Carly Pearce, Cody Johnson and Walker Hayes Relish Their First Time in the CMT Artist of the Year Limelight

The three first-time CMT Artist of the Year recipients — Carly Pearce, Cody Johnson and Walker Hayes — all arrived at the Nashville event in their honor on Wednesday night by taking the same path: the hard way.

Pearce, the reigning CMA and ACM female artist of the year, has been enjoying the best year of her career — the result of her own bold gamble to put the worst year of her life into song. Her critically acclaimed 2021 album, 29, navigates its way through the trauma of her 2020 divorce from fellow artist Michael Ray; she also took a gamble by shifting her sound, infusing the album with the classic '90s styles that she loves.

On the red carpet, Pearce, 32, reflected on how she's been rewarded by fans for her risk-taking. "What's meant the most is seeing the album that I always wanted to make work and relate — and seeing the pain work for a purpose," she told PEOPLE. "It beat all the odds of what you think would work musically."

Taking the album on tour, she added, has proven to be testing: "It's putting your heart out there. This is a real story for me, and dealing with it in the public eye has been challenging, for sure."

For the awards show, she was ready to test herself again, choosing to perform the album's title track, a searing self-evaluation during the time of her divorce.

"For me," she said, "that was the song that changed everything. It was the first song I wrote with [songwriters] Shane [McAnally] and Josh [Osborne]. I went there, and they went there with me, and it changed my whole life."

Pearce's performance will be part of the awards show that CMT is set to broadcast on Friday night. Each year, country TV network bestows its Artists of the Year title on performers who have dominated the genre for the previous 12 months.

Johnson, another first-time honoree, also was on the red carpet to talk about how his banner year has come on his own terms: The former Texas bull rider has never swayed from his staunchly traditional country sound as he's slowly but surely made his way to the top of the charts.

"There was a huge stigma when I came to Nashville — a real cowboy, a guy from Texas, a guy that plays traditional country music," Johnson, 35, told PEOPLE. "It was not popular for a long time, but I thought, if I can do this, if I can be myself, we all know that the pendulum swings. If I can wait this out long enough and still be relevant, maybe I can build a bridge."

In the past year, Johnson was rewarded with his first blockbuster hit, "'Til You Can't," but he said he decided to pick his latest single, "Human," to perform on the show.

"I think everybody thought we were gonna do ''Til You Can't,'" Johnson said. "But I just thought, you know what? 'Human' is an autobiographical song. That's who I am. It's who Brandi [his wife] and I are — all those times that she never tried to quit me or fix me or slow me down. There's a lot about that song that is me. So, I thought, what better way to introduce myself to the world?"

During Hayes' turn on the red carpet, the singer-songwriter reminisced about his appearance last year at the same event. He was tapped as the show's closer, performing his first chart-topper, "Fancy Like," at the height of its viral frenzy. The career-making hit arrived after years of hard-knock work as he tried to break through without wavering from his unique style.

"I felt so out of place, like, what am I doing here?" Hayes, 42, recalled to PEOPLE about his 2021 performance.

The past year, though — with Grammy, ACM, and CMA nominations, along with sell-out arena crowds — has resoundingly confirmed that Hayes belongs. On the CMT red carpet, Hayes' label president, McAnally, was on hand to also vouch for his ascendance.

"I believe in him and I have for a long time, and now that other people are paying attention, I'm like, I told you!" said McAnally, already brimming with emotion in anticipation of presenting Hayes with his trophy.

Even after every other door in Nashville had been shut to Hayes, the producer-songwriter signed him to Monument Records because, McAnally, 48, said, "being a songwriter myself I heard someone doing something different and sticking to it. When I saw someone who was just himself at all costs, I gravitated toward it. I heard someone not compromising his artistic integrity — and he still hasn't."

Despite all his new-found success, Hayes said he feels uncomfortable being called a "star," an inevitable anointment given so many accolades.

"I'm not a star," insists the father of six. "I'm just posing as one for a little while, while I feed the kids. I'm just a husband and a dad and I just happen to write songs."

His wife, Laney, who joined him on the red carpet, also was hesitant to embrace any new labels for the man whom she says is most comfortable "at home with a blanket of kids." But she was quick to acknowledge the best benefit to his achievements: their own tour bus, which is now taking the entire Hayes family, along with their three dogs, out on the road.

"That's the good part of being a 'star,'" she said. "We're just glad we get to all go."

For the CMT show, Hayes was pushing country's boundaries once again, tapping Ciara for a collaboration of his current single, "Y'all Life." He enlisted the R&B superstar after they met during an appearance on Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve last year.

"I sent her 'Y'all Life,' and I didn't expect her to even text back, because that happens all the time," he said. "But she sent me a voice text back singing it. She just loved it. She wrote a verse on it with a friend. It's all my kids want to hear. They don't care about my part anymore!"

One more honoree, Lainey Wilson, also was relishing her moment on the red carpet on Wednesday night after her own arduous 10-year journey to the top of the country charts. CMT tapped the 30-year-old Louisiana native as its breakout artist of the year — one more award to add to her two new ACM trophies and just a prelude to her six CMA nominations.

Wilson's recent ascent has come so quickly that she admits she's having trouble absorbing it all.

"It's still hard for me to even say out loud that I think I've broken through," she told PEOPLE. "But when I think of the word 'breakout,' I do think of cutting through. I do think, all right, you're finally getting somewhere. You're about to be introduced to another world. I feel like a lot more people are about to start hearing my stuff, and that is a dream come true. It's something that I don't take lightly. I'm honored and humbled and excited and nervous. Every feeling that you can feel, I'm feeling it."

She said she chose current radio single, "Heart Like a Truck," to perform on the show as a reflection of a recent family trial: Her father's bout with a deadly fungal infection.

"Of course, the day that I wrote the song, I wrote it for anybody and everybody who's been through anything," said Wilson, whose latest album is just days away from release. "But the last few months for me have been hard because my daddy was in the hospital for two months fighting for his life. And then he was in rehab for three weeks, but he actually got to go home yesterday. It's a miracle that he's still here. The neurologist that pretty much saved his life has never known anybody to survive what he did."

Wilson exulted that her father is planning to accompany her on the CMA red carpet — and his neurologist and her husband are also planning to attend the show.

"So we're all gonna be under the same roof," she said.

That, more than anything, she added, is what she's looking forward to on that evening. Otherwise, she admits, she still hasn't quite grasped that she's the artist this year with the most nominations.

"When I take a step back and I even look at where we were last year — but especially when I first got to Nashville — this goal seemed almost unattainable," Wilson said. "But for some crazy reason, I felt like maybe I can do it. I might be borderline insane, but dang it, I believed it."

Besides Pearce, Johnson, Hayes and Wilson, three more artists were honored during the show: Luke Combs and Kane Brown each took home their third CMT Artist of the Year trophies, and Country Music Hall of Famer Alan Jackson received an Artist of a Lifetime award.

The 2022 CMT Artists of the Year, filmed at Nashville's Schermerhorn Symphony Center, will premiere on CMT at 9 p.m. ET/8 p.m. CT on Friday.