Though Lady Antebellum [ tickets ] is a chart-topping, award-winning Nashville trio now, just three years ago the story was entirely different.

Lead singer Charles Kelley flipped houses with his brother, Dave Haywood sat behind a desk as an accountant and Hillary Scott pursued a career as a solo artist. A chance meeting in a bar coupled with a long-standing childhood friendship quickly led to the band that's now taking country airwaves by storm.

The country-rock trio watched as their self-titled Capitol Records debut skyrocketed to No. 1 its first week out in April 2008, and just recently celebrated their first CMA Award for "New Artist of the Year."

LiveDaily spoke to lead singer Charles Kelley from the road about the band's beginnings, their CMA nominations and more.

How did you three get started?

Dave and I both grew up in Augusta, GA. We went to the same middle school and high school and even graduated from the same college--the University of Georgia--together. We both worked separately doing random jobs. Dave was doing some kind of accounting work and I was working with my oldest brother doing some random stuff, like renovating houses for a year, and then I decided to move to Nashville and move in with my other brother who's in the music business, Josh Kelley. I moved in with him and eventually talked Dave into moving over, so we were both there about three years ago.

We were trying to write and meet as many people as we could. We were lucky enough to run across Hillary after being there about a year or so. We met her out downtown and I asked her if she wanted to come over and write some songs, so for the first two months of knowing each other, we were just writing together. The idea for the group wasn't there yet until we had a handful of songs and we decided to do a show. After we walked off that night, we thought that this is what we need to be doing. That's kind of how it started.

So what about you? How did you get your musical start?

We used to play in bands growing up. I played drums first. I was 12 years old when I got my first set of drums and Josh got his first guitar. We and a couple buddies in town started playing music around and eventually I started singing. I was playing drums and singing at the same time. I did that for a little while and then realized that if I was going to try being a lead singer, I couldn't be hidden behind a set of drums, so I eventually put the drums to the side and just concentrated on singing. That's how it started, like most musicians who have little garage bands growing up.

That's the American dream for a kid. Did you always want to be in a band when you were younger?

As a boy, I always wanted to. When I first got my set of drums, that was the dream. After high school and stuff, I was frustrated. Everybody I ever played with, they were so lazy. No one ever wanted to practice; no one wanted to put much time into it. I always got frustrated with the whole thing, so I eventually just put it away. All through college, I didn't do anything. I didn't play in a band. I didn't sing much at all. So, for a good four or five years, music was not a part of my life. It was always there underneath. I knew I loved doing it, but I just didn't think that doing it for a living was a reality. It was always a pipe dream, so I just decided to move on and try and chase a normal lifestyle. After doing that for a while, the itch was back and my brother had moved to Nashville and it was just perfect timing. I was like, "You know what? I hate doing what I'm doing, so I'm going to move to Nashville and give this a shot."

Part of why you guys are doing so well, from my perspective, is because you've got a pretty unique sound for country music, because it's got some rock and pop. Did you three intend to do that or was it a natural product of your individual styles?

I think if you come out and think, "We're going to be this," you're already setting yourself up for failure. You have to let whatever naturally comes out. Like I said, when we first met, we were just writing songs. We didn't think we were a group yet. We had no intentions of a group. Once we had our voices on the demo together and we were hearing the blend of it all, that's when the idea of a group started. These were the songs that made the record. The majority of the songs were the ones we wrote right there in the beginning of knowing each other before the group even started, so there was this natural sound that was created. It's a little bit of pop, a little bit of rock. I don't have a very traditional country voice, so it's always going to sound a little more rock 'n' roll, I guess, no matter how country the instruments are.

Lady A's self-titled debut came out in April on Capitol Records and it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard country album chart. Did that surprise you three?

Of course! We set our expectations extremely low because, at the time, the single wasn't even in the Top 10 yet or was just getting into the Top 10, plus we're a brand new group. I think we had set our expectations really low, somewhere around 15,000 or 20,000 the first week, and when we found out it was something around 43,000 our first week, it blew us away. We were out there on the road so much that we didn't really realize the fan base that we were gradually developing. It was a huge surprise and one of those cool talking points we'll always have.

You guys have also been nominated for two CMAs: "New Artist of the Year" and "Vocal Group of the Year." [The group took the New Artist honors at last month's ceremony.] How did you hear about the nominations?

We were actually fortunate enough to get to be asked by CMT to announce the second half of the nominations. The first half was announced on Good Morning America by Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts. We happened to be sitting backstage before we announced our half on CMT with James Otto, a fellow country artist. We were watching "Good Morning America" just in case our name got called and sure enough, the first category was "Group of the Year" and we were lucky enough to be called. It's pretty wild. We'll always be able to say we were in the same category with The Eagles. So, after that segment on "Good Morning America" was over, we went over and got on stage and announced more categories, one of which was "New Artist of the Year" and we're lucky enough to be in that category too. It's pretty cool to be in the company of artists we've been listening to for a long time.

What's next for Lady A?

We're going to take most of December off for family time. We'll do a little writing. We're always trying to write our next record. We'll also take a little time to appreciate all this success.