh. Okay. “The Dawn Drapes and all the other bands they’re in.”

Emily: Oh my god.

Will: I feel like every Fishtown band has at least one member of The Dawn Drapes in it.

Emily: And there’s technically only two of them.

Will: I love that answer.

Emily: Bre this is our in with The Dawn Drapes now. Next interview.

Bringing it all back to your release - the reinvention of the house show was a cool idea. What should we know about these songs?

Will: The two songs that have already been released - the one version of “Birthday Punches” sounds completely different. And in some ways I like that version better. It all has a different feel. It’s still mostly instrumental, sorry Bre. I don’t know when I can play live again, and I was doing a similar sort of live show before where I’d just have a backing track on a sampler pad so hopefully it gives people a sense of that.

Emily: I thought the title was fun. “Welcome To My House Show.” It’s nostalgic

Will: Yeah, it’s a show that I filmed in my house. I hope more people do that. The livestream thing is totally different than making a “live” video of yourself. I think it gives you a chance to give it sort of a live feel, and gives people a glimpse into the actual recording process since you’re filming ahead of time. I think it might be - regardless of quarantine or not - something I might do for each song I release. Show a live and stripped down version of the recording process.

Emily: Yeah, people are even starting livestream concerts with more than one act on the stream which is something that’s pretty advantageous. And that huuuge Love From Philly Live fest that’s happening in May. [actually it’s starting today] It’s really cool to get these intimate “live” sets from people, but also I worry that things will really change from this and people will get way too cozy in their houses and that want to go to live shows will fade.

Will: I think it’s a different art form. There’s nothing that’s the same as standing at Johnny Brenda’s and seeing a band, but unfortunately that’s not an option right now, so we have to figure out other ways to give people that live show experience. And I’m just as happy to go back to playing Johnny Brenda’s, but for now we all just have to figure this out.

Emily: I’ve been enjoying it, I’ve been watching everyone I know whenever they stream to be supportive. I watched The Districts go live and make breakfast for an hour the other day.

Will: I feel like as a musician, it’s been about everything but the music for a long time regardless.

[eventually the conversation took an off-the-record turn for the last 35 minutes and Will and Bre started talking about sports and I could no longer keep up]

Will: I should have been an athlete. I should have just jogged more and played basketball. I could have been something. [this seems like an appropriate place to end]

Bottom line? Astronaut Jumpshot is releasing an EP in a few weeks and then immediately after is playing Michael Jordan 1 v 1 at a court near you.

The Date Where Will Brown Emphasizes That He's Just As Tall As Michael Jordan