Eric Church has six nominations going into this year’s ACM Awards, including Album of the Year for his surprise record, Mr. Misunderstood, which dropped unexpectedly at last fall’s CMA Awards. While the album certainly surprised fans and the industry alike, the inspiration also came unexpectedly for the North Carolina native.

“I didn’t expect inspiration to really strike the way it did. I mean, I certainly didn’t sit down and expect to write an album or have an album, but it happened that way. When it happened, all of it happened in about 30 days, I thought it was a crime against that inspiration to when it fell out like that to just put it on a shelf for a while,” says Eric. “So, we decided to, instead of what most people do which is based around hype which is to let the label have the product and let the media or our critics, we decided to let the fans have it first. So, snail mail, we sent out about 80,000 of the vinyl and CDs and really let the fans be the mouthpiece for what this album was.”

Eric, who is climbing the country charts with his latest single “Record Year,” is also nominated for Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Video of the Year for the album’s title track, as well as two more nominations, Musical Event of the Year and Song of the Year, for “Raise ‘Em Up” with Keith Urban.

The 51st Annual Academy of Country Music Awards will be broadcast live from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas April 3rd at 8pm ET on CBS.