Brown has spent the last seven years in country music’s only a cappella group, Home Free. The son of a Southern gospel singer, Brown’s earliest memories growing up in Tifton, Georgia, involve the stage. His first post-college gig was singing on cruise ships, which sent him around the world — but more importantly, led him to Home Free. “I saw their show, they saw my show, we got drunk together, and the rest is history,” Brown recalls with a laugh.
Just after Brown joined Home Free, the group gained traction on NBC’s The Sing-Off, which they won in 2013. Since then, the fivesome has toured the globe and released four studio albums, achieving critical acclaim in and out of the country music sphere. Along the way, Brown's written countless songs, with a handful becoming Home Free hits. “I did so many things that the guys loved, but weren’t necessarily right for Home Free,” Brown says. “The more I did, the more they would say, ‘Hey, you need to start releasing this stuff.” When the coronavirus pandemic put Home Free’s 2020 world tour on hold, Brown was presented with the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Brown kicked off his solo venture via the crowd-funding platform Patreon. Much of Home Free’s success has come from the subscription-based service, showing Brown how dedicated the Home Free fan base is. “I’m not interested in that traditional framework,” Brown says. “What I am interested in is the breadth and scope of how many different kinds of sounds I can create.
