LANCO's Brandon Lancaster Calls CMA Awards Nomination 'Surreal'

LANCO, the five-man group led by lead singer Brandon Lancaster, received their first-ever CMA Award nomination this year, for Vocal Group of the Year. After releasing their freshman Hallelujah Nights album in January, the band hoped to find success, but no one imagined it would happen quite as fast.

"We put out a record in January, our debut album," Lancaster told PopCulture.com. "We honestly put it out hoping our family would hear it, and friends. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, so that was pretty incredible. We've been on tour with Dierks Bentley, and then just started a headlining tour a few weeks ago. It's been wild. I'm trying to keep up with it all."

LANCO shares the Vocal Group of the Year category with Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, Midland and Old Dominion, putting them in company they didn't expect to find themselves in this early.

"I'm always happy to just be invited. To actually be invited, and to have a nomination, is surreal," Lancaster noted. "It's not like you campaign for it. You don't do anything. It just is your peers, and people in the industry nominating you. You don't really expect it, at least I didn't expect it. You never know when you're going to get the phone call."

The guys were out of town when they got the news, but they still found a way to celebrate.

"We actually were at an airport, and had a delayed flight, and were kind of all bummed, and then got that phone call, so then it turned into a celebration delay," Lancaster recalled with a laugh. "We went to the Chili's bar, and got real classy to celebrate our CMA nomination."

This year, LANCO joined both Chris Young on his Losing Sleep World Tour, as well as Dierks Bentley on his Mountain High Tour, giving them a solid foundation to launch their own Hallelujah Nights Tour.

"We've been honored on all the tours we were on – we've been out with Chris Young and Dierks Bentley all year, and we love that, but you do get like 25, 30 minutes," conceded the singer. "You only get to play a few songs. But when you put out a record, your dream is to play the record. So having this headlining tour, having our fans come out, sell out these venues, pack them out, and get to play the whole record, get to play track seven, get to play track three, that's the dream coming true right there."

LANCO recently crossed another item off their bucket list, when they performed their current single, "Born to Love You," on Dancing With the Stars. Although Lancaster was thrilled with the opportunity, he isn't ready to do that kind of performing full-time.

"It's so chaotic, and it's so fast," Lancaster said. "I respect those people who do that so much. It really is completely live, and it's like no room for error. And, you're singing, and if you mess up, you're not just messing up your thing, you're messing up people dancing. So it was a lot of pressure. Once it was over, it was like a pinch me, we just did that. It was wild."

The 2018 CMA Awards will air live from Nashville's Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo Credit: Getty images/Allen Berezovsky