Stardom continues to rise for Lakeland-born and bred country superstar Brett Kissel.
It was announced earlier this month that Kissel is up for four 2015 Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) awards. After winning two of his six nominations at last year's awards, Kissel told the Nouvelle it's a “big honour” to be considered again.
“As you can imagine, it's a great feeling that all the hard work I've been able to put in with my team, my record label and everybody is being recognized. Not necessarily rewarded, because you can never predict who's going to win, but it's being recognized.”
In addition to being nominated for Male Artist of the Year, the Flat Lake-born singer is also up for Interactive Artist of the Year, an award that he took home last year.
“I think engaging with fans, especially in today's music, is a very, very important thing and I absolutely love doing it,” said Kissel. “Whether people have constructive criticism or we can joke together, we talk about hockey, we talk about cattle, and we talk a lot about country music. It's actually a lot of fun.”
Kissel was nominated for Video of the Year with his video for Tough People Do. In that category he will be up against other big names in Canadian country music, including Dean Brody's Upside Down and Jason Blaine with Country Side.
After winning Video of the Year for his hit single 3-2-1 at the 2014 CCMA awards, that song is once again getting him noticed, this time in the category Single of the Year.
“3-2-1 is a true story. It's a really special song about a very important relationship in my life, so I think that's why people are able to relate to it because they might have experienced that same type of love, that same type of uncertainty that comes with new relationships,” explained Kissel.
He added, “Granted, the video we shot 3-2-1 we just went crazy. We just went wild and crazy, we didn't necessarily follow the lyrics.”
After finding success with his first album, Kissel released his new single Airwaves in June. At number 31, it was the highest debut for a Canadian country artist so far in 2015. While there's no personal story behind his latest hit, Kissel said their goal was to make it country music listeners “summer jam”.
“Airwaves, although I have a personal attachment to it, there's no necessarily personal story. Although, everything described in that song is exactly what I'd be doing with my wife Cecilia on a summer day as we're heading up to Moose Lake to go wakeboarding with our family.”
If his schedule wasn't packed enough with summer festival dates, Kissel will be heading out on his cross-Canada Airwaves tour starting in Simcoe, ON on Oct. 10 and ending in Fort Saskatchewan on Nov. 28.
The Juno-winning artist is set to release his sophomore album this fall. Coming off of so much success with his first album, the recent country music star is aware of the pressure that comes with a second album.
“The biggest thing is for me to work as hard as I can so I don't have a sophomore jinx. If you think about it in hockey terms, you can have a great rookie campaign and then the second year you have all of these great expectations and you kind of blow it,” said Kissel.
However, Kissel and his team are confident this new album is “going to blow the other one away.”
The local favourite was also asked to perform at this year's CCMA awards in Halifax. Kissel said getting that phone call from the president of the CCMA was an added bonus to his nominations.
“That's always definitely one of those calls that you want to receive. Especially to be in the first wave of announcements alongside Florida-Georgia Line makes me feel really special, because it makes me feel like I'm on a similar level to those guys.”
The 2015 CCMA Awards will be broadcast on CBC and CMT on Sept. 13. To keep up-to-date with Kissel's journey through country music, you can follow him on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter @BrettKissel.
