Austin Brown
This week, we caught up with Austin Brown of country a cappella group Home Free, to talk about the launch of his solo career, and release of his debut single "Earn It" See the highlights from our conversation below.
TNB - What inspired you to launch this solo project?Austin - I have been writing music consistently for the past few years now while on the road with Home Free. When Covid cancelled our touring, I found myself with the opportunity to be home and time to launch this project with my roommate, and super producer Steven Martinez. We started creating so much music and eventually I knew we had to start putting some of it out.TNB - This new song "Earn It" has a very untraditional vibe, and is definitely a big departure from the acapella singing of Home Free. For one, it features real instruments on the track. How did the song come together?Austin - I wrote the song with Asher Postman. He is one of Steven's good friends and happened to have been staying with us while his place was being fixed up after the tornado swept through Nashville in March. Asher is an incredible producer in his own right with a unique pop and edm style that has already garnered him great success in that world and on youtube. Just before he moved in with us, Diplo and Morgan Wallen had released a song that blended the county and edm world together seamlessly. One day, I casually mentioned how it might be fun to write a song like that together and to my surprise, Asher loved the idea. We sat down to write a song about hard work and feel like we struck gold with "Earn It."TNB - Your band Home Free is one of the top music acts on Patreon and you recently launched an account for your solo project. What has the reaction been, and what is it like interacting with fans on the platform?Austin - Launching my own Patreon with Steven has really exemplified the passion of the Home Free fan base. I have never interacted with my fans on such a personal level, and I will admit that I was a little nervous opening up my personal world in such a public way. But the love I constantly receive from my fans and patrons teaches me that I am privileged beyond my wildest dreams. Why? Because through Patreon, no matter how much commercial success that we find, I can still build a career that will last a lifetime. That feels like longevity. As long as my Patrons are happy, I will be making music like this for a long long time.TNB - What has it been like promoting this song during quarantine?Austin - It has been a learning experience. I have never been a part of the promotional side of the Home Free world, but one of the luxuries we have is a fan base who will share our material when we ask them to share it. So while I don't have a metric to measure against, it seems like the promotion is going really well. Not to mention all the hard work my team is putting in behind the scenes.TNB - What should we be on the lookout for?Austin - On the heels of our first original release, "Earn it", we're attempting to release at least one single a month, we intend to build a catalog that will rival anyone out there. We chose "Earn It" as the first single because we mean it.