Home Free‘s Austin Brown just released his debut solo single! The Georgia native dropped “Earn It,” which started as a humorous spin on his own life, before he realized he really did have something important to say.

“We kind of did it as a joke,” Austin told the Tifton Gazette. “I wanted to write a song about hard work. One day I was out there working on the house. I was building a deck with my dad at the time and I was like, ‘Man, I want to write a song about hard work.’ Like, I don’t pay nobody to cut my grass. If I want something done to my house, I do it myself. So that’s sort of where it came from.”

Home Free was touring overseas when the coronavirus pandemic hit, forcing the five-man all-vocal group to head home — and giving Austin plenty of time to focus on other projects.

“It’s a weird time to be alive,” Austin acknowledged. “But it makes me even more grateful for this experience because Lord knows whenever we’ll actually be able to put a thousand people together in a thousand-seat room again, which is what it takes to tour.”

The 34-year-old is making the most of his time at home, especially since it will likely be awhile until Home Free can safely hit the road again. He is working on more music, and trying to interact with his fans, virtually, as much as possible.

“Being here, having the space and the time to really jump in head first and get to know these people in a way that I just didn’t always have the space or the time to do while always being on the road,” Austin shared. “It’s already opened up a whole new world. It’s been so good for my heart. It’s been so good for our vision of the future and what this can be.”

Austin might be releasing music on his own, but rest assured, he has no plans of leaving Home Free, and has the full support of the other Home Free members as he pursues his own musical endeavors as well.

“I’ve been with my band for seven-plus years now,” Austin said. “As we’ve evolved I have become a songwriter as well.”

It’s only been in recent years that Austin has started writing songs, but now that he has, he’s become quite prolific, with no signs of slowing down.

“I started writing probably 20 to 30 songs a year, on my own and then also with songwriters from all over Nashville,” said the singer. “Initially it was just writing songs for Home Free, but over time, it’s gotten to where I’m sitting on loads and loads of songs now and I haven’t had anything to do with them.”

Download or stream “Earn It” here.

Want to know more about Austin? Read his answers to our 11 questions here!