TORONTO — When Gord Bamford was invited to perform at the Canadian Country Music Association Awards’ nomination announcement, he suspected he might be among the lucky lot named as nominees.
He didn’t, however, imagine he would wind up leading the pack.
“I never dreamed we were going to lead the way with nominations,” said Bamford, who nabbed six nods as the CCMA award nominees were announced Wednesday.
“It’s just crazy, to be honest with you.”
Bamford is named in every category for which he’s eligible for his recently released record, “Day Job.”
He’s up for the fans’ choice award, single of the year, album of the year, songwriter(s) of the year, CMT video of the year and male artist of the year.
Doc Walker, Corb Lund, Johnny Reid, and Dean Brody have five nominations apiece, while Victoria Banks, George Canyon, Terri Clark, Jessie Farrell, the Higgins and One More Girl also nabbed multiple nods.
That Bamford was able to stand amongst such high-profile names was a special honour, he said.
“It’s so surreal for me because we’ve been at this for a lot of years and our company is 100 per cent independent,” said Bamford, who won two smaller CCMA awards in 2008 during the non-televised portion of the event.
“So I’m very humbled by the nominations and very excited at the same time.... You’ve seen all the nominees. Everybody is great at what they do. It’ll be tough to win, but hopefully I don’t get shut out.”
The Australian-born Bamford and his family split their time between Nashville and Lacombe.
He says his friends and family will be out in full force when the CCMA awards are held Sept. 12 at Edmonton’s Rexall Place.
“We’ll have quite the entourage coming up to Edmonton, we’re all local,” he said. “If (my family) missed it, I don’t know what they’d do.”
Bamford dropped “Day Job” in April and says it’s on pace to be the most successful of his four records. He’s hopeful that the album will soon be certified gold, and he’s spent the past four weeks on the road supporting the new material.
In fact, Bamford was only stopping in Edmonton briefly on Wednesday before heading back out for another month and a half of shows, beginning Friday in Penticton, B.C.
The father of three — his son, Nash, is five, and his two daughters Paisley and Memphis are three years old and nearly 12 months, respectively — planned on spending the day celebrating the nominations with his family.
“Spend a little quality time with my family today, and back on the road tomorrow,” he said.
“There’s a big fair in town in Edmonton, so I’m going to be on the ferris wheel all day with my kids.”