The 58th Annual Country Music Awards is almost upon us, country fans. And Cody Johnson has received a lot more love than he’d anticipated to receive. He was the most nominated artist of the night, boasting five. For comparison, Morgan Wallen had seven.

Fans have nominated the country singer star for the following categories. Album of the Year with Leather, Male Vocalist of the Year and Single of the Year with Dirt Cheap, and finally Song of the Year and Music Video of the Year with Dirt Cheap and The Painter.

When he received news of the nominations, he couldn’t believe it. He initially thought something bad had happened, although was thankfully very wrong.

Cody Johnson Receives Five CMA Nominations

Johnson told outlets such as Country Now how much it means to him to receive so much love and attention for his music.

“When I go home, I completely check out, and so my phone blows up and there’s 48 missed calls and 107 text messages. And I’m like, who died? Something bad happened, like Jesus,” Johnson recalls to media outlets.

“And I pick up my phone, it’s all congratulations, and there’s the balloons and the confetti on the text message and stuff. I called Brandi and I’m like, ‘Hey, what happened?’ She was like, ‘You just got nominated for all these CMA awards.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, sweet. Which ones did we get?'”

The artist has been working in the music industry for 18 years now. He can finally say that he made it.

“I kind of look at it as, man, it’s a product of hard work and I’m really thankful that I’m finally getting recognized in those areas,” he reflects. He shares that people told him years ago he’d never make it. He never specified who exactly was discouraging him.Although you can imagine he faced a lot of it professionally and personally.

It’s always good to see hard pay off, and it’s paid off in spades for Cody Johnson.