You can spot country sensation Parker McCollum sitting in the front row at major country awards shows these days, but he wasn’t always shoulder to shoulder with the genre’s biggest names.

Ahead of last year’s CMAs, the singer recalled his first experience at the awards show. It was a humbling moment that he can now look back on and laugh.

It was 2019, and McCollum had just inked a contract with Universal Music Group Nashville. As a newly signed artist, his label encouraged him to attend Country Music’s Biggest Night with his then-girlfriend, Hallie Ray (they married in 2022).

“They had a stylist come and get her [wife Hallie Ray] this big gown that drags on the ground, I’m in this nice suit … the whole deal,” McCollum shares with Taste of Country’s Adison Haager.

Naturally, after getting all gussied up, the singer assumed he would be on the floor with the other artists. Once he arrived, he quickly realized that wasn’t the case.

“We were just in regular seats in the upper deck,” McCollum remembers, laughing. “So we’re like walking through the mezzanine dressed to the nines … we looked like idiots.”

The “Burn It Down” singer noted that from there on out, he wouldn’t be making that same mistake again.

“You think you signed your record deal, you’re the new guy, going to sit down with all of the artists … I was really bitter about it,” he says now, mostly joking.

Although wildly uncomfortable, McCollum would never bring it up to the label. Flash-forward to 2022, the newly-married singer would clinch his first nomination for New Artist of the Year at the CMA Awards. He was nominated again in 2023.

In 2024, McCollum is CMA up for Song of the Year for his song “Burn It Down.” The 2024 CMA Awards air Wednesday night at 8PM ET on ABC.