ACM Awards 2020: Ashley McBryde Speaks out About Surprising 3 Nominations

She already has one ACM Award to her credit, but Ashley McBryde could walk away with three more. The Arkansas native earned three new nominations, with two of them in the Song of the Year category. McBryde is nominated as both the songwriter and artist for her "Girl Goin' Nowhere" single.

"'Girl Goin' Nowhere' is the little song that could, ain't it?" McBryde said in a statement about the song, which is the title track of her freshman album. "I think that's because the universe looks so kindly on the messages of hope and perseverance. This nomination is one more chance for those messages to be heard by one more set of ears. And that is truly something to be thankful for."

McBryde is also nominated for Music Event of the Year, for the Miranda Lambert collaboration, "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," which also included Tenille Townes, Elle King, Caylee Hammack and Maren Morris.

"Talk about a musical event!" McBryde gushed. "Miranda pieced together a bunch of bada––es and let us all sing not only together in the studio but LIVE on tour. I love this song and I'm honored to be one of the voices on it."

McBryde will drop her sophomore Never Will record on April 3. The album includes three songs McBryde has already dropped, "One Night Standards," "Martha Divine," "Hang in There Girl." along with a video story combining them all.

"My manager John Peets and I had this idea to listen to the record and see what stories appeared … what threads of ideas were consistent in the songs we had gathered and what characters stood out," McBryde explained. "Lo and behold, one night on the bus Chris Harris (acoustic guitar, mandolin, harmonies) and I were having a few beverages after a show. I got out my sketch pad and we wrote down each song from the record and each character. It looked like a crazy road map. It looked like a child had drawn it.

"But there it was," she added.. "A way to connect every song and every video. I showed it to Peets, and we put it in (director) Reid Long's hands. And the rest is history."

The 2020 ACM Awards will air live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sunday, April 5, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

Photo Credit: Getty / ROBYN BECK