Maddie & Tae are nominated for Vocal Duo of the Year at this year’s CMA Awards, and they couldn’t be more grateful for the nomination. The pair didn’t expect a nod since they’d just released their new song, “Friends Don’t,” on a new record label (Mercury Nashville) and were putting the finishing touches on a new album.

“Being nominated this year, one-we did not, we never expected it, obviously, but we didn’t really expect it this year, because we just put the first single out and everything is slowly rolling out,” says the duo’s Maddie Marlow. “Having that nomination was like, oh wow, our peers do still feel like we’re doing something special and do still believe in us and that was a really nice spirit-lifter where we were like, ‘Oh my gosh. We are doing something right and we’re making music that people are enjoying,’ and that was just a huge, huge compliment. And we’re nominated with some of favorite people in the industry, so super fun.”

The 52nd Annual CMA Awards will broadcast live from Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena November 14th at 8pm ET/PT on ABC.