Wednesday morning the 2012 CMA Awards Nominees were revealed. To nobody’s surprise, Eric Church leads with five Country Music Awards nominations.

This year’s CMA Awards are most likely just the beginning for Eric Church, the rising star from North Carolina. It’s for the first time in his career that he scores some of the biggest nominations at the CMA Awards. Eric Church comes ahead of reputable country music stars such as Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton, phenomenon Taylor Swift and Jason Aldean.

The 2012 CMA Awards nominees were announced Wednesday morning and while most of us saw it coming, Eric Church had no clue what was going on. He was on his way back from a one-week vacation when suddenly the CMA nominations changed his world. Eric Church notched five nominations: Male Vocalist, Album, Single, Song and Video of the Year.

“The funny part of the story is I’ve been on vacation the last week and I lost my phone in the Gulf of Mexico when I was swimming” Eric Church told the media. “And I had no clue that even the CMA nominations were today and just laying on an airplane and really unplugged from the world” the rising star of North Carolina revealed.

This year’s CMA nominations are a confirmation that country music is going through a revamp. In the end, Eric Church is representative for his generation performing the genre. “I think it’s a testament to really fans that believed in the music and loved the music and told people about the music” reads Eric Church’s statement.

“Otherwise we don’t really have the track record to be the most nominated artist at this point in time in our career for the path we’ve taken” said Church of his impressive CMA Awards nominations. “I think it’s truly because of the fans and because they did something that’s really going to be judged as pretty special and pretty unique to get this done” he added.

Kelly Clarkson also made it on the list of nominations for this year’s CMA Awards. Clarkson scored a nomination in the female vocalist category, her first individual nomination at the CMA. Jason Aldean thinks “it’s great” that Clarkson is finally rewarded for “her contributions to country music over the last year”.